cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The dual role of IL-2 in the generation and maintenance of CD8+ memory T cells.

The mechanisms responsible for the generation and maintenance of T cell memory are unclear. In this study, we tested the role of IL-2 in allospecific CD8 + T cell memory by analyzing the long-term survival, phenotype, and functional characteristics of IL-2-replete (IL-2 +/+ ) and IL-2-deficient (IL-2 −/− ) CD8 + TCR-transgenic lymphocytes in an adoptive transfer model. We found that IL-2 is not essential for the in vivo generation, maintenance, or recall response of CD8 + memory T cells. However, IL-2 increased the size of the CD8 + memory pool if present at the time of initial T cell activation but reduced the size of the pool if present during memory maintenance by inhibiting the proliferation of CD8 + memory T cells. Thus, IL-2-based vaccine strategies or immunosuppressive regimens that target IL-2 should take into account the divergent roles of IL-2 in CD8 + T cell immunity.
Efficient Mode Converter for Coupling between Fiber and Micrometer Size Silicon Waveguides

A low-loss polarization independent mode converter for coupling standard single mode fiber to a silicon chip is presented. For a micrometer size silicon waveguide, we demonstrate a coupling loss of 1-1.5 dB/facet.
Effects of carbon resources on electrochemical performance of LiFePO_4 /C nanocomposites as cathode materials for lithium ion batteries

Nano-sized LiFePO4 /C with a core/shell structure was prepared by a two-step procedure,which involved the synthesis of FePO4 /polyaniline(PANI) and subsequent thermal calcination in the presence of carbon sources.An initial coating of PANI on FePO4 could protect LiFePO4 nanopaticles from further growth,facilitating the fabrication of the nano-sized LiFePO4 /C nanocomposites.Carbon sources,such as sucrose,polyethylene glycol or conductive carbon black,were found to have great effects on size,shape and electrochemical performance of LiFePO4 /C nanocomposites.LiFePO4 /C nanocomposites fabricated with sucrose as carbon source have relatively uniform sizes and higher contents of carbon,and exhibit the superior electrochemical performance.
Madame Victorica and Invisible Inks

The third of the Madame Victorica articles, number VI, includes discussions of invisible inks and their solutions. Also, this article finally gets down to some of Madame Victorica’s plans while in the United States. It contains texts of several cover letters and the translated versions of several solved secret ink messages relating to her plans to acquire explosives and blow up Allied ships in harbor.
Financial Hegemony: British Empire

There is a second example in economic history of hegemony in international finance. After the Dutch Republic established a liberal hegemony in finance in the 1600s, they were replaced in the 1700s by the British Empire, which provided as subsequent stable financial system for international trade. Andrew Sobel wrote: “The British gradually replaced the Dutch as the commercial and financial hegemon, emerging at the center of the global political economy by the middle to late 1700s. The transition was relatively peaceful, at least between the Dutch and the British. The movement of surplus Dutch capital and Dutch financial skills and innovations to the financial markets in London were important contributors to London’s becoming the preeminent international financial and commercial center. The baton of global leadership passed gradually during the 1700s, and British hegemony lasted until the First World War.” (Sobel 2012)
DBMS Metrology: Measuring Query Time

It is surprisingly hard to obtain accurate and precise measurements of the time spent executing a query because there are many sources of variance. To understand these sources, we review relevant per-process and overall measures obtainable from the Linux kernel and introduce a structural causal model relating these measures. A thorough correlational analysis provides strong support for this model. We attempted to determine why a particular measurement wasn’t repeatable and then to devise ways to eliminate or reduce that variance. This enabled us to articulate a timing protocol that applies to proprietary DBMSes, that ensures the repeatability of a query, and that obtains a quite accurate query execution time while dropping very few outliers. This resulting query time measurement procedure, termed the Tucson Timing Protocol Version 2 (TTPv2), consists of the following steps: (i) perform sanity checks to ensure data validity; (ii) drop some query executions via clearly motivated predicates; (iii) drop some entire queries at a cardinality, again via clearly motivated predicates; (iv) for those that remain, compute a single measured time by a carefully justified formula over the underlying measures of the remaining query executions; and (v) perform post-analysis sanity checks. The result is a mature, general, robust, self-checking protocol that provides a more precise and more accurate timing of the query. The protocol is also applicable to other operating domains in which measurements of multiple processes each doing computation and I/O is needed.
Performance Evaluation of Public IaaS Clouds for Web 2.0 Applications Using CloudStone Benchmark

Web 2.0 applications have become ubiquitous over the past few years because they provide useful features such as a rich, responsive graphical user interface that supports interactive and dynamic content. Social networking websites, blogs, auctions, online banking, online shopping and video sharing websites are noteworthy examples of Web 2.0 applications. The market for public cloud service providers is growing rapidly, and cloud providers offer an ever-growing list of services. As a result, developers and researchers find it challenging when deciding which public cloud service to use for deploying, experimenting or testing Web 2.0 applications. This study compares the scalability and performance of a social-events calendar application on two Infrastructure as a Service IaaS cloud services-Amazon EC2 and HP Cloud. This study captures and compares metrics on three different instance configurations for each cloud service such as the number of concurrent users load, as well as response time and throughput performance. Additionally, the total price of the three different instance configurations for each cloud service is calculated and compared. This comparison of the scalability, performance and price metrics provides developers and researchers with an insight into the scalability and performance characteristics of the three instance configurations for each cloud service, which simplifies the process of determining which cloud service and instance configuration to use for deploying their Web 2.0 applications. This study uses CloudStone-an open-source, three-tier web application benchmarking tool that simulates Web 2.0 application activities-as a realistic workload generator and to capture the intended metrics. The comparison of the collected metrics indicates that all of the tested Amazon EC2 instance configurations provide better scalability and lower latency at a lower cost than the respective HP Cloud instance configurations; however, the tested HP Cloud instance configurations provide a greater storage capacity than the Amazon EC2 instance configurations, which is an important consideration for data-intensive Web 2.0 applications.
Immune engineering: From systems immunology to engineering immunity

The smallpox vaccine represents the earliest attempt in engineering immunity. The recent success of chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T cells) in cancer once again demonstrates the clinical potential of immune engineering. Inspired by this success, diverse approaches have been used to boost various aspects of immunity: engineering dendritic cells (DCs), natural killer (NK) cells, T cells, antibodies, cytokines, small peptides, and others. With recent development of various high-throughput technologies (of which engineers, especially biomedical engineers/bioengineers contributed significantly), such as immune repertoire sequencing, and analytical methods, a systems level of understanding immunity (or the lack of it) beyond model animals has provided critical insights into the human immune system. This review focuses on recent progressed made in systems biology and the engineering of adaptive immunity.
Schistosomiasis is more prevalent than previously thought: what does it mean for public health goals, policies, strategies, guidelines and intervention programs?

Mapping and diagnosis of infections by the three major schistosome species (Schistosoma haematobium, S. mansoni and S. japonicum) has been done with assays that are known to be specific but increasingly insensitive as prevalence declines or in areas with already low prevalence of infection. This becomes a true challenge to achieving the goal of elimination of schistosomiasis because the multiplicative portion of the life-cycle of schistosomes, in the snail vector, favors continued transmission as long as even a few people maintain low numbers of worms that pass eggs in their excreta. New mapping tools based on detection of worm antigens (circulating cathodic antigen – CCA; circulating anodic antigen – CAA) in urine of those infected are highly sensitive and the CAA assay is reported to be highly specific. Using these tools in areas of low prevalence of all three of these species of schistosomes has demonstrated that more people harbor adult worms than are regularly excreting eggs at a level detectable by the usual stool assay (Kato-Katz) or by urine filtration. In very low prevalence areas this is sometimes 6- to10-fold more. Faced with what appears to be a sizable population of “egg-negative/worm-positive schistosomiasis” especially in areas of very low prevalence, national NTD programs are confounded about what guidelines and strategies they should enact if they are to proceed toward a goal of elimination. There is a critical need for continued evaluation of the assays involved and to understand the contribution of this “egg-negative/worm-positive schistosomiasis” condition to both individual morbidity and community transmission. There is also a critical need for new guidelines based on the use of these more sensitive assays for those national NTD programs that wish to move forward to strategies designed for elimination.
Full waveform tomography to resolve desert alluvium

Abstract This paper presents shear wave velocity distribution developed from full waveform tomography on a seismic dataset recorded in the northwest Las Vegas Valley, Nevada. The setting is a deep and variable alluvial sequence, encompassing gravel, sand, silt and clay, with some carbonate cementation. Seismic data were collected along a ~144-m long array using 72 equally spaced geophones, with an accelerated drop-weight source applied at 6-m intervals. The dataset was interpreted using an advanced 2-D full waveform tomography method. The same dataset was also analyzed using Rayleigh wave dispersion, following the multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW) method, to develop a single, 1-D velocity profile. Results from the MASW method indicated a mild velocity inversion. The waveform tomography method was able to characterize vertical and lateral velocity variations along the array length to 25 m depth. Results showed significantly contrasting high- and low-velocity layers. While depth-averaged shear wave velocities from the two methods were similar, the degree of variability indicated using FWI is supported by strong variation in Standard Penetration Test (SPT) blow counts from a nearby drillhole and by expectations from sediment lithology.
Contactless and non-destructive chlorophyll content prediction by random forest regression: A case study on fresh-cut rocket leaves

Abstract In green leafy vegetables, the retention of green colour is one of the most generally used index to evaluate the overall quality and freshness and it is associated to total chlorophyll content. Destructive chemical techniques and non-destructive chlorophyll meters represent the state-of-the-art methods to accomplish such critical task. The former are effective and robust but also expensive and time consuming. The latter are cheaper and faster but exhibit lower reliability, require the probe to touch the leaves and heavily depend on the positions chosen for sampling the leaf’s surface. In this paper, a new approach to non-destructively predict total chlorophyll content of fresh-cut rocket leaves without contact is proposed. Fresh-cut rocket leaves were analysed for total chlorophyll content by spectrophotometer and SPAD-502 (used as reference values) and acquired by a computer vision system using a machine-learning model (Random Forest Regression) to predict total chlorophyll content. Finally, the trained and validated model will be used for on-line prediction of total chlorophyll content of unseen fresh-cut rocket leaves. The proposed system can match the physical and timing constraints of a real industrial production line and its performance (R2 = 0.90), measured on the case study of fresh-cut rocket leaves, outperformed the results of the SPAD chlorophyll meter (R2 = 0.79).
A Wearable Motion Tracking System to Reduce Direct Care Worker Injuries: An Exploratory Study

Patients with functional disabilities often require assistance to perform basic everyday activities, such as bathing, dressing, and getting into/out of bed. These activities typically require the direct care worker (DCW) to transfer (lift & move) the patient from one location to another. These patient transfers are a common cause of injury to health care workers. In fact, depending on the job site, on average a staggering 4% of DCWs are injured every year. Following proper lifting and transfer procedures can dramatically reduce the risk of injury. This research demonstrates that data collected from motion tracking systems, combined with computational analysis can detect risky patient transfer behavior. Testing of the system occurred as part of an exploratory study in an assisted living facility. Two common types of transfers were tested: transfers from bed to shower chair, and transfers from shower chair to wheelchair. These scenarios were tested on two types of patients, one that was completely disabled, and one that was partially disabled. Two major results were determined from this study: (1) risky patient transfer behavior is common in the assisted living facility, and (2) this behavior can be adequately detected via wearable motion tracking sensors. The longer term research goal is to extend these preliminary results to construct a fully wearable motion tracking system that can be used as a tool to reinforce proper lifting and transfer protocols to reduce work-related injuries among DCWs.
Primary small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the breast – A case report and review of the literature

Abstract Introduction Primary small cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the breast (SCNCB) is a very uncommon type of breast cancer. Histology and morphology are virtually indistinguishable from small cell neuroendocrine carcinomas of the lung (SCNCL), mandating a search for a primary site elsewhere in the body. There is no standard approach to treatment as there are only a limited number of cases reported in the literature. This report summarizes a case of primary SCNCB and presents a review of the literature. Presentation of case A 65-year-old female presented to her gynecologist with a right breast mass. After biopsy, she was diagnosed with a primary SCNCB with regional lymph node involvement. She was treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy with a good clinical response. Discussion Due to the rare nature of this tumor, no standard treatment exits. Case reports have described breast conserving therapy combined with neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy as well as chemoradiation therapy alone for metastatic disease. Both chemotherapy regimens, those used to treat SCNCL and invasive breast cancer, have been described in these reports. Conclusion Primary SCNCB is a very rare type of breast cancer with no standard treatment. Further research is needed to better understand the behavior of this rare tumor in order to develop a standard approach to treatment.
Multiplate and TEG platelet mapping in a population of severely injured trauma patients.

SUMMARYObjectives The objectives of this study were to compare thromboelastography platelet mapping (TEG PM) with impedance aggregometry (Multiplate, MP) in a single trauma population and relate their results clinically. Background Platelet function as measured by thromboelastography and impedance aggregometry demonstrates significant reductions that persist for days following traumatic injury. However, no study compares these devices and the correlation between them is not known. Methods In level 1 trauma patients, TEG PM and MP were conducted at their initial presentation to the emergency department. Within-device repeatability and between-device association were determined using correlation analyses. Demographic variables, Injury Severity Score, blood product transfusion, laboratory test results and mortality rate were recorded. Results Ninety-two patients were enrolled. Within-device repeatability was high for TEG PM and MP for arachidonic acid (AA) and adenosine diphosphate (ADP) activation pathways. When comparing TEG PM with MP, results correlated poorly in the ADP pathway (Spearman's rho = 0·11, P = 0·44) and moderately in the AA pathway (Spearman's rho = 0·56, P < 0·0001). TEG PM was predictive of blood product transfusion and correlated with increased base deficit, whereas MP was only predictive of mortality. Conclusions Intra-device variability was low for TEG PM and MP, but the two point-of-care devices measuring platelet function correlate poorly with each other in injured trauma patients. Each device also had different clinical associations.
APPLICATIONS OF EXACT INVERSION OF ARBITRARILY ILL-CONDITIONED MATRICES

Newman's exact inversion method for ill-conditioned matrices has intriguing applications in mathematical statistics, “soft” mechanical structures, and scattering theory, at least. Examples of each are presented.
Improving salt marsh digital elevation model accuracy with full-waveform lidar and nonparametric predictive modeling

Abstract Salt marsh vegetation tends to increase vertical uncertainty in light detection and ranging (lidar) derived elevation data, often causing the data to become ineffective for analysis of topographic features governing tidal inundation or vegetation zonation. Previous attempts at improving lidar data collected in salt marsh environments range from simply computing and subtracting the global elevation bias to more complex methods such as computing vegetation-specific, constant correction factors. The vegetation specific corrections can be used along with an existing habitat map to apply separate corrections to different areas within a study site. It is hypothesized here that correcting salt marsh lidar data by applying location-specific, point-by-point corrections, which are computed from lidar waveform-derived features, tidal-datum based elevation, distance from shoreline and other lidar digital elevation model based variables, using nonparametric regression will produce better results. The methods were developed and tested using full-waveform lidar and ground truth for three marshes in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Five different model algorithms for nonparametric regression were evaluated, with TreeNet's stochastic gradient boosting algorithm consistently producing better regression and classification results. Additionally, models were constructed to predict the vegetative zone (high marsh and low marsh). The predictive modeling methods used in this study estimated ground elevation with a mean bias of 0.00 m and a standard deviation of 0.07 m (0.07 m root mean square error). These methods appear very promising for correction of salt marsh lidar data and, importantly, do not require an existing habitat map, biomass measurements, or image based remote sensing data such as multi/hyperspectral imagery.
Assessing Resident Performance in Screening Mammography: Development of a Quantitative Algorithm

Rationale and Objectives This study aims to provide objective performance data and feedback, including examination volumes, recall rates, and concordance with faculty interpretations, for residents performing independent interpretation of screening mammography examinations. Method and Materials Residents (r) and faculty (f) interpret screening mammograms separately and identify non-callbacks (NCBs) and callbacks (CBs). Residents review all discordant results. The number of concordant interpretations (fCB-rCB and fNCB-rNCB) and discordant interpretations (fCB-rNCB and fNCB-rCB) are entered into a macro-driven spreadsheet. These macros weigh the data dependent on the perceived clinical impact of the resident's decision. Weighted outcomes are combined with volumes to generate a weighted mammography performance score. Rotation-specific goals are assigned for the weighted score, screening volumes, recall rate relative to faculty, and concordance rates. Residents receive one point for achieving each goal. Results Between July 2013 and May 2017, 18,747 mammography examinations were reviewed by 31 residents, in 71 resident rotations, over 246 resident weeks. Mean resident recall rate was 9.9% and significantly decreased with resident level (R), R2 = 11.3% vs R3 = 9.4%, R4 = 9.2%. Mean resident-faculty discordance rate was 10% and significantly decreased from R2 = 12% to R4 = 9.6%. Weighted performance scores ranged from 1.1 to 2.0 (mean 1.6, standard deviation 0.17), but did not change with rotation experience. Residents had a mean goal achievement score of 2.6 (standard deviation 0.47). Conclusions This method provides residents with easily accessible case-by-case individualized screening outcome data over the longitudinal period of their residency, and provides an objective method of assessing resident screening mammography performance.
The Glycoscience of Immunity

Carbohydrates, or glycans, are as integral to biology as nucleic acids and proteins. In immunology, glycans are well known to drive diverse functions ranging from glycosaminoglycan-mediated chemokine presentation and selectin-dependent leukocyte trafficking to the discrimination of self and non-self through the recognition of sialic acids by Siglec (sialic acid-binding Ig-like lectin) receptors. In recent years, a number of key immunological discoveries are driving a renewed and burgeoning appreciation for the importance of glycans. In this review, we highlight these findings which collectively help to define and refine our knowledge of the function and impact of glycans within the immune response.
Pulmonary Embolism Among Patients With Acute Exacerbation Of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Implications For Emergency Medicine.

Abstract Background Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Common in COPD are acute exacerbations (AE-COPD) that cause acute dyspnea, cough, and bronchospasm. Symptoms of AE-COPD mimic pulmonary embolism (PE). Methods We conducted a systematic review of the literature to assess the prevalence of PE in patients admitted to the hospital with a clinical diagnosis of AE-COPD. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines, we queried PubMed and MEDLINE databases from 1990 to 2017. The search term “prevalence pulmonary embolism, COPD” was used, and Boolean operators were used to combine search terms. Data were extracted from each article, specifically the sample size, study setting, design, and the prevalence of PE. Results A total of 5 articles were included that demonstrated a prevalence of PE among patients with a clinical diagnosis of AE-COPD that ranged from 3.3–29.1%. Sample sizes varied from 49–197 patients. Studies occurred in both emergency department and inpatient settings, including intensive care units. Among the studies that reported patient characteristics associated with PE in AE-COPD, both obesity and immobility were important. Conclusion Studies reporting the prevalence of PE during AE-COPD vary considerably in their methods and results. Because of the relatively high prevalence of PE during AE-COPD, it is important for providers to be aware of this linkage between the 2 conditions and to screen patients using clinical gestalt and validated screening tools until more emergency department data are available.
Irritant Contact Dermatitis

The variability of irritant reactions requires that irritants be thought of as having a range of concentrations that produce reactions. The concept of an ID50 helps to keep some of these variables in mind. Individuals may have altered irritant thresholds because of eczematous dermatitis elsewhere, strongly positive patch tests, and factors that enhance percutaneous penetration. Knowledge of how these variables alter the ID50 for any given irritant will aid in the proper assessment of clinical irritant dermatitis.
Modeling Thalamocortical Oscillations

The thalamic nuclei lie in the center of the brain and are thought to be functionally central to a variety of brain processes. In particular, the primary nuclei play two, possibly complementary, roles in brain function. The first role is that of a relay nucleus. In the relay mode a thalamic nucleus receives information from the sensory periphery and sends it on to the cortex. In this chapter, we will not be much concerned with this aspect of thalamic function. The second role involves the thalamus’ involvement in slow oscillations. These are reflected in the cortex during various stages of sleep as well as in pathological processes associated with certain types of epilepsy. In this context the thalamus appears to be a sort of central pattern generator for the vertebrate brain. It is the slow oscillations associated with these rhythms that have been most intensively studied using modeling techniques.
A General Application Guidance System for the Problem Solver

When working with to-day’s software systems, most users, in particular the casual or unexperienced users, run into problems because even if the systems are well documented, there is insufficient guidance from a semantic point of view. To enable the problem solver who is not necessarily a DP-professional, to make extensive use of DP-facilities he has to be supported in several ways: 1. The user of program libraries has to be assisted in identifying the suitable program for a given problem. 2. The user of data bases should be assisted in identifying data with a specific semantic meaning. 3. After the identification of the appropriate problem solving method or program and the data to be processed, the execution of the program has to be invoked without burdening the user with DP specific problems. 4. The user of any system should be guided through the jumble of usage rules, e.g. the data base user has to be told intelligibly how to set up a query.
Role of Phytochrome in the Germination of Light-sensitive Lettuce Seeds

Phytochrome is a water-soluble pigment which functions as the photoreceptor for a wide variety of plant responses to light, indeed all the socalled “red, far-red reversible photoreactions” (Table 10-I). In participating in these diverse responses, phytochrome influences the growth, development and behavior of seed plants literally throughout their ontogeny. Furthermore, phytochrome is by no means restricted to seed plants. It has definitely been identified in certain liverworts and green algae, for example, and there is evidence for the speculation that it probably occurs in all green plants.
Adsorption of Stearic Acid at the Iron Oxide/Oil Interface: Theory, Experiments, and Modeling.

Improved friction performance is an important objective of equipment manufacturers for meeting improved energy efficiency demands. The addition of friction-reducing additives, or friction modifiers (FMs), to lubricants is a key part of the strategy. The performance of these additives is related to their surface activity and their ability to form adsorbed layers on the metal surface. However, the extent of surface coverage (mass per unit area) required for effective friction reduction is currently unknown. In this article, we show that full coverage is not necessary for significant friction reduction. We first highlight various features of surface adsorption that can influence the surface coverage, packing, and free energy of adsorption of organic FMs on iron oxide surfaces. Using stearic acid in heptane and hexadecane as model lubricant formulations, we employ a combination of experiments and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to show how the dimerization of acid molecules in the bulk solvent and the cry...
Review of Hart & Kelsey (2019): Discourses of Disorder: Riots, Strikes and Protests in the Media

This article reviews Discourses of Disorder: Riots, Strikes and Protests in the Media 97814744 35413£85
Developmental and Cultural Aspects of Binge Eating

Research on binge eating has focused on construct definition, and development/refinement of etiological models with more of a person-level focus and with less focus on other levels of organization. In childhood and adolescence, defining the consumption of a large amount of food can be difficult due to lack of autonomy and developmental growth, leading some researchers to use loss of control over eating as a more objective criterion. Among youth, existing research suggests parenting style, peer influences, and attachment styles may predispose individuals to the eventual development of binge eating. While, parental comments and food environment increase risk for binge eating. The second half of this chapter is dedicated to discussing binge eating across marginalized populations. Prevalence rates of binge eating across race/ethnicity, food insecurity, and sexual minorities are provided. Research on minority stress framework that highlights perceived environmental threats (e.g., cultural stereotypes, prejudice), minority stressors (e.g., discrimination, weight bias stigma) as contributors to social isolation and rejection, and negative affect, which in turn, leads to binge eating, is discussed. Further, risk factor research on discrimination and weight bias are discussed. It is hoped that future research will focus more on under what conditions for whom does binge eating develop.
Solubility predictions through LSBoost for supercritical carbon dioxide in ionic liquids

The solubility of supercritical carbon dioxide in ionic liquids (ILs) is a key parameter for designing chemical processes in a biphasic system. Experimental measurements to determine the molar solubility requires specially-designed apparatus, which may be resource-intensive. Alternatively, predictive models can facilitate the estimation of the solubility by modeling via computational intelligence approaches. In the current work, we develop the least-squares boosting model to predict the solubility of supercritical carbon dioxide in 24 ionic liquids by using critical properties of ILs and biphasic system parameters as descriptors. The model is highly accurate, stable, and promising as a fast, robust, and low-cost tool for solubility estimations.
Frameworks for targeting RNA with small molecules.

Since the characterization of mRNA in 1961, our understanding of the roles of RNA molecules has significantly grown. Beyond serving as a link between DNA and proteins, RNA molecules play direct effector roles by binding to various ligands, including proteins, DNA, other RNAs, and metabolites. Through these interactions, RNAs mediate cellular processes such as the regulation of gene transcription and the enhancement or inhibition of protein activity. As a result, the misregulation of RNA molecules is often associated with disease phenotypes, and RNA molecules have been increasingly recognized as potential targets for drug development efforts, which in the past had focused primarily on proteins. Although both small molecule–based and oligonucleotide-based therapies have been pursued in efforts to target RNA, small-molecule modalities are often favored owing to several advantages including greater oral bioavailability. In this review, we discuss three general frameworks (sets of premises and hypotheses) that, in our view, have so far dominated the discovery of small-molecule ligands for RNA. We highlight the unique merits of each framework as well as the pitfalls associated with exclusive focus of ligand discovery efforts within only one framework. Finally, we propose that RNA ligand discovery can benefit from using progress made within these three frameworks to move toward a paradigm that formulates RNA-targeting questions at the level of RNA structural subclasses.
Perceptions of Student Motivation and Amotivation

Many secondary students in today’s schools are indifferent or unmotivated to accomplish academic tasks. Given the intense focus on student achievement, students’ amotivation can be devastating. Rec...
Effect of treatment center volume on outcomes in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumor patients

Medical centers with varying levels of expertise treat gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), which are relatively rare tumors. This study assesses the impact of center volume on GEP-NET treatment outcomes. We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry linked to Medicare claims data. The data includes patients diagnosed between 1995 and 2010 who had no health maintenance organization (HMO) coverage, participated in Medicare parts A and B, were older than 65 at diagnosis, had tumor differentiation information, and had no secondary cancer. We identified medical centers at which patients received GEP-NET treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, somatostatin analogues, or radiation therapy) using Medicare claims data. Center volume was divided into 3 tiers – low, medium, and high – based on the number of unique GEP-NET patients treated by a medical center over 2 years. We used Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression to assess the association between volume and disease-specific survival. We identified 899 GEP-NET patients, of whom 37, 45, and 18% received treatment at low, medium volume, and high-volume centers, respectively. Median disease-specific survival for patients at low and medium tiers were 1.4 years and 5.3 years, respectively, but was not reached for patients at high volume centers. Results showed that patients treated at high volume centers had better survival than those treated in low volume centers (HR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.4–0.9), but showed no difference in outcomes between medium and high-volume centers. Our results suggest that for these increasingly common tumors, referral to a tertiary care center may be indicated. Physicians caring for GEP-NET patients should consider early referral to high volume centers.
Recruitment and retention of STEM teachers through the Noyce Scholarship: A longitudinal mixed methods study

Abstract Staffing high schools with highly qualified mathematics and science teachers continues to be a challenge for schools across the U.S. One way to address this challenge is to offer financial incentives, in the form of scholarships or grants, for high performing college students to become high school mathematics or science teachers. The effects these types of scholarship programs have on the recruitment, retention, and dispositions of teachers is not clear. The current explanatory mixed methods study used longitudinal data from 29 Noyce Scholars from the same university, to investigate the influences the scholarship has on retention and recruitment of STEM teachers in high-need settings.
An evolutionary neural network approach to machining process planning: A proof of concept

Abstract Developments in high degree-of-freedom(DOF) manufacturing processes such as 5-axis machining and additive manufacturing have greatly moderated the design constraint and brought unprecedented manufacturing capability for parts in complex geometry. The advancement in manufacturing processes, at the same time, leads to significant challenges for process planning due to the increasing decision complexity. A method is needed to enable full automated process planning for high DOF manufacturing processes in the foreseeable future. This work focuses on exploring an artificial neural network(ANN) based approach for machining process planning, specifically the toolpath planning for milling operations. The objective of this research is to construct a framework for automated machining process planning that leverages the advancement in ANN methodologies in an attempt to generate an optimized toolpath without any human logic input. In this proposed framework, the voxel model is used as part design and stock geometry representations. An evolving ANN method NeuralEvolution of Augmenting Topologies(NEAT) is applied as the solution algorithm. A prototype implementation of the proposed framework is created and experimented with reasonably simplified machining scenarios and basic part geometries. Initial experiments demonstrate optimistic results supporting the feasibility of creating such an ANN through an evolutionary method to accomplish specific manufacturing requirements on different geometries. The work also revealed that the geometric input is a critical factor for successfully training an ANN model. Further work is needed to encode the part design geometric information as input. Additionally, an improved evolutionary ANN algorithm needs to be created to accelerate the model training.
Socially Assistive Robots for Storytelling and Other Activities to Support Aging in Place

This chapter addresses how socially assistive robots can assist older adults as they age in place. When examining challenges with aging in place, isolation is found across all locations a person chooses to grow old. Isolation arises due to a reduction in social network, reduction in the amount of time spent outside the home, or lack of social contact. We examine different technological solutions to assist older adults who decide to age inside their home and how they can be used to keep individuals safe. We then examine different systems to help older adults connect to their community and solutions to address isolation. Finally, we explore socially assistive robots and how they are being used to assist older adults. We feel socially assistive robotics will become increasingly popular as advancements in natural language processing are made which will allow robots to converse naturally with their users.
The Woman in the Water

PENELOPE IS THINKING: The night I am remembering marks the exact moment in my life when longing split off from desire. What is the difference be tween longing and desire? she thinks, and then she decides that longing is un connected with anything familiar or concrete, free-floating, she thinks, and smiles, but not, it would seem, with any pleasure. In her head, though twenty years have passed, more than half her life, it is as clear as it was back then: the black expanse of sky, brightly studded with stars, the blacker lake spreading out beyond them, lapping, lapping softly at the dusty shore, the dark thrust of pines behind them, and high above?the trestle, blackest of all, crossing the arm of the lake, stern and ab solute against the unspeakable tenderness ofthat warm late summer night. Penelope is wandering as she often does in early evening through the neighborhoods that spread out around the tiny alley where she lives in half a tiny house, a duplex she has shared for the past several weeks with a pock marked Indian boy, a prospective missionary who smells of marijuana, and before that, before the Navajo, an old woman who gardened, raised irises and roses, and who kept Penelope's tables, when the flowers were in bloom, richly adorned with her labor. Nearby in the neighborhoods the large frame houses seem mid western to Penelope, who has never been to the midwest and imagines it as wholesome and empty, endless acres of corn where red-cheeked children lose themselves and grow, somehow, into pa triotic adulthood. Penelope herself prefers the desert these days, mean land where life itself seems rare and therefore elegant. That night on the lake, the eve of Penelope's sixteenth birthday, it was beautiful, she was surrounded by friends who adored her, she was about to discover her sex, even that dry air, still rank with the dust raised by her boyfriend's parents' car, smelled of mystery and promise. Penelope cuts across an empty lot that she knows in several weeks will be overgrown with someone else's irises, for they are on the edge of yet an other spring, a season akin to desire she thinks, for you can name it, you know how it will be: sweet nights and all those flowers, the profusion of growing things, warmth. This was something that amazed her when she first came to Salt Lake City, all the flowers, and she marvels once again at how the people of this place, long ago in their history, turned the desert to
Proteolytic processing of egg-laying hormone-related precursors in Aplysia. Identification of peptide regions critical for biological activity.

The atrial gland of the marine mollusk Aplysia californica is an exocrine organ that expresses at least three genes belonging to the egg-laying hormone (ELH) family. In order to study the post-translational processing of the ELH-related gene products in the atrial gland and how it compares to the bag cells, peptides were isolated from the atrial gland and chemically characterized. The A- and B-related precursors were each cleaved in vivo to yield several major and minor peptides including peptides A and B and the ELH-related peptide complexes that caused egg laying. About 13% of the peptide complexes were further enzymically processed by the atrial gland to yield smaller fragments, which included A-AP.A-ELH-(15-36), A-AP.[Ala27]A-ELH-(15-36), and A-AP.[Gln23,Ala27]A-ELH-(16-36), where A-AP is an acidic peptide encoded by the A- and B-related genes and A-ELH is an ELH-related peptide encoded by the A gene. These processed peptide fragments were not active in an egg-laying bioassay, indicating that retention of the 14-residue NH2-terminal segment of the A-ELH-related sequence, or some portion thereof, was critical for the induction of egg laying. Other characterized peptides included two novel 13-residue NH2-terminal peptides, A-NTP and B-NTP, representing residues 22-34 of the A and B precursors, respectively. These two peptides occurred adjacent to the signal peptide region in each precursor, and their characterization established the site of signal peptide cleavage to be the Ser21-Gln22 peptide bond of each precursor. Intermediate peptide fragments (A-NTP-peptide A and B-NTP-peptide B) were also identified indicating that there was a specific ordering in the cleavage of peptide bonds during posttranslational processing. Finally, a new 55-residue atrial gland peptide was also isolated that was not a part of any ELH-related precursor characterized to date.
MNE competence-creating subsidiary mandates: an empirical investigation

The determinants of RD but for non-mandated subsidiaries R&D depends instead upon entry mode, and local demand conditions. A revised version of this paper has appeared in the Strategic Management Journal, Vol.26, No. 12, pp. 1109-1128, 2005.
SAR image-formation algorithm that compensates for the spatially variant effects of antenna motion

A synthetic aperture radar (SAR) obtains azimuth resolution by combining data from a number of points along a specified path. Uncompensated antenna motion that deviates significantly from the desired path produces spatially-variant errors in the output image. The algorithm presented in this paper corrects many of these motion-related errors. In this respect, it is similar to time-domain convolution, but it is more computationally efficient. The algorithm uses overlapped subapertures in a three- step image-formation process: course-resolution azimuth processing, fine-resolution range processing, and fine-resolution azimuth processing. Range migration is corrected after the first stage, based on coarse azimuth position. Prior to the final azimuth-compression step, data coordinates are determined to fine resolution in range and coarse resolution in azimuth. This coordinate information is combined with measured motion data to generate a phase correction that removes spatially-variant errors. The algorithm is well-suited for real-time applications, particularly where large flight-path deviations must be tolerated.
The Role of Gestures and Facial Cues in Second Language Listening Comprehension

This study investigated the contribution of gestures and facial cues to second-language learners' listening comprehension of a videotaped lecture by a native speaker of English. A total of 42 low-intermediate and advanced learners of English as a second language were randomly assigned to 3 stimulus conditions: AV-gesture-face (audiovisual including gestures and face), AV-face (no gestures), and Audio-only. Results of a multiple-choice comprehension task revealed significantly better scores with visual cues for both proficiency levels. For the higher level, the AV-face condition produced the highest scores; for the lower level, AV-gesture-face showed the best results. Questionnaire responses revealed positive attitudes toward visual cues, demonstrating their effectiveness as components of face-to-face interactions.
Microvisualization of corrosion

Localized corrosion continues to be a major cause of degradation failure in a wide variety of technological applications. The propagation stage of failure is no longer a fundamentally difficult job to characterize for pits and stress corrosion cracks, for example. It is the initiation stage that remains difficult to characterize, arising in part because of the difficulty in being able to predict where and when localized attack will occur. Recent developments in scanned probe techniques have created renewed interest in this problem. The present paper will describe some of the recent advances in optical, electrochemical and photoelectrochemical techniques that are directed at providing local information on precursor sites and vulnerable areas on metal and semiconductor surfaces.