cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Microstrip patch antenna for simultaneous strain and temperature sensing

A patch antenna, consisting of a radiation patch, a dielectric substrate, and a ground plane, resonates at distinct fundamental frequencies that depend on the substrate dielectric constant and the dimensions of the radiation patch. Since these parameters change with the applied strain and temperature, this study investigates simultaneous strain and temperature sensing using a single antenna that has two fundamental resonant frequencies. The theoretical relationship between the antenna resonant frequency shifts, the temperature, and the applied strain was first established to guide the selection of the dielectric substrate, based on which an antenna sensor with a rectangular radiation patch was designed and fabricated. A tensile test specimen instrumented with the antenna sensor was subjected to thermo-mechanical tests. Experiment results validated the theoretical predictions that the normalized antenna resonant frequency shifts are linearly proportional to the applied strain and temperature changes. An inverse method was developed to determine the strain and temperature changes from the normalized antenna resonant frequency shifts, yielding measurement uncertainty of 0.4 °C and 17.22 μ for temperature and strain measurement, respectively.
Robust confidence regions for the semi-parametric regression model with responses missing at random

ABSTRACTIn this paper, a regression semi-parametric model is considered where responses are assumed to be missing at random. From the empirical likelihood function defined based on the rank-based estimating equation, robust confidence intervals/regions of the true regression coefficient are derived. Monte Carlo simulation experiments show that the proposed approach provides more accurate confidence intervals/regions compared to its normal approximation counterpart under different model error structure. The approach is also compared with the least squares approach, and its superiority is shown whenever the error distribution in the simulation study is heavy tailed or contaminated. Finally, a real data example is given to illustrate our proposed method.
Writing About “Our Good Neighbors South of the Rio Grande”: Moral Geographies of Latin America in the Early 1940s

President Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy emerged as a non-aggressive form of cultural diplomacy and emphasized mutual understanding among the nations in the Western Hemisphere through a ...
Closed-Loop Time Delay Estimation of SISO Processes for Control Performance Monitoring

Abstract A novel time delay estimation method for SISO control loop monitoring has been introduced. The proposed method requires a process regulated by a SISO controller during routine operation to be temporarily switched to relay control. The input and output data gathered from the process under relay control can be used to produce a time delay estimate.
Pros and Cons of Short, High Efficiency, and High Flux Dialysis

One of the characteristic features of the brief three-decade history of chronic maintenance hemodialysis has been the progressive decline of the duration of individual treatment sessions. Since the 1960s, when seven to ten hour treatment times were the standard (1, 2), progress in dialysis technique has largely been measured by the degree to which session length could be shortened — to 4 to 5 hours during the 1970s, and to 3 hours or even less during the 1980s (3, 4). From the earliest attempts at reducing treatment time, it was clear that compensatory increases in dialyzer surface area (5), or solute clearance (1, 6), would be necessary to maintain patient well-being, and so the shortening of time has been inextricably linked with the development of techniques to increase dialyzer efficiency
Introduction to Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a process in which gaseous species react on solid substrates to form solid, nonvolatile films. The energy needed to activate the chemical reactions can be provided in several different forms; e.g., thermal, photon, or plasma. When a plasma or (to be more accurate) a glow discharge is used to provide at least some of the energy needed in a CVD process the process is called plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD). This Chapter begins with a brief, ‘big picture’ view of PECVD processes and applications relevant to semiconductor device manufacturing. More details can be found in several texts which cover this topic more extensively [1–4].
Symbolic dynamics for hyperbolic systems

Let ~ be a finite set (called symbols) with the discrete topology and ~ = ~9~ be the set of all doubly infinite sequences of symbols with the product topology. We shall be interested in the homeomorphism ~:Zg~+ E~ which shifts a sequence one space to the left. In symbolic dynamics one studies a differentiable system (diffeomorphism or flow) by relating it to the shift homeomorphism ~. This idea started with Hadamard [ii] in 1898 when he set up a correspondence between geodesics on a surface of negative curvature with certain symbolic sequences. Then Marston Morse used this correspondence to construct a nonperiodic almost periodic geodesic [15], [16], [17]. Over the years Professor Hedlund has been active in symbolic dynamics (see for example [12] and [13]).
Monocyte-erythrocyte interaction in vitro in immune hemolytic anemias

Monocyte recognition of immunoprotein-coated erythrocytes in vitro was studied in 21 patients with immune hemolytic anemia. Simultaneous assessment of immunoglobulin and complement components on the patients' erythrocytes was performed. The patients were heterogeneous in relation to associated diseases, therapy, and duration of disease state; 15 were studied within 1 mo of diagnosis and 4 additional patients were studied in sequential fashion. Monocyte-erythrocyte interaction was assessed by both a morphologic and a radioactive assay; 12 of 17 patients had elevated ratios in the morphologic assay and 15 of 17 patients had elevated ratios in the radioactive assay. The majority of patients exhibited enhanced interaction between their monocytes and autologous immunoprotein-coated erythrocytes, as compared to normal moncytes exposed to the same immunoprotein-coated erythrocytes. These findings suggest that there is an enhanced capacity of monocytes from certain patients with immune hemolysis to interact with autologous immunoprotein-coated erythrocytes in vitro.
Matrix sampling for global illumination

Global illumination is the problem of rendering images by simulating the light transport in a scene, also considering the inter-reflection of light between surfaces. One general approach to global illumination that gained popularity during the last decade is the many-light formulation, whose idea is to approximate global illumination by many automatically generated virtual point lights. In this thesis, we address two fundamental issues that arise with the many-light formulation: scalability and generality. We present a new view of the many-light approach, by treating it as a large matrix of light-surface contributions. Our insight is that there is usually a significant amount of structure and redundancy in the matrix; this suggests that only a tiny subset of the elements might be needed for accurate reconstruction. First, we present a scalable rendering algorithm that exploits this insight by sampling a small subset of matrix rows and columns to reconstruct the image. This algorithm is very flexible in terms of the material and light types it can handle, and achieves high-quality rendering of complex scenes in several seconds on consumer-level graphics hardware. Furthermore, we extend this approach to render whole animations, by considering a 3D tensor of light-surface contributions over time. This allows us to further decrease the necessary number of samples by exploiting temporal coherence. We also address a long-standing limitation of all previous many-light approaches that leads to fundamentally incorrect results in scenes with glossy materials, by introducing a new virtual light type that does not have this limitation. Finally, we describe an algorithm that computes a wavelet-compressed approximation to the lighting matrix, which allows for interactive light placement in a scene with global illumination.
Impact of Drained Heating and Cooling on Undrained Shear Strength of Normally Consolidated Clay

This study focuses on the effects of a heating-cooling cycle on the undrained shear strength of normally consolidated clay specimens. A clear increase in undrained shear strength was observed for specimens sheared after drained heating to an elevated temperature, while a further increase in undrained shear strength was observed for specimens sheared after a drained heating-cooling cycle. This is attributed to the permanent decrease in volume during drained heating followed by the elastic decrease in volume during drained cooling. The initial mean effective stress was also observed to play an important role in the magnitude of the increase in undrained shear strength, with greater increases observed for normally consolidated specimens with lower mean effective stresses.
Vesicular Glutamatergic Transmission in Noise-Induced Loss and Repair of Cochlear Ribbon Synapses.

Noise-induced excitotoxicity is thought to depend on glutamate. However, the excitotoxic mechanisms are unknown, and the necessity of glutamate for synapse loss or regeneration is unclear. Despite absence of glutamatergic transmission from cochlear inner hair cells in mice lacking the vesicular glutamate transporter-3 (Vglut3KO), at 9–11 weeks, approximately half the number of synapses found in Vglut3WT were maintained as postsynaptic AMPA receptors juxtaposed with presynaptic ribbons and voltage-gated calcium channels (CaV1.3). Synapses were larger in Vglut3KO than Vglut3WT. In Vglut3WT and Vglut3+/− mice, 8–16 kHz octave-band noise exposure at 100 dB sound pressure level caused a threshold shift (∼40 dB) and a loss of synapses (>50%) at 24 h after exposure. Hearing threshold and synapse number partially recovered by 2 weeks after exposure as ribbons became larger, whereas recovery was significantly better in Vglut3WT. Noise exposure at 94 dB sound pressure level caused auditory threshold shifts that fully recovered in 2 weeks, whereas suprathreshold hearing recovered faster in Vglut3WT than Vglut3+/−. These results, from mice of both sexes, suggest that spontaneous repair of synapses after noise depends on the level of Vglut3 protein or the level of glutamate release during the recovery period. Noise-induced loss of presynaptic ribbons or postsynaptic AMPA receptors was not observed in Vglut3KO, demonstrating its dependence on vesicular glutamate release. In Vglut3WT and Vglut3+/−, noise exposure caused unpairing of presynaptic ribbons and presynaptic CaV1.3, but not in Vglut3KO where CaV1.3 remained clustered with ribbons at presynaptic active zones. These results suggest that, without glutamate release, noise-induced presynaptic Ca2+ influx was insufficient to disassemble the active zone. However, synapse volume increased by 2 weeks after exposure in Vglut3KO, suggesting glutamate-independent mechanisms. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Hearing depends on glutamatergic transmission mediated by Vglut3, but the role of glutamate in synapse loss and repair is unclear. Here, using mice of both sexes, we show that one copy of the Vglut3 gene is sufficient for noise-induced threshold shift and loss of ribbon synapses, but both copies are required for normal recovery of hearing function and ribbon synapse number. Impairment of the recovery process in mice having only one functional copy suggests that glutamate release may promote synapse regeneration. At least one copy of the Vglut3 gene is necessary for noise-induced synapse loss. Although the excitotoxic mechanism remains unknown, these findings are consistent with the presumption that glutamate is the key mediator of noise-induced synaptopathy.
Online Racism: Adjustment and Protective Factors Among Adolescents of Color

Recent research shows that the majority of adolescents of color perceive themselves to be the victims of racial-ethnic discrimination. A growing body of research also suggests the contexts in which discriminatory experiences occur matter and have differential impacts on child and adolescent adjustment outcomes. Given the fact that 95% of youth have access to the internet and adolescents of color spend 4.5 more hours per day than their White counterparts using various forms of media, including mobile devices (Rideout, Lauricella, & Wartella, 2011), it is important to understand discriminatory experiences in electronic formats, including widely used social network sites. This chapter will outline the research on online racial discrimination, which groups are most at risk for having these experiences as well as related mental health, behavioral, and academic outcomes. Cultural assets that may buffer youth against discrimination online will also be discussed.
Determination of the critical manifold tangent space and curvature with Monte Carlo renormalization group

We show that the critical manifold of a statistical mechanical system in the vicinity of a critical point is locally accessible through correlation functions at that point. A practical numerical method is presented to determine the tangent space and the curvature to the critical manifold with variational Monte Carlo renormalization group. Because of the use of a variational bias potential of the coarse-grained variables, critical slowing down is greatly alleviated in the Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, this method is free of truncation error. We study the isotropic Ising model on square and cubic lattices, the anisotropic Ising model, and the tricritical Ising model on square lattices to illustrate the method.
Speaker Adaptation for Attention-Based End-to-End Speech Recognition

We propose three regularization-based speaker adaptation approaches to adapt the attention-based encoder-decoder (AED) model with very limited adaptation data from target speakers for end-to-end automatic speech recognition. The first method is Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD) regularization, in which the output distribution of a speaker-dependent (SD) AED is forced to be close to that of the speaker-independent (SI) model by adding a KLD regularization to the adaptation criterion. To compensate for the asymmetric deficiency in KLD regularization, an adversarial speaker adaptation (ASA) method is proposed to regularize the deep-feature distribution of the SD AED through the adversarial learning of an auxiliary discriminator and the SD AED. The third approach is the multi-task learning, in which an SD AED is trained to jointly perform the primary task of predicting a large number of output units and an auxiliary task of predicting a small number of output units to alleviate the target sparsity issue. Evaluated on a Microsoft short message dictation task, all three methods are highly effective in adapting the AED model, achieving up to 12.2% and 3.0% word error rate improvement over an SI AED trained from 3400 hours data for supervised and unsupervised adaptation, respectively.
Evidence of early amorphous arsenic sulfide production and use in Edo period Japanese woodblock prints by Hokusai and Kunisada

This study explores the evolution of the manufacturing process of artificial arsenic sulfide pigments in Edo-period Japan through the analysis of three impressions of the same print dated from the 1830s and attributed to Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), and one from 1852 and attributed to Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1865). Colorants in the yellow and green areas of the four prints were investigated by means of non-invasive and microanalytical techniques such as optical microscopy, fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. While the pigments in the green and yellow areas are similar throughout the set of prints—Prussian blue, indigo (for the Hokusai prints) and orpiment were identified—optical microscopy and Raman spectroscopy highlighted some variations in the orpiment used in the green areas of the prints. Two of the Hokusai prints present bright yellow particles of larger size and lamellar morphology, identified by Raman spectroscopy as natural orpiment. The third print presents an admixture of bright yellow natural orpiment particles with a smaller number of orange-yellow particles shown by Raman to be partially amorphous arsenic sulfide. Small bright yellow particles identified as fully amorphous arsenic sulfide pigments by Raman were found throughout the green areas of the Kunisada print. Although supported by Japanese historical sources, local production of artificial arsenic sulfide in the early nineteenth century was not previously documented. The simultaneous presence of both crystalline and amorphous domains in a single pigment particle in some of the Hokusai prints suggests that natural orpiment was used as primary source of arsenic for the production of a low grade artificial pigment. The pigment found in the Kunisada print, by contrast, was obtained from arsenic oxide (or arsenolite) and sulfur though a dry-process synthesis, as shown by the sulfur excess, signs of heat treatments and fully amorphous nature of the pigment. These findings set the earliest dates for both the ore sublimation process and the arsenolite dry process, and are of foremost importance to understand the evolution of the amorphous arsenic sulfide production in Edo-period Japan and its introduction in the palette of Japanese woodblock prints.
Measurement of the contribution of excitation autoionization to electron-impact ionization of ions: Ti3+, Zr3+, Hf3+, and Ta3+

Measurements were made of the cross section for electron-impact single ionization of the transition-element ions ${\mathrm{Ti}}^{3+}$, ${\mathrm{Zr}}^{3+}$, ${\mathrm{Hf}}^{3+}$, and ${\mathrm{Ta}}^{3+}$ for an electron-energy range from threshold to 1000 eV. The cross sections are enhanced by as much as a factor of 20 due to excitation autoionization primarily involving $\ensuremath{\Delta}n=0$ transitions, $n{p}^{6}n{d}^{m}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}n{p}^{5}n{d}^{m+1}$. Comparisons with recent theoretical predictions show reasonable agreement between measured and predicted positions of the autoionization states; however, the magnitudes of the theoretical cross sections are greater than the experimental values by a factor of approximately 2.5.
OverlapLDA: A Generative Approach for Literature-Based Discovery

Literature-based discovery, the process of choosing bridge terms to build plausible connections between “unrelated” terms, helps the biomedical research by generating potentially useful hypotheses. The basic idea of previous work is conducting two or higher order association rules searching and ranking, either according to the semantics or the statistical measurements. However, the high order searching nature makes current approaches computationally complex. We address this problem by proposing a generative model assuming all the connection words as a rank of words. We further present an inference method for the generative model to learn the rank. Our model avoids the process of high order searching. Experiments show that our approach addresses the problem both effectively and efficiently.
Identification of an Aggregation Pheromone from the Small Hive Beetle (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae)

Abstract Newly emerged adult small hive beetle Aethina tumida (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) emerge from the soil and seek refuge in honey bee hives. Observations of wild and colony reared populations indicate that the beetles form aggregations of many individuals of both sexes. Volatile collections performed on males and females have identified a male produced aggregation pheromone comprised of 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, nonanal and decanal. Synergistic effects of the pheromone and a blend of fruit volatiles provide for an effective attractant for both sexes of the small hive beetle. Laboratory assays were performed with the pheromone blend and kairomone blend tested individually combined. This was done using a synthetic aggregation blend along with a fruit-based attractant containing ethanol, ethyl butyrate, acetic acid, ethyl acetate and acetaldehyde. Our results showed that the synthetic aggregation blend along with a fruit-based attractant captured significantly more beetles than the control. The key to a good trapping system is and effective attractant. Our pheromone/kairomone based attractant shows promise to be used as an effective outside the hive control measure for small hive beetle. The identification of the aggregation pheromone is an important step in the search to provide effective control and monitoring of the small hive beetle.
Social costs to trying hard in high school: Differences by race-ethnicity.

Abstract There is debate whether social costs to trying hard in school are more widespread among black and Latino students than white or Asian students. Studies assessing a burden of “acting white” among black and Latino students have examined how the correlation between GPA and popularity or harassment varies across racial-ethnic groups. Yet, there has been little attention to whether students are aware of these costs or if social costs deter achievement. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, we investigated students’ perceptions of whether they would be harassed or unpopular for trying hard in their mathematics and science classes. We found black, Latino, and Asian students perceived lower risk of experiencing social costs for trying hard than white students. Perceptions of social costs in 9th grade were associated with less rigorous mathematics course-taking, but not lower mathematics test scores or STEM GPA, later in school.
ER-directed TREX1 limits cGAS activation at micronuclei

Micronuclei are aberrant nuclear compartments that can form as a result of chromosome mis-segregation. Frequent loss of micronuclear envelope integrity exposes DNA to the cytoplasm, leading to chromosome fragmentation and immune activation. Here, we use micronuclei purification to show that the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-associated nuclease TREX1 inhibits cGAS activation at micronuclei by degrading micronuclear DNA upon micronuclear envelope rupture. We demonstrate that the ER accesses ruptured micronuclei and plays a critical role in enabling TREX1 nucleolytic attack. TREX1 mutations, previously implicated in immune disease, untether TREX1 from the ER, disrupt TREX1 localization to micronuclei, diminish micronuclear DNA damage, and enhance cGAS activation. These results establish ER-directed resection of micronuclear DNA by TREX1 as a critical regulator of cytosolic DNA sensing in chromosomally unstable cells and provide a mechanistic basis for the importance of TREX1 ER tethering in preventing autoimmunity.
Capacity, Pricing and Assortment Management under Discrete Choice Model with Anticipated Wait

Customers often face multiple choices when purchasing a product or service. After making a choice, they sometimes have to wait for a while before receiving their purchased item due to the firm’s limited capacity to process orders. This paper incorporates the anticipated wait for receiving purchased products or services into customers’ choice behavior. The resulting choice model shares the same spirit of the rational expectation equilibrium, and captures the effects of negative externality caused by the anticipated wait, because all orders may be processed by a common facility. Our analysis shows that the anticipated wait may change the substitution patterns dramatically. We further investigate the effects of the anticipated wait on the decisions of capacity investment, product pricing and assortment planning. We establish the one-to-one mapping between the price vector and the choice probability vector, and show that the equivalent profit function of the choice probabilities is explicitly defined and more tractable. We characterize the multi-product price optimization problem under the MNL model with waiting. In addition to price competition, we also study the Cournot competition, in which the decision is the choice probability for each firm, and show that there exists a Nash equilibrium. For the assortment optimization, we identify the conditions under which the optimality of the revenue-ordered assortment still holds. Because the assortment problem with waiting is generally NP-hard, we develop efficient approximations with performance guarantee and also provide an easy-to-compute tight upper bound. The new model has the potential to increase prediction accuracy for customers’ choice behavior especially when customers faced with multiple choices are aware of the possible waiting for their purchased products. Failure to take into account the effects of the anticipated wait in customers’ purchase behavior may result in substantial losses to firms.
Materials graph ontology

Abstract To maximize the use of the materials data being generated by various researchers and organizations, it is necessary to store the data such that it is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Although current materials data repositories and databases partly address the FAIR principles, they do not adequately capture the critical metadata that represents the contextual information (e.g., relationship between materials data and terms typically used by materials scientists such as process, structure, and property). The collection and organization of this metadata along with the original data would allow advanced queries that implicitly improve FAIR characteristics. Recent work has attempted to define this necessary metadata through the development of materials ontologies. This paper introduces a new materials graph and develops the associated materials graph ontology needed to address shortcomings of the current materials ontologies. This novel ontology can be combined with existing ontologies to standardize the inter-relationships between materials data elements and related materials concepts. This paper demonstrates how the proposed materials graph ontology enables the conceptual description of a broad variety of materials data, improves the findability and usability of the different graph-connected material concepts and data, and formalizes a materials data ingest framework that is amenable for the extraction of process-structure–property relationships.
CaMKIV Signaling Is Not Essential for the Maintenance of Intrinsic or Synaptic Properties in Mouse Visual Cortex.

Pyramidal neurons in rodent visual cortex homeostatically maintain their firing rates in vivo within a target range. In young cultured rat cortical neurons, Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent kinase IV (CaMKIV) signaling jointly regulates excitatory synaptic strength and intrinsic excitability in order to allow neurons to maintain their target firing rate. However, the role of CaMKIV signaling in regulating synaptic strength and intrinsic excitability in vivo has not been tested. Here, we show that in pyramidal neurons in visual cortex of juvenile male and female mice, CaMKIV signaling is not essential for the maintenance of basal synaptic or intrinsic properties. Neither in vivo CaMKIV conditional knockdown nor viral expression of dominant negative CaMKIV in vivo disrupts the intrinsic excitability or synaptic input strength of pyramidal neurons primary visual cortex (V1), and CaMKIV signaling is not required for the increase in intrinsic excitability seen following monocular deprivation. Viral expression of constitutively active CaMKIV in vivo causes a complex disruption of the neuronal input/output function but does not affect synaptic input strength. Taken together, these results demonstrate that although augmented in vivo CaMKIV signaling can alter neuronal excitability, either endogenous CaMKIV signaling is dispensable for maintenance of excitability, or impaired CaMKIV signaling is robustly compensated. Significance statement Homeostatic regulation of neuronal activity is essential for stable network function. However, little is known about the mechanisms that coordinate intrinsic and synaptic properties to regulate activity levels in vivo. CaMKIV signaling regulates synaptic strength and intrinsic excitability in cultured neurons, but its role in these processes in vivo has never been tested. Here, we show that while CaMKIV signaling can modulate intrinsic excitability, it does not play an essential role in maintenance of intrinsic or synaptic properties.
Benchmark of Acceleware vs XFdtd for Field Simulations of Microstrip Patch Antenna

We benchmark the accuracy and the speed of the Acceleware FDTD library vs XFdtd in simulating a microstrip patch antenna. The benchmark is based on the sampled electric and magnetic fields. The results show that Acceleware performs almost three times faster than XFdtd. The relative mean error is less than 2.0%.
Multiagent Flight Control in Dynamic Environments with Cooperative Coevolutionary Algorithms

Dynamic flight environments in which objectives and environmental features change with respect to time pose a difficult problem with regards to planning optimal flight paths. Path planning methods are typically computationally expensive, and are often difficult to implement in real time if system objectives are changed. This computational problem is compounded when multiple agents are present in the system, as the state and action space grows exponentially. In this work, we use cooperative coevolutionary algorithms in order to develop policies which control agent motion in a dynamic multiagent unmanned aerial system environment such that goals and perceptions change, while ensuring safety constraints are not violated. Rather than replanning new paths when the environment changes, we develop a policy which can map the new environmental features to a trajectory for the agent while ensuring safe and reliable operation, while providing 92% of the theoretically optimal performance
The interaction between early-life body size and physical activity on risk of breast cancer.

While early-life body leanness is associated with increased breast cancer risk, early-life physical activity may protect against breast cancer. We examined whether the excess risk among lean girls is modified by their levels of prior, concurrent, or future physical activity. We conducted an analysis among 74,723 women in the Nurses' Health Study II (follow-up 1997-2011). Participants recalled their body size at ages 5, 10 and 20 years in 1989 using a 9-level pictogram (Level 1 most lean). In 1997, they reported adolescent levels of physical activity (ages 12-13 and 14-17 years). Cox proportional hazards models estimated the overall association of body size with breast cancer risk and assessed interactions of adolescent physical activity with body size at three different age periods (5-10, 10-20 and 20 years), adjusting for early-life and adult risk factors for breast cancer. Regardless of levels of adolescent physical activity, early-life body leanness (level 1-2 vs. 4.5+) was significantly associated with higher breast cancer risk. The association was slightly attenuated among those who were active (60+ MET-hr/wk) during adolescence compared to those who were inactive (<30 MET-hr/wk) (body size at ages 5-10 years: hazard ratio = 1.37, 95% confidence interval = 1.04-1.81 vs. 1.66, 1.29-2.12), but the interaction was not significant (p = 0.72). The results were similar for body size at three different age periods. Being lean during early life is a risk factor for breast cancer among both inactive and active girls. Adolescent physical activity did not significantly modify the association, although some interaction cannot be excluded.
Heterogeneity index score (HIS): New computerized method for classification of human bladder carcinomas using flowcytometry

Abstract The rationale for studying nuclear DNA may be its direct relationship to the aggressiveness of cancer. Recent flow cytometric studies (FCM) of cancer cells show the limitation of the current methods for the accurate determination of the degree of aneuploidy or proliferative characteristics of a tumor cell. Here we report a new methodology for a computerized determination which is well correlated with relative mean DNA content in cell populations analyzed by FCM (heterogeneity index, HI). A total of seventy-six tissue samples were examined. Twenty-two specimens were benign tissue while fifty-four were histologically malignant bladder tumors. Forty tumors were grade (G)I–II, ten G-III, and four carcinoma in situ. The samples were mechanically minced into a single cell suspension and stained with propidium iodide. An Ortho system 50-H multiparameter flow cytometer equipped with an Ortho 2150 computer was used to determine DNA content and cell number. HI was calculated using the following formulas: The mean HIS of twenty-two normal and benign tissues was 9.805 ± 5.6. The forty G-II tumors had a mean HIS of 23.576 ± 26.519. Statistical differences were observed between benign tissue and G-I-II tumors (P = 0.0196). G-III tumors had a marked increase in HIS of 160.965 ± 63.404. The limited study of four carcinoma in situ tumors showed a mean HIS of 45.4± 9.5. Our computer extrapolation of flow cytometric DNA analysis quantifies an objective description of FCM characteristics and histochemical index which may distinguish the degree of tumor malignancy.
Work‐Life Issues

This short article defines work-life balance and describes the key issues internationally affecting employees' work-life balance or work-life harmony. The key practices organizations are using to help their employees balance the demands of work and personal life are also offered. The practices for helping employees and their families during international assignments which require relocation to another country (or expatriate assignments), a particularly stressful activity, are also listed. Keywords: work-life balance; work-family balance; work-life conflict; stress; expatriation
Development of advanced seals for space propulsion turbomachinery

Current activities in seals for space propulsion turbomachinery that the NASA Lewis Research Center sponsors are surveyed. The overall objective is to provide the designer and researcher with the concepts and the data to control seal dynamics and leakage. Included in the program are low-leakage seals, such as the brush seal, the 'ceramic rope' seal, low-leakage seals for liquid oxygen turbopumps, face seals for two phase flow, and swirl brakes for stability. Two major efforts are summarized: a seal dynamics in rotating machinery and an effort in seal code development.
Brain microglia/macrophages express neurotrophins that selectively regulate microglial proliferation and function

Although microglia-mediated cytotoxicity has been extensively investigated, little is known about the potential microglial role in neuronal and glial support. Characterization of trophin elaboration by microglia and identification of responsive populations may define novel functions. We now report that microglia/brain macrophages express neurotrophins of the nerve growth factor (NGF) gene family in vitro and in vivo, suggesting that these cells promote development and normal function of neurons and glia. Moreover, neurotrophins promote microglial proliferation and phagocytic activity in vitro. We found that microglia express neurotrophins in a region-specific manner and that within any region only subpopulations elaborate trophins. Using an antiserum specific for neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) with the microglial/macrophage marker OX-42 on postnatal day 10 in vivo, double- labeled cells were identified in the cerebral cortex, globus pallidus, and medulla; NT-3 was undetectable in OX-42-positive cells in the ependyma, the external capsule, choroid plexus, and meninges. In contrast, ramified microglia in the adult brain did not exhibit NT-3 immunoreactivity, suggesting developmental regulation of microglial NT- 3 expression. In situ hybridization studies on purified microglial cultures confirmed that only subpopulations express the NGF and NT-3 genes, substantiating the existence of microglial heterogeneity. We tentatively conclude that microglial subtypes serve trophic roles in the normal brain, in addition to exerting well documented deleterious actions in illness and injury. Microglia were also responsive to neurotrophins: brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and NT-3 increased [3H]thymidine incorporation in vitro, and NT-3 promoted proliferation. Moreover, NT-3 induced phagocytic activity, suggesting that the factor plays a role in processes associated with cellular activation.
Separating natural and bomb-produced radiocarbon in the ocean: The potential alkalinity method

alkalinity method provides an estimate of surface ocean prebomb D 14 C concentrations. Predictions with the technique appear to be unbiased and have uncertainties which are less than previous techniques. INDEX TERMS: 4860 Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Radioactivity and radioisotopes; 4894 Oceanography: Biological and Chemical: Instruments and techniques;
Differential expression and functional role of cannabinoid genes in alcohol users

Background Genetic factors account for about fifty percent of the risk for alcoholism and alcohol dependence (AD) has been reported to be influenced by cannabinoid receptors (CBRs) and the endocannabinoid system (ECS). Previous studies have focused on cannabinoids and alcohol-related effects in the CNS; however, the role CBRs play on alcohol effects in the immune system has not been elucidated yet. Since alcohol can affect immune responses and have detrimental effects on immune cells such as dendritic cells (DCs), we hypothesize that alcohol can exert its effects on DCs by modulating changes in CBRs, which in turn can regulate important DC functions such as cytokine production.
Sliding Luttinger liquid phases

We study systems of coupled spin-gapped and gapless Luttinger liquids. First, we establish the existence of a sliding Luttinger liquid phase for a system of weakly coupled parallel quantum wires, with and without disorder. It is shown that the coupling can stabilize a Luttinger liquid phase in the presence of disorder. We then extend our analysis to a system of crossed Luttinger liquids and establish the stability of a non-Fermi-liquid state: the crossed sliding Luttinger liquid phase. In this phase the system exhibits a finite-temperature, long-wavelength, isotropic electric conductivity that diverges as a power law in temperature T as $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{T}0.$ This two-dimensional system has many properties of a true isotropic Luttinger liquid, though at zero temperature it becomes anisotropic. An extension of this model to a three-dimensional stack exhibits a much higher in-plane conductivity than the conductivity in a perpendicular direction.
Multiversion divergence control of time fuzziness

Epsilon Serializability (ESR) has been proposed to manage and control inconsistency in extending the classic transaction processing. ESR increases system concurrency by tolerating a bounded amount of inconsistency. In this paper, we present multiversion divergence control (mvDC) algorithms that support ESR with not only value but also time fuzziness in multiversion databases. Unlike value fuzziness, accumulating time fuzziness is semantically different. A simple summation of the length of two time intervals may either underestimate the total time fuzziness, resulting in incorrect execution, or overestimate the total time fuzziness, unnecessarily degrading the effectiveness of mvESR. We present a new operation, called TimeUnion, to accurately accumulate the total time fuzziness. Because of the accurate control of time and value fuzziness by the mvDC algorithm, mvESR is very suitable for the use of multiversion databases for real-time applications that may tolerate a limited degree of data inconsistency but prefer more data recency.
Interferon β in multiple sclerosis: is IL-12 suppression the key?

Abstract Recently, much has been learned about the immunology of multiple sclerosis (MS). However, a mechanistic understanding of currently employed immunomodulatory therapies has lagged behind, hindering both the search for more effective agents and clearer insight into the immunopathogenesis of MS. Christopher Karp and colleagues explore a unifying hypothesis for the mechanism of action of interferon β in MS: suppression of interleukin 12 production.
“Who then is the Faithful, Insightful Steward?” Consumerism and Luke's Stewarding Vision

: While at its face Luke's Gospel does not seem to address the realities of life and economics in a capitalistic, consumer-oriented society, the complete rejection of first-century economic and power structures presented in Luke offers opportunities to consider anew what it means for Christians in the twenty-first century to live as faithful followers of Jesus Christ in today's overly consumer-oriented society.
Mindless or mindful use of integrated learning systems

Abstract This chapter presents the results of a study of computer-based integrated learning systems at two elementary schools using different vendors' ILS software. The research design incorporated same-classroom pretest-matched controls in which one-half of each class used the ILS for mathematics while the other half used it for reading. Overall effects at both schools were not strongly different from zero. However, a curvilinear pattern of effects occurred at one school in math and at the other in reading. In these situations, students at the top and the bottom of their school's prior achievement distribution did better when using ILSs, and students in the middle did better with only traditional instruction provided to them. The results are interpreted as challenging the practicality of individualized instructional approaches. Such approaches require teachers to be attentive to many different learning activities simultaneously. To accomplish a greater integration of ILS and teacher-directed activity, ILS use should incorporate several features: some teacher-directed lessons followed by whole-class (not individualized) computer use, teacher-led remediation of small groups based on system-supplied information making the formation of such groups easily done, and the establishment of heterogeneous student teams that provide motivation for accomplishment and for peer assistance.
Covering radius and the Restricted Isometry Property

The Restricted Isometry Property or RIP introduced by Candes and Tao requires an n × p dictionary to act as a near isometry on all k-sparse signals. This paper provides a very simple condition under which a dictionary Φ(C) obtained by exponentiating codewords from a binary linear code C satisfies the RIP with high probability. The method is to bound the difference between the dictionary Φ(C) and a second dictionary A generated by a random Bernoulli process which is known to satisfy the RIP with high probability. The difference Δ — Φ(C) is controlled by the covering radius of C, a fundamental parameter that is bounded above by the number of weights in the dual code C┴ (the external distance of C). The main result complements a more sophisticated asymptotic analysis by Babadi and Tarokh of the distribution of eigenvalues of random submatrices of Φ(C). In this analysis, divergence from the distribution corresponding to the full Bernoulli matrix depends on a different fundamental parameter of C, namely the minimum distance of the dual code C┴.
The Effect of H2O2 and Tertiary Butyl Hydroperoxide Upon a Murine Immortal Lens Epithelial Cell Line, αTN4-1

The effect of comparable concentrations of H(2)O(2) and tertiary butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) upon an immortal murine lens epithelial cell line was examined as part of an ongoing effort to delineate differences in the mechanism by which these peroxides cause cell death. Both compounds result in cell death of normal, unconditioned cells within 24hr. It was found that with similar conditions, TBHP conditioned alphaTN4-1 cells survive H(2)O(2) stress while H(2)O(2) conditioned cells are killed by TBHP. To better understand how these peroxides act, their effect upon unconditioned cells has been investigated. Both peroxides cause a rapid loss of GSH and disruption of pump activity as illustrated by (14)C-choline transport and (86)Rb uptake. While H(2)O(2) exposure resulted in extensive DNA damage, TBHP had a minimal effect. DNA damage caused by H(2)O(2) was shown to activate polyADP-ribosyl polymerase (PARP), leading to depletion of NAD and ATP. H(2)O(2) induced cell death could be delayed by addition of 3-aminobenzamide (3AB), an inhibitor of PARP. ATP levels in cells subjected to H(2)O(2) were also maintained by the presence of 3AB. H(2)O(2) stress also disrupted glycolysis and mitochondrial activity but these parameters were not affected by TBHP. TBHP induced cell death, under the relatively mild conditions used in this work, appears to be caused by membrane disruption and loss of a reducing environment.
Combined Behavioral and Individualized Drug Therapy Versus Individualized Drug Therapy Alone for Urge Urinary Incontinence in Women

Purpose: We tested whether individualized drug therapy enhanced with behavioral training would result in better outcomes than individualized drug therapy alone.Materials and Methods: Participants were community dwelling women with urge predominant incontinence. Using a randomized clinical trial design women were randomized to 8 weeks (4 visits) of drug therapy alone (32) or drug therapy plus behavioral training (32). Drug therapy was individually titrated, extended release oxybutynin with proactive management of side effects. Behavioral training included pelvic floor muscle training and urge suppression techniques. The primary outcome measure was reduction in frequency of incontinence episodes on bladder diary at 8 weeks (with followup at 6 and 12 months). Secondary outcomes included patient satisfaction, global perception of improvement, Urogenital Distress Inventory and Incontinence Impact Questionnaire.Results: In intent to treat analysis frequency of incontinence was reduced a mean of 88.5% in the dru...