cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
HOME MORTGAGE LENDERS AND EARTHQUAKE HAZARDS

A survey of major home mortgage lenders and real-property appraisers in California and the Puget Sound region shows a general inattention to earthquake hazards in appraisal and lending policy. This inattention is demonstrated not only in responses to survey questions, but also in a lack of differentiation in lending decisions between properties within and outside surface-fault rupture zones. As posited by organizational theory, however, important variants exist in this overall policy, almost always resulting from the efforts of individuals within large lending organizations.
Hyperfine resonance of gaseous atomic hydrogen at 4.2 K

The hyperfine frequency and wall shift of hydrogen atoms at 4.2 K stored in a bulb coated with solid H2 were measured. The phase shift per wall collision is -0.29(1) rad. The adsorption energy of H on H2 is 9(2) K, and the adsorption time at 4.2 K is approximately 30 nsec. Transverse and longitudinal relaxation times have been measured, and atomic densities greater than 10 to the 14th/cu cm have been observed.
RIBAVIRIN SUPPRESSES REPLICATION OF LYMPHADENOPATHY-ASSOCIATED VIRUS IN CULTURES OF HUMAN ADULT T LYMPHOCYTES

The in-vitro effect of ribavirin on the replication of lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV), one of the prototype viruses aetiologically associated with lymphadenopathy syndrome and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, was tested. Ribavirin, a nucleoside, suppressed the replication of LAV in cultures of human adult T lymphocytes. Suppression occurred at ribavirin concentrations of 50 micrograms/ml or higher.
Whither the Colombian two-party system? An assessment of political reforms and their limits☆

Abstract Recently, the Colombian party system has undergone dramatic change as ‘new’ political actors have become increasingly successful in national legislative elections. This paper conducts a two-fold analysis of changes in the Colombian party system. First, the study explores several factors, linked to electoral and registration reforms, which have led to the increased share of seats awarded to ‘new’ actors, from 1982 to 1998. Next, it examines the substantive effects of those changes for the kinds of policies and issues pursued by new and traditional parties in the national legislature. The findings suggest that in spite of notable changes that have lead to a proliferation of new actors, the Colombian political system has not been radically changed. In other words, it is not evident that reforms have produced truly distinct political alternatives in Colombia. I argue that this is largely a function of incomplete reforms that allowed for the ‘legalization’ of traditional party factions and the persistence of electoral incentives that do not encourage distinct forms of behavior.
Opinion: alternative views of AMP-activated protein kinase

Genes most closely related to adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase, including SAD kinases and Par-1 regulate cell polarity, although AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) modulates cellular energy status. LKB1 (Par-4) is required for normal activation of AMPK in the liver and also regulates cell polarity. AMPK is proposed to inhibit energy consuming activity while initiating energy producing activity during energy limitation. Demonstration that metformin, a common drug for Type 2 diabetes, requires LKB1 for full therapeutic benefit has increased interest in AMPK signaling. Despite the potential importance of AMPK signaling for diabetes, metabolic syndrome and even cancer, the developmental processes regulated by AMPK in genetically mutant animals require further elucidation. Mouse conditional null mutants for AMPK activity will allow genetic elucidation of AMPK function in vivo. This perspective focuses on sequence and structural moieties of AMPK and genetic analysis of AMPK mutations. Interestingly, the predicted protein structure of the carboxy-terminus of AMPKα resembles the carboxy-terminal KA-1 domain of MARK3, a Par-1 orthologue.
Rising energy costs and their impact on household budgets of older americans

Rising energy costs have become an economic fact of life for all people during the past decade. An examination of two groups of older people in Arizona finds that such costs have made an impact on their lives; however, it appears that they are managing better than may have been expected.
Femoral nailing with transverse locking screws through the femoral neck.

We treated 55 patients with subtrochanteric or comminuted femoral fractures with a transverse locking femoral nail (Alta, Howmedica). This nail was positioned more cephalad than usual so that at least one fixation screw was located in the femoral neck or head. Forty-seven fractures (20 subtrochanteric and 27 diaphyseal) were available for follow-up averaging 12 months (3–35). The time to radiographic healing averaged 7 months (3–21). There was one delayed union, one nonunion, two superficial infections, one broken proximal screw, one compartment syndrome of the thigh, and one peroneal nerve palsy. There were no femoral neck fractures, avascular changes of the femoral head, or gluteal irritation at the most recent follow up. The described technique appears safe and effective, is technically easy, and avoids intra-articular screws.
Structural role of calcium for the organization of the cellulosome of Clostridium thermocellum

The cellulosome of Clostridium thermocellum is a multipolypeptide complex of structural and catalytic subunits. Several of the catalytic subunits have at the carboxyl end a conserved duplicated region (CDR) which interacts with internally repeated elements (IREs) of scaffolding subunits such as CipA. This interaction requires calcium. The two parts of the CDR region here designated CDR1 and CDR2 (closest to the carboxyl end) each consist of about 20 amino acids residues. As shown in our previous paper [Choi, S.K., & Ljungdahl, L.G. (1996) Biochemistry 35, 4897-4905], treatment of the cellulosome with ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) under aerobic conditions disintegrates the cellulosome with formation of truncated catalytic subunits. The cleavage is at a specific asparagine residue located within CDR1 and occurs with complete loss of CDR2. Two branched peptides containing the amino acid sequences of CDR1 and CDR2 (designated bCDR1 and bCDR2) were synthesized, and specific antibodies were raised against them. These antibodies did not cross react with bCDR1 or bCDR2, respectively. After sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and Western blotting, it was observed that about 15 subunits of the cellulosome reacted with anti-bCDR1 and anti-bCDR2. In a similar experiment with EDTA-treated cellulosomes, these subunits reacted with anti-bCDR1 but not with anti-bCDR2, showing that they lost the bCDR2 epitope and were truncated. The peptide bCDR1 binds calcium, whereas bCDR2 does not. Furthermore, bCDR1 but not bCDR2 binds to CipA, presumably at IRE regions. This binding requires calcium. A model is proposed for the binding of the catalytic subunits to CipA which involves CDR1, an IRE, and calcium.
Polyglutaraldehyde: A new reagent for coupling proteins to microspheres and for labeling cell-surface receptors. II. simplified labeling method by means of non-magnetic and magnetic polyglutaraldehyde microspheres

Abstract Procedures were developed for the synthesis of a new immunoreagent in form of polyglutaraldehyde (PGL) microspheres in sizes ranging from about 50 nm to 1.5 μm. Addition of fluorochromes during synthesis yielded microspheres of high fluorescence intensity. By carrying out the polymerization of glutaraldehyde in presence of iron oxide, magnetic PGL microspheres were produced. Antibody conjugates obtained by interaction of PGL microspheres with immunoglobulins were used to label human red blood cells (RBC) and lymphocytes. A simple method for the separation of magnetically labeled human RBC from unlabeled cells was demonstrated.
Bone Mineral Content as a Driver of Energy Expenditure in Prepubertal and Early Pubertal Boys

Objective To examine the associations of bone and bone-secreted factors with measures of energy metabolism in prepubertal and early pubertal boys. Study design Participants in this cross-sectional, observational study included 37 (69% black, 31% white) boys, aged 7-12 years (Tanner stage Results BMC was correlated with REE and insulin. OCN was correlated with glucose in blacks only ( r = 0.45, P P = .001), which was attenuated by percent body fat (β = 0.47, P = .081). BMC was associated with REE in whites (β = 0.496.7, P P P = .078). Conclusion Our findings suggest that BMC is a determinant of fasting insulin and REE, and that the contribution of body fat appears to be race-specific. Endocrine effects of FGF23 and OCN on energy metabolism were not apparent. Trial registration Registered with ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02040740, NCT02040727, and NCT01410643.
A Conversation “Overflowing with Memory” On Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley's “Water, Shoulders, Into the Black Pacific”

This conversation between Jafari S. Allen and Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley (with Natalie Bennett, Rosamond S. King, Rinaldo Walcott, and Michelle Wright) follows a lively debate during the Black/Queer/Diaspora Work(ing) Group symposium in 2009. This debate centered on the promise and pitfalls associated with pushing beyond disciplinary frameworks and methodological conventions toward, for example, narrative theorizing and creative responses as a legitimate way to represent black women's (erotic) histories. Whither interdisciplinarity? What are the limits of various approaches and genres? This conversation serves as a preface to an excerpt from Tinsley's work of historical fiction. The conversation takes up scholars' responses to the impossibility of knowing some of the particularities of historical experience and subjectivity, as Tinsley's contribution attempts to revindicate the theoretics of those who, in Barbara Christian's words, "have always been a race for theory."
Sulfoxide-controlled SN2′ displacements between cyanocuprates and epoxy vinyl sulfoxides

Two short and convergent routes have been devised for the preparation of enantiomerically pure acyclic epoxy vinyl sulfoxides. These substrates undergo highly regio- and stereoselective SN2‘ displacements with lithium cyanocuprates to give α‘-alkylated, γ-oxygenated Z α,β-unsaturated sulfoxides in moderate to good yields and with good to excellent diastereoselectivities. The absolute configuration of the newly formed carbon−carbon bond is primarily controlled by the chiral sulfur atom, which in a nonreinforcing situation can override the intrinsic anti tendency of the vinyl oxirane moiety and forces the cuprate to undergo syn addition. The hydroxy vinyl sulfoxide functionality of the resulting adducts should allow for subsequent asymmetric transformations thus enhancing the synthetic usefulness of this methodology.
Visualization of sanitized email logs for spam analysis

Email has become an integral method of communication. However, it is still plagued by vast amounts of spam. Many statistical techniques, such as Bayesian filtering, have been applied to this problem, and been proven useful. But these techniques in general require training. Another common method of spam prevention is blacklisting known spam sources. In order to do this, the sources must be identified. What this paper presents is a set of visualization techniques designed to show patterns in incoming email which can reveal misidentified pieces of spam, common spam sources, and patterns such as periods of increased spam activity, while maintaining the privacy of the email. This can aid system administrators in rapidly and effectively adjusting system level filters, which would improve the quality of service and decrease the time and resources wasted by spam.
The effect of orbitofrontal lesions on the error-related negativity

Current theories of orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) function suggest that this region should participate in the generation of error-related signals associated with the outcomes of actions. We investigated the impact of lesions to OFC on the error-related negativity (ERN), an electrophysiological marker of performance monitoring. Four OFC patients and eight control subjects participated in a manual Stroop task while brain electrical activity was recorded. We found that the ERN was attenuated in the patient group. Three of the patients also had impaired error correction performance, but all showed normal post-error slowing. These findings suggest OFC involvement in monitoring and evaluation of ongoing performance.
Salmonella Enteritidis in Commercial Layer Farms in New York State; Environmental Survey Results and Significance of Available Monitoring Tests

Seven hundred fifty-one environmental samples were collected from 76 chicken layer houses in a voluntary Salmonella enteritidis (SE) survey study carried out in New York state between January 15 and April 8, 1991. SE was recovered from both houses on 1 farm. Sampling of manure pits and mice in hen houses was useful for SE screening. Phage types of SE from the environment, birds, and mice were identical. The rapid whole-blood test was unreliable, and culture of cloacal swabs was inadequate for detection of SE carriers. Culture of organs from chickens did not correlate well with results of environmental samples.
Expression of Equi Merozoite Antigen 2 during Development of Babesia equi in the Midgut and Salivary Gland of the Vector Tick Boophilus microplus

Equi merozoite antigens 1 and 2 (EMA-1 and EMA-2) are Babesia equi proteins expressed on the parasite surface during infection in horses and are orthologues of proteins in Theileria spp., which are also tick-transmitted protozoal pathogens. We determined in this study whether EMA-1 and EMA-2 were expressed within the vector tick Boophilus microplus. B. equi transitions through multiple, morphologically distinct stages, including sexual stages, and these transitions culminate in the formation of infectious sporozoites in the tick salivary gland. EMA-2-positive B. equi stages in the midgut lumen and midgut epithelial cells of Boophilus microplus nymphs were identified by reactivity with monoclonal antibody 36/253.21. This monoclonal antibody also recognized B. equi in salivary glands of adult Boophilus microplus. In addition, quantification of B. equi in the mammalian host and vector tick indicated that the duration of tick feeding and parasitemia levels affected the percentage of nymphs that contained morphologically distinct B. equi organisms in the midgut. In contrast, there was no conclusive evidence that B. equi EMA-1 was expressed in either the Boophilus microplus midgut or salivary gland when monoclonal antibody 36/18.57 was used. The expression of B. equi EMA-2 in Boophilus microplus provides a marker for detecting the various development stages and facilitates the identification of novel stage-specific Babesia proteins for testing transmission-blocking immunity.
Pars flaccida retraction and mastoid size: relationship in clinically normal specimens.

Background:The relationship of pars flaccida retraction with epitympanic aeration and mastoid size is ill-defined. Both pars flaccida retraction and small mastoid size are traits of nearly all clinical entities of otitis media.Objectives:To determine, in clinically normal specimens, the relationship of pars flaccida retraction with mastoid pneumatisation and epitympanic aeration.Study design:Post-mortem anatomical dissection of 41 bequeathed adult crania without clinical otitis.Methods:Pars flaccida retractions were viewed with an operating microscope and judged using Sade's classification. Mastoid sizes were determined radiographically (by plain Law lateral images). Ten crania, five with the largest mastoids and five with the smallest mastoids, were studied by computed tomography.Results:No specimen had a retraction worse than Sade grade two (i.e. retracted onto the neck of the malleus). Retractions were unrelated to the extent of mastoid pneumatisation. All epitympani were found to be normal on both anatomical dissection and computed tomography imaging.Conclusion:Pars flaccida retraction is probably related to prior, presumably transient, non-aeration of Prussak's space.
Protein and energy evaluation of soybean meals processed from genetically modified high-protein soybeans

Abstract A conventional and two genetically modified soybean samples were processed to dehulled soybean meal (SBM) at a pilot plant and were compared with SBM from a commercial processing plant. Crude protein levels (%) of the experimental SBM samples were M700, 52.5; M702, 53.4; and M703, 62.7. The commercial SBM sample (UI) contained 47.5% protein. Amino acid, gross energy, lipid, and fiber analyses were carried out, and true metabolizable energy and true amino acid digestibility were determined with adult cecectomized cockerels. Digestible Lys, Met, Cys, Thr, and Val, and also TMEn, were higher (P
Case Study of Moisture and Heat Budgets within Atmospheric Rivers

AbstractThis work studies moisture and heat budgets within two atmospheric rivers (ARs) that made landfall on the west coast of North America during January 2009. Three-dimensional kinematic and thermodynamic fields were constructed using ECMWF Year of Tropical Convection data and global gridded precipitation datasets. Differences between the two ARs are observed, even though both had embedded precipitating convective organizations of the same spatial scale. AR1 extended from 20° to 50°N in an almost west–east orientation. It had excessive warm and moist near-surface conditions. Its precipitating systems were mainly distributed on the southwest and northeast sides of the AR, and tended to exhibit stratiform-type vertical heat and moisture transports. In contrast, AR2 spanned latitudes between 20° and 60°N in a north–south orientation. It was narrower and shorter than AR1, and was mostly covered by pronounced precipitating systems, dominated by a deep convection type of heating throughout the troposphere. ...
Studies of the Cellular Radiosensitivity of Transplants of Murine Ependymomas Irradiated in Vivo

SummaryCell-survival curves for in vivo tumour irradiation have been obtained for two subcutaneously transplantable murine ependymomas, using end-point dilution assays in isologous hosts.No significant transplantation immunity could be detected in either tumour system, but both exhibited a ‘Revesz effect’.The TD50 for No. 15 tumour was about 300 unirradiated cells in the initial assays, but in a later series this was reduced to 20. The TD50 of tumour No. 48 was about 100 cells. The survival curves gave D0 = 260 rads for tumour No. 15, and D0 = 288 rads for tumour No. 48, suggesting that a large fraction of the viable tumour cells were hypoxic in vivo.For unirradiated tumours, doubling-times of 21 hr for No. 48 were estimated both from the latency data and from caliper measurements of small tumours. After high radiation doses (3500 rads), these values were increased to as long as 5 days, although such long doubling-times were not always maintained as the tumours increased in size.
Component specification for enterprise software development on Web services environment

The idea of developing software systems by putting software modules together has been a goal for many software researchers and practitioners for a long time. This goal is within sight due to the increased adoption of component-based software engineering, the development of component standards, and their wide acceptance by industry. Component-based development is an approach to developing a software system by assembling and composing already built software components. It promises reusable and plug-and-playable software system development environments. The component concept is not new and has been perceived in several different ways by software researchers in academics and practitioners in industry. The different perspectives from diverse researchers and practitioners have led to a plethora of definitions of component and different component specification and implementation models. In this paper, we briefly review several of these different views and definitions on software components. We then present the Interoperable Component Specification Model (ICSM) for the Web services environment.
Graphical interfaces for knowledge engineering: an overview of relevant literature

Literature relevant to the design and development of graphical interfaces for knowledge-based systems is briefly reviewed and discussed. The efficiency of human-computer interaction depends to a large extent on the degree to which the human-machine interface can answer the user's cognitive needs and accurately support his or her natural cognitive processes and structures. Graphical interfaces can often be particularly suitable in this respect, especially in cases where the user's “natural idiom” is graphical. Illustrated examples are given of the way in which graphical interfaces have successfully been used in various fields with particular emphasis on their use in the field of knowledge-based systems. The paper ends with a brief discussion of possible future developments in the field of knowledge-based system interfaces and of the role that graphics might play in such developments.
Inversion of Fredholm integral equations of the first kind with fully connected neural networks

Abstract Fredholm integral equations of the first kind are examples of ill-posed problems in the Hadamard sense. Conventional methods of discretization often result in an ill-conditioned system of equations. The traditional approach is to solve this system using a variety of regularization schemes. An alternative is to solve the system using connectionist paradigms. The robustness of this approach is illustrated by using a fully connected network that resembles a Hopfield network.
General-purpose 3D animation with VITASCOPE

This paper presents VITASCOPE, a general-purpose, user-extensible 3D visualization system for animating processes that are modeled using discrete-event simulation tools. VITASCOPE is an ASCII stream driven 3D animation tool that runs readily on a wide variety of hardware platforms ranging from commonly used desktops and laptops to high-end, room-sized, immersive virtual environments such as the CAVE. VITASCOPE parses and interprets an ASCII stream, and imports and manipulates existing 3D CAD models of the simulated system entities to visually depict modeled processes. The used CAD models may be created in any CAD modeling package capable of exporting models in the VRML format. VITASCOPE's architecture is open and loosely-coupled, thus allowing it to serve as a post-processed or concurrent 3D visualization engine for simulation models created in a wide variety of languages and tools. VITASCOPE is built on the industry standard OpenGL graphics library and runs on Windows and Irix based workstations.
Improving Measurement Precision of Hierarchical Latent Traits Using Adaptive Testing.

Many latent traits in social sciences display a hierarchical structure, such as intelligence, cognitive ability, or personality. Usually a second-order factor is linearly related to a group of first-order factors (also called domain abilities in cognitive ability measures), and the first-order factors directly govern the actual item responses. Because only a subtest of items is used to measure each domain, the lack of sufficient reliability becomes the primary impediment for generating and reporting domain abilities. In recent years, several item response theory (IRT) models have been proposed to account for hierarchical factor structures, and these models are also shown to alleviate the low reliability issue by using in-test collateral information to improve measurement precision. This article advocates using adaptive item selection together with a higher order IRT model to further increase the reliability of hierarchical latent trait estimation. Two item selection algorithms are proposed—the constrained...
ARTIFICIAL BIRD NESTS, EXTERNAL VALIDITY, AND BIAS IN ECOLOGICAL FIELD STUDIES

We review an increasingly commonly used experimental approach in avian ecological studies that typifies the difficulties of maximizing two major components of experimental design: internal and external validity. Avian ecologists estimate reproductive success by measuring the rate at which nests in specified treatment groups fledge or fail. Because real bird nests are time-consuming and difficult to find and are rarely dispersed across treatments in sufficient numbers for powerful statistical analyses, investigators often utilize artificial nests, which are human-constructed surrogates baited with eggs and distributed in the field across treatments of interest. The primary advantage of artificial nests is that investigators can control the distribution and numbers of nests. The underlying assumption of similar predation rates on artificial and real nests is almost never tested. In the few studies that directly compare predation of artificial and real nests, however, external validity (or the degree to which results of an experiment can be generalized to subjects other than the experimental sample) is poor: predation of artificial nests differs from that of real nests in unpredictable and inconsistent directions. A primary reason for discrepancies may be that real and artificial nests attract different predators. We conclude that past protocols for use of artificial nests should be abandoned unless investigators carefully demonstrate minimal bias between measures of predation on real and artificial nests.
Directional coupled sectorial loops antenna for Ground Penetrating Radars applications

Ultra-wideband (UWB) radars and communications are becoming more popular as their applications expand in many areas. In such systems, the size and performance of the antenna covering the desired ultra-wideband is usually a limiting factor. Often times the bandwidth performance of antennas is solely determined in terms of their input impedance bandwidth. However, in many radar and some communication applications other antenna characteristics such as radiation pattern, polarization, and phase center must also be maintained over the desired bandwidth. Although antennas with 20% fractional bandwidth are considered ultra-wideband according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) definition [1], our interest in this paper is focused on antennas with multi-octave bandwidth that have applications in Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), impulse radars, covert communication systems, and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) measurement systems. For many ultra-wideband antennas as the operating frequency increases, the current distribution over the antenna structure changes drastically that can lead to different polarization or radiation pattern. The challenge is to design radiating structures that can not only provide a good impedance match over a wide bandwidth, but also maintain their direction of maximum radiation and polarization. This can be accomplished easier if the dimension of the antenna is not a limiting factor. That is, if the size of antenna can be made larger or comparable with the wavelength at the lowest frequency. The application of UWB systems with multi-octave bandwidth operation is mainly in VHF-UHF bands where the wavelength is relative large. The real estate on most mobile platforms are very limited and thus it is highly desirable to miniaturize the size of the antenna without compromising its performance. Also for all radar applications such, GPR, through-wall imaging, foliage penetration, etc., a unidirectional radiation pattern with significant front-to-back ratio is desired. The limitation in size and desire for unidirectional radiation pattern further complicates the antenna design.
Nonlinear magic: multiphoton microscopy in the biosciences

Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) has found a niche in the world of biological imaging as the best noninvasive means of fluorescence microscopy in tissue explants and living animals. Coupled with transgenic mouse models of disease and 'smart' genetically encoded fluorescent indicators, its use is now increasing exponentially. Properly applied, it is capable of measuring calcium transients 500 microm deep in a mouse brain, or quantifying blood flow by imaging shadows of blood cells as they race through capillaries. With the multitude of possibilities afforded by variations of nonlinear optics and localized photochemistry, it is possible to image collagen fibrils directly within tissue through nonlinear scattering, or release caged compounds in sub-femtoliter volumes.
Validation of Abundance Estimates from Mark–Recapture and Removal Techniques for Rainbow Trout Captured by Electrofishing in Small Streams

Abstract Estimation of fish abundance in streams using the removal model or the Lincoln– Peterson mark–recapture model is a common practice in fisheries. These models produce misleading results if their assumptions are violated. We evaluated the assumptions of these two models via electrofishing of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss in central Idaho streams. For one-, two-, three-, and four-pass sampling effort in closed sites, we evaluated the influences of fish size and habitat characteristics on sampling efficiency and the accuracy of removal abundance estimates. We also examined the use of models to generate unbiased estimates of fish abundance through adjustment of total catch or biased removal estimates. Our results suggested that the assumptions of the mark– recapture model were satisfied and that abundance estimates based on this approach were unbiased. In contrast, the removal model assumptions were not met. Decreasing sampling efficiencies over removal passes resulted in underestimated population...
Did Planck, Einstein, and Bose count indivisible photons or discrete emission/absorption processes in a black-body cavity?

Planck, Einstein and Bose all had to introduce statistics, and thus counting , in order to successfully derive an equation for the energy distribution within the black-body radiation spectrum, and what we now call Bose-Einstein statistics. Some of the details involved in the counting procedure vary while still giving the same result. However, the interpretation of what we count may differ dramatically from one another (as, for example, between Planck and Bose), without impacting the final, mathematical result. We demonstrate here a further alternative, which varies both, in the details of the counting, as well as in the interpretation, while still producing the same well known statistics. This approach puts the "quantumness" back into the radiation emission/absorption process, possibly dispensing with the requirement of quantized light, at least in the context of black-body radiation.
Neuroimaging of eating disorders, substance use disorders, and addictions: Overlapping and unique systems

This book chapter examines neuroimaging studies of eating and addictive disorders in order to explore shared and distinct domains of functioning. We adopt a dimensional approach, focusing specifically on domains of impairment across eating and addictive disorders: executive control, reward and motivation, emotional reactivity, memory/learning, and interoceptive awareness. Although the literature is limited in some domains, binge-eating disorder and bulimia nervosa appear to share more neural commonalities with addictive disorders (e.g., diminished executive control, heightened reward sensitivity) relative to anorexia nervosa. The similarities and differences in eating and addictive disorders may have implications for the conceptualization of etiology and the development of treatments for eating disorders. Finally, we outline areas of future research needed to further clarify the relationship between addictive and eating concerns.
Culture as Collective Construction

A group’s culture includes its beliefs, attitudes, rules and conventions. But what do these features of groups amount to? This discussion focuses on the case of a group’s belief. It argues that, according to a central everyday conception, a group’s belief is not a matter of the personal beliefs of the group members. Rather it is a matter of the joint commitment of the members by virtue of their several actions and utterances to emulate a single possessor of the belief in question. This means that each member has the standing to demand appropriate utterances and actions of the others and to rebuke those others for failure to produce them. Clearly when group beliefs on this conception arise they are highly consequential phenomena. The same goes for all similarly constructed features of groups.
Strontium isotope evidence for long-distance immigration into the Byzantine port city of Aila, modern Aqaba, Jordan

The ancient Red Sea maritime port of Aila was a major economic and manufacturing center during the 1st century B.C. through the Islamic era. The increased importance of Red Sea trade in the 4th century A.D. in addition to the arrival of a Roman legion in Aila also would suggest an increase in civilian residents arriving in the city for largely economic reasons. Strontium isotope analysis is used to identify any non-locally-born individuals within two mid-4th to early - 5th century A.D. cemeteries in the city (total N = 46). However, this assessment of population mobility requires an accurate estimate of the “local” strontium isotope value at Aila, a calculation made difficult through extensive food importation that occurred in this oasis city. Local faunal values combined with archaeological and historical evidence of local food production and food importation and childhood dietary practices were used to contextualize the human values within the Aila sample subjected to isotope analysis (N = 22). These sources suggest that the local signature of Aila ranges between 87Sr/86Sr = 0.7076142–0.708643, and only four individuals within the cemeteries were local to Aila. Most of the other individuals had 87Sr/86Sr > 0.7100, values unmatched in studies of bioavailable strontium in the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf. The lack of strontium dietary sources in southwestern Asia mirroring this signature suggests that many people buried at Aila hailed from great distances, supporting Aila’s role as a major trade center during the Byzantine period.
COMPARISON AND CROSS-VALIDATION OF THE IRRATIONAL BELIEF TEST AND THE RATIONAL BEHAVIOR INVENTORY

It has been approximately 20 years since Albert Ellis developed his theory and techniques of Rational Emotive Therapy. Since then, a number of tests have been designed to measure the presence or absence of irrational beliefs and behaviors (Bard, 1973; Jones, 1968; Shorkey & Whiteman, 1977). The 100-item Irrational Belief Test developed by Jones ( 1968) provided an over-all score of irrationality and 10 subscale scores, each designed to reflect one of the 10 irrational beliefs identified by Ellis and Harper (1970). The 37-item Rational Behavior Inventory was developed by Shorkey and Whiteman ( 1977) to provide an over-all index of rationality, and subtest scores for 11 factors measured by a Guttman-type scale. Very few studies have provided additional support for the validity and utility of these measures (Trexler & Karst, 1973; Whiteman & Shorkey, 1978). Since both tests are purported to measure the same dimension, rationality, the present investigation was designed to determine if the total scores obtained from each measure were significantly correlated. Another purpose was to cross-validate the total and subscale scores on a group similar in composition to each test's standardization sample. The tests were administered to 27 male and 33 female undergraduates enrolled in a general psychology course. A Pearson coefficient calculated between the over-all scores on these tests was significant and negative (T~~ = -.72, p < .001). This negative relationship reflected the associations of fewer irrational beliefs and more rational behaviors. There were no significant differences between scale scores of this cross-validation sample and the standardization samples for 9 of 11 comparisons of the scores for beliefs and 11 of 12 comparisons for behaviors. Samples differed significantly on Scale 5 (tglo = 2.26, p < .05) and Scale 6 (t2I5 = -2.30, p < .05) of the Irrational Belief Test, and only on Scale 2 (tZna = 5.23, p < .05) of the Rational Behavior Inventory. The significant negative correlation suggests that the two
Coal Swelling Model for Pressurized High Particle Heating Rate Pyrolysis Applications

A model was previously developed to describe the decrease in swelling during coal pyrolysis at atmospheric pressure when maximum particle heating rates increase from 104 K/s to 105 K/s. That model included effects of coal type using chemical structure properties. This paper presents results of new experiments to study the effects of elevated pressure and high heating rates on coal pyrolysis. A pressurized flat-flame burner (PFFB) was designed and built to conduct these studies. The pyrolysis experiments reported in this paper were conducted at particle heating rates of ∼105 K/s and maximum gas temperatures of 1700 to 1900 K at pressures of 1 to 15 atm. Residence times of 25–85 ms were used. A new coal swelling correlation was developed that predicts the effects of heating rate, pressure, and coal rank on the swelling ratio at heating rates above ∼104 K/s. The coal rank index parameters from a previously published atmospheric swelling model were used to model the pressurized swelling data, and a new correl...
Building Systems the Old Fashioned Way

Most real real-time systems are hybrid systems with certain deadlines which must be met, others which are slippable and other computations which may run as resources permit. In astronomy, computers are used to drive the telescope, rotate the dome, control the instrument and record, display and even reduce (analyse) the data. Some of these tasks have no real deadlines: data reduction can always be done later, off-line, but with a reduction in the ability of the scientist to modify his/her experiment as the evening progresses. Some of these tasks have soft deadlines: rotating the dome may be delayed as long as the slit still clears the telescope field of view; displaying the data need not be 100% up-to-date. Still other tasks must meet hard deadlines: the telescope must be driven consistently across the sky to keep the object centered; the instrument must be controlled as required to record data at precise intervals, etc. But even some of these hard tasks have widely varying time scales. The result is a very complicated system.
Robust language identification using convolutional neural network features.

The language identification (LID) task in the Robust Automatic Transcription of Speech (RATS) program is challenging due to the noisy nature of the audio data collected over highly degraded radio communication channels as well as the use of short duration speech segments for testing. In this paper, we report the recent advances made in the RATS LID task by using bottleneck features from a convolutional neural network (CNN). The CNN, which is trained with labelled data from one of target languages, generates bottleneck features which are used in a Gaussian mixture model (GMM)-ivector LID system. The CNN bottleneck features provide substantial complimentary information to the conventional acoustic features even on languages not seen in its training. Using these bottleneck features in conjunction with acoustic features, we obtain significant improvements (average relative improvements of 25% in terms of equal error rate (EER) compared to the corresponding acoustic system) for the LID task. Furthermore, these improvements are consistent for various choices of acoustic features as well as speech segment durations.
“Silent” Skeletal Metastases in Cancer

Obscure skeletal pain is a symptom frequently found in cancer irrespective of the site of the primary growth, histolotic nature of the malignant neoplasm, or its disseminative potentialities. Although in many instances the roentgenographic examination of the osseous System may substantiate the complaint of "bone pain" and reveal metastatic deposits or even a pathologie fracture, many times essentially negative results are obtained. Often too, adherents to the idea of differences in the ability of the different varieties of neoplasms to produce metastases, dismiss the possibility of distant dissemination and treat the cancer patient for "rheumatic pain", arthritis, lumbago, sciatica, etc. Bearing in mind the statement made by many oncologists and particularly stressed by Meigs that, "Cancer of any organ can metastasize anywhere", and the evidence presented by Geschickter and Maseritz in their clinical and pathologie observations on skeletal metastases, a histologie study was undertaken to determine (a) whether or not metastatic tumor cells were present in the skeleton of cancer patients who complained of "bone pain" even though roentgenographically and grossly at autopsy there was no evidence of metastatic foci ; and (b) to determine if metastatic tumor cells were present in bone even though the patient was clinically symptom-free insofar as skeletal pathology was concerned. '
Robotically assisted delayed total laparoscopic hysterectomy for placenta percreta.

Background The prevalence of morbidly adherent placenta has dramatically increased in the setting of the rising cesarean rate in the United States. Delayed surgical management of placenta accreta and its variants is emerging as methods that may significantly decrease bleeding and perioperative complications; however, optimal surgical approaches have not yet been determined. In this report, we present a case of robotic-assisted delayed interval hysterectomy in a patient with placenta percreta.
Schistosomiasis, cercarial dermatitis, and marine dermatitis.

Parasitic infestation of the skin by blood flukes can produce protean clinicopathologic manifestations depending on the host-parasite interaction. A comparison between the manifestations of the anthropophilic species of schistosomiasis and the avian species is detailed and differentiated from marine dermatitis and “Dogger Bank itch,” diseases that are not produced by schistosomes.
Inventing Atmospheric Science

James R. Fleming. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2016. ix and 296 pp., maps, photos, diagrams, notes, bibliography, index. $31.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-262-03394-7).Inventing Atmospheric Science is a bo...
Hardware security applications of emerging nonvolatile memories

Stochastic behaviors and intrinsic variability of emerging nonvolatile memories (NVMs) can be utilized to design hardware security solutions. Proposals of true random number generator (TRNG) and physical unclonable function (PUF) based on emerging NVMs are reviewed in this paper. A PUF design based on differential resistance in resistive random access memory (RRAM) is analyzed in details to illustrate this novel application of emerging NVMs.
Association between mean residual life (MRL) and failure rate functions for continuous and discrete lifetime distributions

OF THE THESIS ASSOCIATION BETWEEN MEAN RESIDUAL LIFE (MRL) AND FAILURE RATE FUNCTIONS FOR CONTINUOUS AND DISCRETE LIFETIME DISTRIBUTIONS by Leonid Bekker Florida International University, 2002 Miami, Florida Professor Jie Mi, Major Professor The purpose of this study was to correct some mistakes in the literature and derive a necessary and sufficient condition for the MRL to follow the roller-coaster pattern of the corresponding failure rate function. It was also desired to find the conditions under which the discrete failure rate function has an upside-down bathtub shape if corresponding MRL function has a bathtub shape. The study showed that if discrete MRL has a bathtub shape, then under some conditions the corresponding failure rate function has an upside-down bathtub shape. Also the study corrected some mistakes in proofs of Tang, Lu and Chew (1999) and established a necessary and sufficient condition for the MRL to follow the roller-coaster pattern of the corresponding failure rate function. Similarly, some mistakes in Gupta and Gupta (2000) are corrected, with the ensuing results being expanded and proved thoroughly to establish the relationship between the crossing points of the failure rate and associated MRL functions. The new results derived in this study will be useful to model various lifetime data that occur in environmental studies, medical research, electronics engineering, and in many other areas of science and technology.
External cephalic version in premature rupture of membranes: a systematic review.

AbstractBackground: External cephalic version (ECV) increases the likelihood of a vaginal delivery in patients with breech presentation. Our objective was to determine the rate of cephalic vaginal delivery in women undergoing ECV after PROM.Methods: We performed a systematic review of all case reports, case series and clinical trials of patients undergoing an ECV after PROM ≥ 24 weeks. Maternal demographics and outcome data were obtained. The primary outcome was rate of cephalic vaginal delivery. Statistical analysis was performed for continuous outcomes by calculating mean and standard deviations for appropriate variables.Results: The systematic review yielded six papers with 13 case reports and no clinical trials of ECV after PROM. The rate of success to cephalic presentation was 46.1% (six of 13 cases), with a subsequent vaginal delivery rate of 23.1% (three of 13 cases). The rate of umbilical cord prolapse was 33.3% (two of six cases).Conclusions: ECV after PROM has been reported in 13 cases in the li...
Characterization of laminar jet impingement cooling in portable computer applications

A thermal characterization study of laminar air jet impingement cooling of electronic components within a geometry representative of the CPU compartment of a typical portable computer is reported. A finite control volume technique was used to solve for the velocity and temperature fields. Convection, conduction and radiation effects were included in the simulations. The range of jet Reynolds numbers considered was 63 to 1500; the applied compartment heat load ranged from 5-15 W. Radiation effects were significant over the range of Reynolds numbers and heat loads considered, while the effect of natural convection was only noticeable for configurations when the ratio Gr/Re/sup 2/ exceeded 5. The predicted importance of Re rather than jet size was confirmed with test data. Proof of concept was demonstrated with a numerical model representative of a full laptop computer. Both simulations and lab tests showed that low flow rate JI cooling schemes can provide cooling comparable to a high volume flow rate configuration, while using only a fraction of the air flow. Further, under the conservative assumption of steady state, fully powered components, a hybrid cooling scheme utilizing a heat pipe and laminar JI was capable of cooling the processor chip within 11 C of the vendor specified maximum temperature for a system with a total power dissipation of over 21 W.
Epidemiology, survival, incidence and prevalence of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in the USA and Canada.

We must be mindful of the caveats of the methods used to estimate the incidence and prevalence of IPF http://ow.ly/MAa0306XRLp
Challenges to Characterization of Sound Produced by Marine Energy Converters

The acoustic characteristics of marine energy converters are of interest to those attempting to quantify their environmental effects at larger scale. Such efforts are complicated by the time variation in marine energy converter sound caused by changes in the environmental forcing and converter operation, the difficulty of identifying marine energy converter sound amidst background noise from a range of sources, and the potential masking of marine energy converter sound by non-propagating flow-noise. This chapter discusses each of these challenges and proposes potential solutions to overcome them in a cost-effective manner.