cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Relationship Between Lexical Boundaries and Speech Production Behavior in Children.

Abstract: The relationship between lexical boundary position and the incidence of correct /s/ production in the spontaneous speech of children inconsistently producing that phoneme was investigated. A significantly greater incidence of incorrect production was found for pre-boundary /s/, when other phonemic contextual influences were controlled, than for /s/ in other lexical positions. The results indicate that lexical position is related to articulatory inconsistencies in child speech and raise questions regarding present models of speech production and perception.
Automated Speech Emotion Recognition on Smart Phones

The emergence of Speech Emotion Recognition (SER) as a focal point of research into speech processing reflects its significance in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). It is core required functionality for a variety of applications and a high degree of accuracy is critical; activities as diverse as evaluating levels of emotion in children in care and measuring customer satisfaction. The extent of demand for accurate SER is reflected in the significant number of papers that have been published and studies performed. An innovative approach to speech recognition is presented in this paper centered on a cloud model alongside the conventional system for measuring emotion in speech. There are multiple stages involved in detecting and identifying emotions in speech from audio clips. The initial pre-processing stage detects the speech in the audio file and applies noise reduction. Next, the system uses Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) algorithms to extract features.This process results in the creation of testing and training datasets populated with the emotions: Neutral, Happiness, Sadness, Fear, Surprise, Disgust and Anger. The classification stage utilizes Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers to identify the emotion. An additional step implements a Confusion Matrix (CM) method to assess how these classifiers performed. Testing was executed against RAVDESS and SAVEE databases, where the detection rate achieved against the RAVDESS database was 95.3%.
Child Helpers : A Multidisciplinary Perspective

In most of the worlds' distinct cultures, children – from toddlerhood – eagerly volunteer to help others with their chores. Laboratory research in child psychology supports the claim that the helper “stage” is biologically based. This Element examines the development of helping in varied cultural contexts, in particular, reviewing evidence for supportive environments in the ethnographic record versus an environment that extinguishes the drive to be helpful in WEIRD children. In the last section, the benefits of the helper stage are discussed, specifically the development of an ability to work and learn collaboratively.
2003 Association of Pre-Operative Uterine Dimensions and Success of Contained Morcellation Following Minimally Invasive Hysterectomy

Study Objective To determine if uterine dimensions on pre-operative imaging are associated with success of contained morcellation during minimally invasive hysterectomy. Design Canadian Task Force Classification Level of Evidence II-2 Setting Surgical patients in a single metropolitan academic institution. Patients or Participants Patients undergoing laparoscopic or robotic hysterectomy and requiring morcellation for specimen extraction from March 2017 through April 2019 Interventions At the completion of surgery, a contained extraction system was inserted, and the specimen was placed within the bag. Manual morcellation was performed vaginally, abdominally, or via a combination of both methods in cases of failed vaginal extraction. Morcellation times were recorded. Medical records were reviewed to abstract demographic and clinical data. Measurements and Main Results A total of 39 patients were treated. Median age was 47 (range 25 – 70) and mean length of stay was 0.74 days. There were no conversions to laparotomy, readmissions, or surgical site infections within 30 days after surgery. Morcellation was performed vaginally for 24 patients (61.5%), abdominally for 10 patients (25.6%), and via combined approach for 5 patients (12.8%). Largest uterine dimension on imaging was median 12.6 centimeters (range 6 – 19.7) in the vaginal group, 11.9 (7.2 – 20) in the abdominal group, and 16.4 (14.1 – 23) in the combined group (p=0.046). Both morcellation time (mean 19.7 minutes vaginal, 38.9 abdominal, 78.6 combined; p Conclusion Larger uterine dimensions are associated with failed vaginal extraction, and pre-operative imaging can assist with surgical decision-making. Providers need to be deliberate when choosing route of specimen removal, as morcellation and total operating time significantly increase when vaginal morcellation is unsuccessful.
A Brief Motivational Intervention to Address Intimate Partner Violence Victimization: A Pilot Study:

Purpose:Intimate partner violence (IPV) is public health crisis that often goes unrecognized. Victims often report ongoing long-term physical and mental health consequences; however, health-care re...
Effective gmp-compliant point of care manufacturing of anticd19 chimeric antigen receptor t cells for non hodgkin lymphoma patients using the clinimacs prodigy®

Background & Aim Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cells (CAR Ts) have shown promising results in clinical studies to treat lymphomas, however clinical scale GMP-compliant manufacturing of CAR T cells can be challenging and unreproducible. We successfully manufactured autologous lentiviral anti-CD19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells for 18 relapsed or refractory patients in an investigator initiated Phase I clinical trial using the CliniMACS Prodigy®. Methods, Results & Conclusion T-Cells were isolated, transduced (LV-anti-CD19 CAR, Lentigen Technology, Inc.), and expanded in culture for 8 or 12 days. All 18 cultures met cell dose and safety requirements. Fifteen cultures were expanded for 12 days, then the culture time was reduced to 8 days to facilitate treatment to patients in an expedited manner. The 12 day cultures had a mean transduction efficiency of 48± 0.1% (range 29-62), a mean of 42-fold expansion ± 12 (range 30-78), and the mean number of CAR T+ cells at the end of culture was 2 × 109± 0.8 × 109. The 8 day cultures had a mean transduction efficiency of 42%, a mean of 12 fold expansion, and the mean CAR T+ cells at the end of culture was .6 × 109 cells. There were no manufacturing failures. For all patients, a predominance of CD8 cells was observed in the leukapheresis and post enrichment product. However, the phenotype of the infused products had a 2 fold increase of CD4 CAR T+ cells: CD8 CAR T+ cells. CAR T products were infused fresh for 16 patients and 2 received cryopreserved products. While the frequency of CAR T+ cells was not affected by freeze thaw, a decrease in T-effector memory cells was observed after thaw. All cultures were transduced with an MOI of 20 and had a mean vector copy number of .9 copies/cell. Patients monitored post infusion for vector persistence through proviral qPCR and flow cytometry show peak expression of CAR T+ cells between 6 days and 21 days post infusion, with most patients peaking around 14 days post infusion. To date, detectable vector has persisted for up to 12 months. Lastly, our CAR T products were tested for potency and showed a dose-dependent cytotoxicity towards CD19+ cancer cell lines in vitro. In conclusion, GMP-compliant anti-CD19 Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells can efficiently be manufactured using the CliniMACS Prodigy in as few as 8 days, resulting in a potent cell product and an expedited treatment for patients.
21 – Interactions of Biological Membranes and Structures

This chapter presents a detailed study of the interactions of biological membranes and structures. The interactions of biomolecular assemblies are highly complex in nature. This chapter reviews how some of the forces arise in complex fluid and biological systems. It also examines how nonspecific interactions combine to give rise to highly specific interactions, and how they act together in regulating the organization and morphologies of biological structures. The chapter takes into consideration the nonequilibrium or dynamic aspects of these interactions since biological systems are living systems, and their interactions are never at equilibrium, even in the steady state where a constant supply of energy is required. The chapter begins with a discussion on van der Waals, electrostatic, and DLVO forces. It then explains the concepts of repulsive entropic forces, attractive depletion forces, and attractive hydrophobic forces. Interdependence of intermembranes and intramembrane forces in biological membranes and structures is then explained. The chapter concludes with a discussion on membrane fusion and bioadhesion.
Estimating one-sided-killings from a robust measurement model of human rights:

Counting repressive events is difficult because state leaders have an incentive to conceal actions of their subordinates and destroy evidence of abuse. In this article, we extend existing latent va...
Breakthroughs in computational design methods open up new frontiers for de novo protein engineering.

Proteins catalyze the majority of chemical reactions in organisms, and harnessing this power has long been the focus of the protein engineering field. Computational protein design aims to create new proteins and functions in silico, and in doing so, accelerate the process, reduce costs and enable more sophisticated engineering goals to be accomplished. Challenges that very recently seemed impossible are now within reach thanks to several landmark advances in computational protein design methods. Here, we summarize these new methods, with a particular emphasis on de novo protein design advancements occurring within the past 5 years.
Global Progress Toward Renewable Electricity: Tracking the Role of Solar

Renewable electricity is growing rapidly, with solar electricity growing relatively faster than any other fuel source in the last ten years. As the world accelerates its transition to clean energy, it is useful to track the rate of growth, but the data are tracked in different ways from different sources. This periodic publication collects data from multiple sources and presents it systematically as a convenient reference for IEEE JPV readers.
Time-based arithmetic using step functions

We describe a set of basic circuit building blocks for computation using an analog temporal step function representation for the inputs and outputs. Methods for computing weighted averages and thresholded differences are described. These techniques have advantages as CMOS process technologies scale since they minimize the analog circuitry required. We show an example of a time-based edge detector that directly interfaces to the output of a time-to-first spike imager.
The consequences of imitative behavior in children: the "Evel Knievel syndrome".

Televised violence, especially during sporting events and news reporting, is increasingly implicated in imitative and aggressive behavior exhibited by children. This behavior often results in severe injury. We are all aware of the numerous injuries sustained by children participating in such contact sports as ice hockey and football, yet the number of such injuries due to identification with sports heroes and imitation of their exploits is unknown. The corresponding literature on this aspect of imitative behavior is nonexistent. During the late summer and fall of 1974, the daredevil exploits of Evel Knievel received extensive media coverage, especially on the sports segments of television news programs.
International Public Goods and Transfer of Technology under a Globalized Intellectual Property Regime: Proprietary Rights and Collective Action: The Case of Biotechnology Research with Low Commercial Value

In areas of cumulative research such as biotechnology, broad patents on fundamental research tools have the potential to create impediments to follow-on research and development. Impediments to R&D may also be created by possible thickets of upstream rights. Whether such impediments actually arise in any given case is of course an empirical question. From an empirical standpoint, the net impact of recent increases in upstream biotechnology rights is far from clear. It is fair to say, however, that one standard market solution to rights thickets - the reduction of transaction costs through collective institutions that pool and exchange rights - has not emerged. Rather, in the commercial arena, significant transaction costs and licensing fees have simply become part of the cost of doing business. Although these costs may have reduced profits, foreseeable sales revenues have been sufficiently high that the profit incentive has not been eliminated. In contrast, when follow-on research is conducted in the university context, or by non-profit institutions that target the developing world, foreseeable payoffs are either highly uncertain or are clearly small. In these contexts, large transaction and licensing costs may pose a more pressing problem. However, at least in the context of low-margin research that targets the developing world, there is reason to be optimistic that the standard solution of collective rights management will actually work. When the follow-on research in question is of demonstrably low commercial value, there is no reason for upstream rightsholders to fear that they are foregoing large downstream rents. Thus, even though conditions in the biotechnology sector may, as a general matter, work against collective action, low-margin research should be an exception. Non-profit institutions such as universities that are highly sensitive to reputational pressures should be the easiest players to enlist. Fortunately, in both agricultural and health-related biotechnology, non-profit institutions own a significant percentage of upstream patents.
A Document as a Web Service: Two Complementary Frameworks

An electronic document may provide more information than its paper-based counter part. For example, in addition to text and images, a scientific document may consist of either the rawdata or software that substantiates its hypothesis, ontology of its terms, a detailed comparison with its relatedwork, etc. In this study, we explore: a) an environment that represents a document as a Web Service, and b) two alternative frameworks that facilitate discovery and retrieval of documents, namely, Jini and UDDI. We describe how each framework supports documents that reside on a cluster of nodes. These nodes might be dispersed across the Internet or in geographical proximity using an Intranet setting. In addition to detailing discovery and retrieval of documents, we describe how each framework supports data availability in the presence of load imbalance and node failures. One finding of this study is that these two frameworks are complementary and can be used in conjunction with one another.
Hippocampal Population Activity during the Small-Amplitude Irregular Activity State in the Rat

The sleeping rat cycles between two well-characterized physiological states, slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid-eye-movement sleep (REM), often identified by the presence of large-amplitude irregular activity (LIA) and theta activity, respectively, in the hippocampal EEG. Inspection of the activity of ensembles of hippocampal CA1 complex-spike cells along with the EEG reveals the presence of a third physiological state within SWS. We characterize the hippocampal EEG and population activity of this third state relative to theta activity and LIA, its incidence relative to REM and LIA, and the functional correlates of its population activity. This state occurs repeatedly within stretches of SWS, occupying ∼33% of SWS and ∼20% of total sleep, and it follows nearly every REM episode; however, it never occurs just before a REM episode. The EEG during this state becomes low in amplitude for a few seconds, probably corresponding to “small-amplitude irregular activity” (SIA) described in the literature; we will call its manifestation during sleep “S-SIA.” During S-SIA, a small subset of cells becomes active, whereas the rest remain nearly silent, with the same subset of cells active across long sequences of S-SIA episodes. These cells are physiologically indistinguishable from ordinary complex-spike cells; thus, the question arises as to whether they have any special functional correlates. Indeed, many of these cells are found to have place fields encompassing the location where the rat sleeps, raising the possibility that S-SIA is a state of increased alertness in which the animal9s location in the environment is represented in the brain.
Memory Adaptive Reasoning & Greedy Assignment Techniques for the Capacitated Minimum Spanning Tree Problem

It is the purpose of this paper to investigate effects of adding randomization to a memory-based heuristic. The algorithms we propose are applied to the Capacitated Minimum Spanning Tree problem (CMST), and we study the combined effects of simultaneously applying a memory-based and a randombased heuristic to the CMST. This paper uses the Adaptive Reasoning Technique (ART) and concepts from the greedy randomized adaptive search procedure for solving the CMST. The resulting hybrid procedure is tested against the stand-alone Esau-Williams heuristic procedure, as well as the stand-alone greedy assignment technique. We find that randomization does not constructively add to the memory-based procedure, as ART alone typically outperforms all other approaches in terms of solution quality, while expending a modest amount of computational effort.
Simultaneous multithreading-based routers

This work considers the use of an SMT (simultaneous multithreading) processor in lieu of the conventional processor(s) in a router and evaluates quantitatively the potential gains as a result. An SMT processor exploits the benefits of both ILP (instruction level parallelism) and TLP (thread-level parallelism), suitable for the next generation routers, in which an increased number of functions are to be implemented. The use of an SMT processor not only allows router functions to be decomposed into multiple threads but also designates separate threads to handle different incoming traffic streams of a router to exploit TLP, potentially attaining performance improvement. Additionally, an SMT processor may admit new router functions or added traffic streams relatively easily without compromising much existing performance levels, via including a new thread (or threads) to perform one newly added function or traffic stream. This router design appears to have better flexibility and adaptability. In order to assess the benefits of this design approach, we implemented three key router functions (i.e., packet header extraction, packet header manipulation, and longest-prefix matching) as threads using an SMT simulator (SMTSIM) for performance evaluation. The results of this router design approach are collected and compared with those of conventional routers.
Life test design for retired xEV batteries aiming at smart home applications

This paper provides a comprehensive study on the life test method of the retired xEV(PHEV/HEV/EV) battery pack for smart house energy storage applications. First, the paper proposes a detailed model for a energy management system supported smart house. By utilizing historical household load data and Photo Voltaic (PV) panel power generation data, a 96-hour close-to-real mission profile of the battery pack was generated for the smart house application. Next, based on the simulated battery pack mission profile, a life test design method for smart house energy storage application was illustrated in detail. In order to implementing the designed test profile, a platform for battery pack test was configured. It includes a high power hardware test system and a CAN communication based SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system. Data measurement/recording method and safety precautions of the test were discussed. Test result on a real battery pack is presented at the end of this paper.
Freud on “Mind”-“Body” II: Drive, Motivation, Meaning, History, and Freud’s Psychological Heuristic; with Clinical and Everyday Examples

It is for convenience only that I am presenting Freud’s more-purely psychological concepts and heuristic in a separate chapter. In actuality, as we have already seen to some extent; the psychoneurobiological/“instinctual” and psychogenetic/dynamic facets of Freud’s thinking went–and were often presented–hand-in-hand. At the outset of this essay, I demonstrate some of the linkages between the two. These are not subsequently reiterated; though the reader should bear them constantly in mind.
The relationship between task-related and subsequent memory effects

The primary aim of this fMRI study was to assess the proposal that negative subsequent memory effects-greater activity for later forgotten relative to later remembered study items-are localized to regions demonstrating task-negative effects, and hence to potential components of the default mode network. Additionally, we assessed whether positive subsequent memory effects overlapped with regions demonstrating task-positive effects. Eighteen participants were scanned while they made easy or difficult relational judgments on visually presented word pairs. Easy and hard task blocks were interleaved with fixation-only rest periods. In the later unscanned test phase, associative recognition judgments were required on intact word pairs (studied pairs), rearranged pairs (pairs formed from words presented on different study trials) and new pairs. Subsequent memory effects were identified by contrasting the activity elicited by study pairs that went on to be correctly endorsed as intact versus incorrectly endorsed as rearranged. Task effects were identified by contrasting all study items and rest blocks. Both task-negative and task-positive effects were evident in widespread cortical regions and negative and positive subsequent memory effects were generally confined to task-negative and task-positive regions respectively. However, subsequent memory effects could be identified in only a fraction of task-sensitive voxels and, unlike task effects, were insensitive to the difficulty manipulation. The findings for the negative subsequent memory effects are consistent with recent proposals that the default mode network is functionally heterogeneous, and suggest that these effects are not accurately characterized as reflections of the modulation of the network as a whole.
Fetal rabbit gastric epithelial cells cultured on floating collagen gels

Cells were isolated from ∼ 30 d fetal rabbit stomachs and cultured on floating collagen gels. Electron microscopy showed monolayers in which only one cell type persisted. These columnar cells were joined at apical borders by tight junctions and contained an extensive endoplasmic reticular network with an occasional intracellular canaliculus. They also occasionally contained what appeared to be secretory granules (mucus?), and therefore had some characteristics of all the cell types of the intact fetal stomachs, which showed oxyntic, mucous, and undifferentiated cells. In Ussing chambers with Ringer's solution on both sides, cultures developed transepithelial potential (potential difference [PD], mV, mucosa ground)=13, resistance (resistance [R], Ω-cm2)=285, and short-circuit current (Isc, μA/cm2)=45 (n=7), clearly indicating that cellular polarity and junctional integrity were maintained. These transport parameters were somewhat different for intact fetal stomachs (PD=20, R=70, and Isc=220 [n=4]), which may be due to extensive folding of intact fetal stomachs or the presence of only one cell type in culture, or both. Although gastric stimulants histamine, dibutyryl cycle AMP (dbcAMP), and isobutyl-methylxanthine (IMX) (a phosphodiesterase inhibitor) did not elicit H+ secretion or electrophysiological changes in monolayers or intact stomachs, 10−4M apical amiloride caused a decrease in Isc in cultured monolayers (27%) and intact stomachs (50%). Thus, Na+ transport seems to be a significant fraction of ion transport in both preparations. This culture system may allow the study of oxyntic cell differentiation and the development of H+, Na+, and Cl− transport in the gastric mucosa.
Induction of Multiple Synapses by Experience in the Visual Cortex of Adult Rats

This study examined experience effects upon the formation of multiple synaptic contacts among individual dendritic and axonal elements. Axonal boutons and dendritic spines forming contacts with more than one process were assessed within layer IV of the visual cortex in adult rats following 60 days of housing in standard laboratory cages (IC) or in complex environments (EC). Multiple synaptic boutons (MSBs) that formed synaptic contacts with both a dendritic spine and a dendritic shaft were found to be markedly increased in number per neuron in EC rats in comparison to those in IC rats. In contrast, single-synaptic contacts were not increased, indicating that the formation of new single-synaptic boutons is, at most, merely sufficient to replace boutons that may have been recruited into the population of MSBs. This apparent tendency to reutilize presynaptic processes may indicate a constraint upon the formation of neural circuitry and a fundamental form of plastic synaptic change.
Bounded Baer-levi semigroups

Let p and q be infinite cardinal numbers, p ≧ q, X a set of cardinality p , and BL(X, p, q) the Baer-Levi semigroup of type (p, q) on X . Subsemigroups of BL(X, p, q) are defined and called bounded Baer-Levi semigroups. These semigroups are right simple and are universal in the embedding sense for the class of idempotent-free, right cancellative semigroups S so that any two elements of S have a common right identity in S . Further properties of bounded Baer-Levi semigroups are given and the structure of their lattices of congruences is discussed.
In-vivo optical detection of brain tumor and tumor margin: a combined auto-fluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectroscopic study

Recently, optical spectroscopy has shown considerable promise to be used as a potential clinical tool for human brain tumor detection and therapeutic guidance. Our group showed for the first time the possibility of using combined autofluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and established its applicability for human brain tumor demarcation in previous in vitro and in vivo studies. We report in this paper the results of a clinical study designed to further evaluate the efficacy of the approach for demarcation of brain tumors and tumor margins from normal brain tissues in intra-operative clinical setting. Using a portable system, optical spectra were collected from the brain of 110 patients undergoing craniotomy at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Spectral measurements were taken from multiple sites of tumor core, tumor margin and normal areas of brain tissues and the resulting spectra were correlated with the corresponding histopathologic diagnosis. Using histology as the gold standard, a probabilistic multi-class diagnostic algorithm was developed to simultaneously distinguish tumor core and tumor margin from normal brain tissue sites using independent training and validation sets of data. An unbiased estimate of the accuracy of the model indicates that combined autofluorescence and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy was able to distinguish tumor core and tumor margin from normal brain tissues with an average predictive accuracy of ~88%.
The structural assimilation of in-migrants to Lima Peru.

The rate of urban growth is extremely high in many less developed countries particularly in Latin America and tends to be more pronounced in the large metropolitan areas than in the smaller urban centers. This rapid growth is attributable to three factors: the growth and subsequent reclassification of previously smaller communities a positive rate of reproductive change among the already existing urban population and massive in-migration (Weller et al. 1971). The magnitude of the latter factor rural-urban migration may be seen in Ducoff’s (1965:202-204) estimate that between 1950 and 1960 there was a net rural-urban migration in Brazil of 6.8 million persons and that there was a rural-urban net migration of over 14 million persons in all of Latin America during that same decade. There appears to be two effects of in-migration upon metropolitan growth. The direct effect can be seen in the number of additional persons that the migrants themselves represent. An illustration of this may be found in the metropolitan area of San Salvador where Ducoff (1962) estimates that 42 percent of the total population were not born there. Other indications of the strength of the direct effect of in-migration upon metropolitan growth may be found in Republica del Peru (1966:23) Simmons and Cardona (1970; 1972) and Browning and Feindt (1968). The indirect effect of in-migrants refers to any children born to in-migrants after they have migrated. Thus Martine (1969; 1972) estimates that female in-migrants account for 45-50 percent of all pregnancies in Guanabara Brazil. (excerpt)
Eine Beobachtung der Gleichgewichtsreaktion 2 MM⇄ M4(M=Übergangsmetall); Synthese und Struktur von Hexaisopropoxydiwolfram und seinem Dimer

Observation of 2M≡M⇄M 4 equilibrium reaction (M=transition metal), synthesis and structure of hexaisopropoxyditungsten and its dimer Observation de la reaction 2M≡M⇄M 4 a l'equilibre (M=metal de transition); synthese et structure de l'hexaisopropoxyditungstene et de son dimere
Maternal expression increases the rate of bicoid evolution by relaxing selective constraint.

Population genetic theory predicts that maternal effect genes will evolve differently than genes expressed in both sexes because selection is only half as effective on autosomal genes expressed in one sex but not the other. Here, we use sequences of the tandem gene duplicates, bicoid (bcd) and zerknullt (zen), to test the prediction that, with similar coefficients of purifying selection, a maternal effect gene evolves more rapidly than a zygotic gene because of this reduction in selective constraint. We find that the maternal effect gene, bcd, is evolving more rapidly than zygotically expressed, zen, providing the first direct confirmation of this prediction of maternal effect theory from molecular evidence. Our results extend current explanations for the accelerated rate of bcd evolution by providing an evolutionary mechanism, relaxed selective constraint, that allows bcd the evolutionary flexibility to escape the typical functional constraints of early developmental genes. We discuss general implications of our findings for the role of maternal effect genes in early developmental patterning.
Effect of cold work on the oxidation of FeCr alloys in water vapour at 600°C

Abstract Annealed and abraded specimens of Fe containing 0–26% Cr were oxidized in water vapour-argon at 600°C and the oxidation measured by the gain in weight. Cold work improved the oxidation resistance of high-Cr alloys by suppressing internal oxidation. With low-Cr alloys, annealed and abraded specimens both show internal oxidation and there is no beneficial effect of cold work; a short-term deleterious effect is observed. The oxidation of unalloyed Fe in water vapour was not affected by cold work.
Reducing nonpoint source pollution through collaboration: policies and programs across the U.S. States.

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution has emerged as the largest threat to water quality in the United States, influencing policy makers and resource managers to direct more attention toward NPS prevention and remediation. In response, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) spent more than $204 million in fiscal year (FY) 2006 on the Clean Water Act’s Section 319 program to combat NPS pollution, much of it on the development and implementation of watershed-based plans. State governments have also increasingly allocated financial and technical resources to collaborative watershed efforts within their own borders to fight NPS pollution. With increased collaboration among the federal government, states, and citizens to combat NPS pollution, more information is needed to understand how public resources are being used, by whom, and for what, and what policy changes might improve effectiveness. Analysis from a 50-state study suggests that, in addition to the average 35% of all Section 319 funds per state that are passed on to collaborative watershed groups, 35 states have provided financial assistance beyond Section 319 funding to support collaborative watershed initiatives. State programs frequently provide technical assistance and training, in addition to financial resources, to encourage collaborative partnerships. Such assistance is typically granted in exchange for requirements to generate a watershed action plan and/or follow a mutually agreed upon work plan to address NPS pollution. Program managers indicated a need for greater fiscal resources and flexibility to achieve water quality goals.
Who's Who in Conservation Biology—an Authorship Analysis

: As the flagship journal of the field, Conservation Biology represents a multidisciplinary, global constituency of conservation professionals—a constituency composed of more than 5200 authors representing 1500 organizations and 89 countries. Using bibliometric records of research published in Conservation Biology, I evaluated trends in authorship of research papers from 1987 to 2005. Authorship diversified and became increasingly collaborative over time. North Americans now compose one-half of primary authorship, down from 75% in the 1990s, and European primary authors contribute a quarter of the journal's contributed research. Forty-five countries were represented in volume 19 of the journal. The top three most-cited authors are Australian. The percentage of single-authored papers declined from 57% in 1987 to 18% in 2005. Collectively, academic institutions contribute the most research to Conservation Biology, although a government agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, was the single most-productive organization. The maturing of conservation biology as a discipline, the complex geographic and multidisciplinary nature of conservation questions, and the increased ease of communication in a technologically connected world contribute to the increasingly diverse and collaborative Conservation Biology authorship. Resumen: Como la revista lider en el campo, Conservation Biology representa a una comunidad global de profesionales de la conservacion—una comunidad compuesta por mas de 5200 autores representando 1500 organizaciones y 89 paises. Utilizando registros bibliometricos de investigaciones publicadas en Conservation Biology, evalue las tendencias en las autorias de los articulos originales publicados entre 1987 y 2005. Las autorias se diversificaron y se volvieron mas cooperativas a lo largo del tiempo. Los norteamericanos ahora componen la mitad de la autoria primaria, cuando en la decada de 1990 tenian 75%, y autores primarios europeos contribuyen con la cuarta parte de los articulos originales de la revista. En el volumen 19 de la revista estuvieron representados 45 paises. Los tres autores mas citados son australianos. El porcentaje de articulos de un solo autor declino de 57% en 1987 a 18% en 2005. Colectivamente, las instituciones academicas aportan la mayor parte de la investigacion a Conservation Biology, aunque una agencia gubernamental, el Servicio Forestal de E.U.A., fue la organizacion individual mas productiva. La maduracion de la biologia de la conservacion como disciplina, la naturaleza geograficamente compleja y multidisciplinaria de las preguntas de conservacion y el incremento de las facilidades de comunicacion en un mundo tecnologicamente conectado contribuyen a las autorias cada vez mas diversas y cooperativas de Conservation Biology.
Observations in the time and frequency domains of surface electromyograms of experimental brief teeth clenching in man

Summary Maximum voluntary teeth clenching was performed for about 1 s to study the interactions between subjective sensory-motor events and changes in the time and frequency domains of surface electromyograms of the masseter and anterior temporalis muscle. Isometric jaw muscle contractions were examined for their speeds of contraction, the total energy content and median frequency of their power density spectra, and for the specific rate of change and the efficiency of their voluntary and involuntary activation efforts. The observations suggested that, in general, brief maximum isometric contractions were not preprogrammed, but rather were regulated by a subconscious proprioceptive feedback mechanism; the mechanism, possibly a transcortical loop, appeared to have a low gain and to be based on recruitment/decruitment of motor units.
Fibroblast growth factors are present in the extracellular matrix produced by endothelial cells invitro: Implications for a role of heparinase-like enzymes in the neovascular response

Abstract Salt extracts of the extracellular matrix (ECM) that is produced by vascular and capillary endothelial cells contain mitogens that are indistin-guishable from basic and acidic fibroblast growth factors (FGFs). The biological activity found in these extracts is retained by heparin-Sepharose affinity columns and elutes with salt concentrations similar to those required to elute FGFs (i.e. 1.1 – 2M NaCl). Antisera raised against synthetic fragments of basic and acidic FGF crossreact with the ECM-derived mitogens. Radioiodinated basic FGF binds to the ECM formed by both vascular and capillary endothelial cells, a result that is consistent with the observation that FGF-like mitogens are found on the ECM. The binding of FGF to the ECM is negligible when the ECM has been pretreated with heparinase or heparitinase suggesting that the mitogen is interacting with a heparin-like glycosaminoglycan in the ECM. The digestion of the ECM with several grades of hyaluronidase, chondroitinase or chondro-4-sulfatase or chondro-6-sulfatase has little or no effect on 125 I-FGF binding to the ECM. In view of the fact that many, if not all cells, produce heparan sulfates and that these glycosaminoglycans are associated with the external surface of the cell and the ECM, a model is proposed suggesting that the neovascular response induced by tumours and some normal tissues may be mediated at least in part, by the initial release of heparinase-like enzymes rather than angiogenic factors (FGFs) per se. The release of these enzymes would effectively mobilize a secondary local release of FGF from the ECM which then induces a proliferative response.
Morphological Algorithms For The Analysis Of Pavement Structure

The applicability of morphological image processing techniques for the description of condition and analysis of pavement surfaces is examined. Morphological techniques can be used in the measurement of pavement media consisting of grain (aggregates) and binding substances (bituminous or Portland cement mixtures). Measurements of size and size distributions on surface features related to texture and distresses can be obtained via morphological opening and closing transformations and distributions. When correlated with actual physical measurements of such quantities, the presented morphological measures of size and size distributions may prove to be useful in characterizing the surface condition of both asphalt and concrete pavement structures.
Effects of unilateral subthalamic and pallidal deep brain stimulation on fine motor functions in Parkinson's disease

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for selected patients with disabling Parkinson's disease (PD). The two main targets are the subthalamic nucleus (STN) and the globus pallidus internus (GPi), although it has not been established whether stimulation at one target is superior to the other. This prospective randomized study assessed the effects of unilateral DBS of the STN versus GPi on fine motor skills in 33 patients with advanced PD. Stimulation of either the STN (18 subjects) or GPi (15 subjects) in the off medication state significantly improved movement time and dexterity, but had little or no effect on reaction time. Overall, the extent of improvement did not differ between the two targets. The degree of improvement in movement time, but not dexterity, was correlated with the extent of preoperative medication responsiveness. Our findings suggest that DBS of the STN or GPi results in a similar improvement in hand movements at short-term follow-up. Preoperative medication responsiveness predicts improvement in some but not other motor tasks.
Errors inherent in the restoration of imagery acquired through remotely sensed refractive interfaces and scattering media

The restoration of images acquired by viewing through refractive and scattering media, such as the atmosphere, ocean surface, and seawater, is complicated by refractive errors at the arbitrarily corrugated interface. Additional perturbations in the received image can result from scattering within the transmissive media, as well as customary systematic errors. A restoration algorithm specific to imagery distorted by refraction and multiple scattering has been presented in an earlier paper which proposed the use of laser radar (LIDAR) reflectometry to estimate the refractive surface topography. In the previous algorithm, the reduction of degradations due to multiple scattering in seawater was described in terms of inverse filtering. In this study, the authors generalize the analysis to include a variety of media and sensor configurations. Environmental and systematic errors are quantified in terms of a statistical function which may be expressed as a frequency-domain filter that can be deconvolved from the reconstructed image. Example images are presented which verify the predicted quality of restoration, as a function of resolution and error constraints.© (1991) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Khawkinea quartana, a Colorless Euglenoid Flagellate. I. Ultrastructure

SYNOPSIS Khawkinea quartana, a naturally occurring colorless homologue of Euglena, was examined with the electron microscope. The organism is biflagellate though only one of the 2 flagella emerges from the anterior reservoir. The pellicular strips covering the body of the organism are supported by microtubules which are continuous in part with microtubules bordering the reservoir. Additional rows of microtubules are found associated with the kinetosomes. An eyespot is located in the wall of the reservoir and, adjacent to it, the contractile vacuole. The nucleus, mitochondria, and Golgi complexes are similar to those described in other euglenoid flagellates. The food reserve is paramylon. The study supports the phylogenetic origin of Khawkinea from pigmented Euglena through the loss of chloroplasts.
Numerical Calculations of Heat Conduction Between Soot Aggregates and the Surrounding Gas in the Free-Molecular Regime Using the DSMC Method

Numerical calculations were conducted to calculate the heat conduction rate between soot (carbon) aggregates of different sizes and the surrounding gas in the free-molecular regime using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. This method is based on simulation of the trajectories of individual molecules and calculation of the heat transfer at each of the molecule/molecule collisions and the molecule/particle collisions. Soot aggregates of known fractal dimension and pre-factor are first numerically generated using a cluster-cluster aggregation algorithm. Effect of incomplete thermal accommodation was accounted for by employing the Maxwell gas-surface interaction model. Gas collisions were treated using the simple hard sphere model. Numerical results were obtained for aggregate sizes between 10 and 228 primary particles and the thermal accommodation coefficient between 0.1 and 1. A simple scaling for the heat transfer equivalent sphere diameter was also presented for incorporation into a laser-induced incandescence model.Copyright © 2005 by National Research Council of Canada
Exhalation of radon and thoron: the question of the effect of thermal gradients in soil

Abstract Experimental measurements show no evidence for diurnal variation in exhalation of radon and thoron from soil due to convection induced by thermal gradients in the top few decimeters of soil as suggested by several authors. Estimates based on convective calculations indicate that even in the unlikely event of either vertical temperature gradients large enough to cause vertical instability, or horizontal gradients sufficient to cause significant convection, any effect would be too small to be detected. These same calculations suggest that it is difficult to conceive of cases involving typical thermal gradients in unfractured porous media such as soil where thermally induced convection would play an important role in transport of radon or thoron.
Distribution patterns of different P2x receptor phenotypes in acutely dissociated dorsal root ganglion neurons of adult rats

P2x receptors may be used to detect ATP release from tissues during physiological and pathological conditions. We used whole-cell patch clamp recordings to study the expression of P2x receptor phenotypes, their distribution patterns, and their sensitivity to αβmATP and suramin in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons acutely dissociated from adult rats. Based on the onset and decay rates of 10 µM ATP-evoked currents, we showed three types of P2x currents: fast, slow, and mixed. Each of these P2x receptor phenotypes had a distinct distribution pattern among DRG neurons. The fast P2x currents were predominantly expressed in small-diameter, isolectin-B4 (IB4)-positive, and capsaicin-sensitive DRG neurons. The slow P2x currents were expressed in both small and medium DRG neurons, and about half of them were IB4 positive. The mixed P2x currents were also expressed in both small and medium-sized DRG neurons, and most of these neurons were IB4-positive neurons. The slow and mixed P2x current groups had both capsaicin-sensitive and -insensitive DRG neurons. All phenotypes revealed with 10 µM ATP could be inhibited by 30 µM suramin. All DRG neurons with fast or mixed P2x currents were also sensitive to 10 µM αβmATP, and αβmATP evoked currents similar to those induced by ATP. The group expressing slow P2x currents could be further divided into αβmATP-sensitive and -insensitive groups. Thus, the relationships among P2x receptor phenotypes, cell sizes, IB4 positivity, and capsaicin sensitivity are more complicated than previously thought, and different P2x receptors may be involved in both nociceptive and non-nociceptive functions.