Portrait of Dr. William Levison smoking a corn pipe Portraits Men

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Dr. William Levison celebrating Christmas Eve with U.S. Army buddies; Schofield Barracks, Hawaii Portraits Groups Men

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Dr. William Levison with U.S. Army buddies; Schofield Barracks, Hawaii Portraits Groups Men

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Thinking critically about rural crime: The influence of William J. Chambliss

William J. Chambliss (Bill) is well-known for his path-breaking theories of lawmaking and for his innovative research on state-organized crime. However, rarely discussed is the fact that his study of the original vagrancy laws marked the birth of rural critical criminology. The main objective of this article is twofold: (1) to show how Bill helped shape contemporary rural critical criminology and (2) to provide suggestions for further critical theoretical and empirical work on rural crime and social control.

Leo Baeck with New York Mayor William O'Dwyer Portraits; Groups; Men

Page 68 of the "American Jewish Cavalcade" scrapbook of Leo Baeck in New York found in ROS 10 Folder 3

Leo Baeck with New York Mayor William O'Dwyer and Union of American Hebrew Congregations President Maurice N. Eisendrath, Oscar M. Lazrus and Rabbi Daniel L. Davis Portraits; Groups; Men

Page 12 of the "American Jewish Cavalcade" scrapbook of Leo Baeck in New York found in ROS 10 Folder 3

Sermon by Jacques Judah Lyons on the death of President William Henry Harrison

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Starch composites with aconitic acid

The aim of this project is to examine the effectiveness of using aconitic acid (AcA), a tricarboxylic acid which contains a carbon/carbon double bond (C=C), to enhance the properties of starch-based films. Starch/glycerol cast films were prepared with 0, 2, 5, 10 and 15 wt% AcA (starch wt% basis) and the properties analysed. It was shown that AcA acted as both a cross-linking agent and also a strong plasticising agent. The 5 wt% AcA derived starch films were the most effectively cross-linked having the lowest solubility (28 wt%) and decreased swelling coefficient (35 vol.%) by approximately 3 times and 2.4 times respectively compared to the control film submerged in water (23 °C). There was also a significant increase in the film elongation at break by approximately 35 times (compared to the control) with the addition of 15 wt% AcA, emphasising the plasticising effect of AcA. However, generally there was a reduced tensile strength, softening of the film, and reduced thermal stability with increased amounts of AcA.

Mutations in known monogenic high bone mass loci only explain a small proportion of high bone mass cases

High bone mass (HBM) can be an incidental clinical finding; however, monogenic HBM disorders (eg, LRP5 or SOST mutations) are rare. We aimed to determine to what extent HBM is explained by mutations in known HBM genes. A total of 258 unrelated HBM cases were identified from a review of 335,115 DXA scans from 13 UK centers. Cases were assessed clinically and underwent sequencing of known anabolic HBM loci: LRP5 (exons 2, 3, 4), LRP4 (exons 25, 26), SOST (exons 1, 2, and the van Buchem's disease [VBD] 52-kb intronic deletion 3'). Family members were assessed for HBM segregation with identified variants. Three-dimensional protein models were constructed for identified variants. Two novel missense LRP5 HBM mutations ([c.518C>T; p.Thr173Met], [c.796C>T; p.Arg266Cys]) were identified, plus three previously reported missense LRP5 mutations ([c.593A>G; p.Asn198Ser], [c.724G>A; p.Ala242Thr], [c.266A>G; p.Gln89Arg]), associated with HBM in 11 adults from seven families. Individuals with LRP5 HBM ( approximately prevalence 5/100,000) displayed a variable phenotype of skeletal dysplasia with increased trabecular BMD and cortical thickness on HRpQCT, and gynoid fat mass accumulation on DXA, compared with both non-LRP5 HBM and controls. One mostly asymptomatic woman carried a novel heterozygous nonsense SOST mutation (c.530C>A; p.Ser177X) predicted to prematurely truncate sclerostin. Protein modeling suggests the severity of the LRP5-HBM phenotype corresponds to the degree of protein disruption and the consequent effect on SOST-LRP5 binding. We predict p.Asn198Ser and p.Ala242Thr directly disrupt SOST binding; both correspond to severe HBM phenotypes (BMD Z-scores +3.1 to +12.2, inability to float). Less disruptive structural alterations predicted from p.Arg266Cys, p.Thr173Met, and p.Gln89Arg were associated with less severe phenotypes (Z-scores +2.4 to +6.2, ability to float). In conclusion, although mutations in known HBM loci may be asymptomatic, they only account for a very small proportion ( approximately 3%) of HBM individuals, suggesting the great majority are explained by either unknown monogenic causes or polygenic inheritance.

The role of 25-hydroxyvitamin D deficiency in promoting insulin resistance and inflammation in patients with chronic kidney disease: A randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND Approximately 50% of patients with stage 3 Chronic Kidney Disease are 25-hydroxyvitamin D insufficient, and this prevalence increases with falling glomerular filtration rate. Vitamin D is now recognised as having pleiotropic roles beyond bone and mineral homeostasis, with the vitamin D receptor and metabolising machinery identified in multiple tissues. Worryingly, recent observational data has highlighted an association between hypovitaminosis D and increased cardiovascular mortality, possibly mediated via vitamin D effects on insulin resistance and inflammation. The main hypothesis of this study is that oral Vitamin D supplementation will ameliorate insulin resistance in patients with Chronic Kidney Disease stage 3 when compared to placebo. Secondary hypotheses will test whether this is associated with decreased inflammation and bone/adipocyte-endocrine dysregulation. METHODS/DESIGN This study is a single-centre, double-blinded, randomised, placebo-controlled trial. Inclusion criteria include; estimated glomerular filtration rate 30-59 ml/min/1.73 m(2); aged >or=18 on entry to study; and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels <75 nmol/L. Patients will be randomised 1:1 to receive either oral cholecalciferol 2000IU/day or placebo for 6 months. The primary outcome will be an improvement in insulin sensitivity, measured by hyperinsulinaemic euglycaemic clamp. Secondary outcome measures will include serum parathyroid hormone, cytokines (Interleukin-1beta, Interleukin-6, Tumour Necrosis Factor alpha), adiponectin (total and High Molecular Weight), osteocalcin (carboxylated and under-carboxylated), peripheral blood mononuclear cell Nuclear Factor Kappa-B p65 binding activity, brachial artery reactivity, aortic pulse wave velocity and waveform analysis, and indirect calorimetry. All outcome measures will be performed at baseline and end of study. DISCUSSION To date, no randomised controlled trial has been performed in pre-dialysis CKD patients to study the correlation between vitamin D status with supplementation, insulin resistance and markers of adverse cardiovascular risk. We remain hopeful that cholecalciferol may be a safe intervention, with health benefits beyond those related to bone-mineral homeostasis. TRIAL REGISTRATION Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12609000246280.

On approximately universal schemes for two-hop networks

Full-duplex and half-duplex two-hop networks are considered. Explicit coding schemes which are approximately universal over a class of fading distributions are identified, for the case when the network has either one or two relays.

Bayesian framework and message passing for joint support and signal recovery of approximately sparse signals

In this paper, we develop a low-complexity message passing algorithm for joint support and signal recovery of approximately sparse signals. The problem of recovery of strictly sparse signals from noisy measurements can be viewed as a problem of recovery of approximately sparse signals from noiseless measurements, making the approach applicable to strictly sparse signal recovery from noisy measurements. The support recovery embedded in the approach makes it suitable for recovery of signals with same sparsity profiles, as in the problem of multiple measurement vectors (MMV). Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm, termed as JSSR-MP (joint support and signal recovery via message passing) algorithm, achieves performance comparable to that of sparse Bayesian learning (M-SBL) algorithm in the literature, at one order less complexity compared to the M-SBL algorithm.

An approximately H-1-optimal Petrov-Galerkin meshfree method: application to computation of scattered light for optical tomography

Nearly pollution-free solutions of the Helmholtz equation for k-values corresponding to visible light are demonstrated and verified through experimentally measured forward scattered intensity from an optical fiber. Numerically accurate solutions are, in particular, obtained through a novel reformulation of the H-1 optimal Petrov-Galerkin weak form of the Helmholtz equation. Specifically, within a globally smooth polynomial reproducing framework, the compact and smooth test functions are so designed that their normal derivatives are zero everywhere on the local boundaries of their compact supports. This circumvents the need for a priori knowledge of the true solution on the support boundary and relieves the weak form of any jump boundary terms. For numerical demonstration of the above formulation, we used a multimode optical fiber in an index matching liquid as the object. The scattered intensity and its normal derivative are computed from the scattered field obtained by solving the Helmholtz equation, using the new formulation and the conventional finite element method. By comparing the results with the experimentally measured scattered intensity, the stability of the solution through the new formulation is demonstrated and its closeness to the experimental measurements verified.

Joint Approximately Sparse Channel Estimation and Data Detection in OFDM Systems Using Sparse Bayesian Learning

It is well known that the impulse response of a wide-band wireless channel is approximately sparse, in the sense that it has a small number of significant components relative to the channel delay spread. In this paper, we consider the estimation of the unknown channel coefficients and its support in OFDM systems using a sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) framework for exact inference. In a quasi-static, block-fading scenario, we employ the SBL algorithm for channel estimation and propose a joint SBL (J-SBL) and a low-complexity recursive J-SBL algorithm for joint channel estimation and data detection. In a time-varying scenario, we use a first-order autoregressive model for the wireless channel and propose a novel, recursive, low-complexity Kalman filtering-based SBL (KSBL) algorithm for channel estimation. We generalize the KSBL algorithm to obtain the recursive joint KSBL algorithm that performs joint channel estimation and data detection. Our algorithms can efficiently recover a group of approximately sparse vectors even when the measurement matrix is partially unknown due to the presence of unknown data symbols. Moreover, the algorithms can fully exploit the correlation structure in the multiple measurements. Monte Carlo simulations illustrate the efficacy of the proposed techniques in terms of the mean-square error and bit error rate performance.

Nanostructuring of p- and n-type skutterudites reaching figures of merit of approximately 1.3 and 1.6, respectively

Thermoelectric (TE) conversion of waste heat into useful electricity demands optimized thermal and electrical transport in the leg material over a wide temperature range. In order to gain a reasonably high figure of merit (ZT) as well as high thermal electric conversion efficiency, various conditions of the starting material were studied: industrially produced skutterudite powders of p-type DDy(Fe1-xCox)(4)Sb-12 (DD: didymium) and n-type (Mm, Sm)(y)Co4Sb12 (Mm: mischmetal) were used. After a rather fast reaction-melting technique, the bulk was crushed and sieved with various strainers in order to obtain particles below the respective mesh sizes, followed by ball-milling under three different conditions. The dependence of the TE properties (after hot pressing) on the micro/nanosized particles, grains and crystallites was investigated. Optimized conditions resulted in an increase of ZT for bulk material to current record-high values: from ZT similar to 1.1 to ZT similar to 1.3 at 775 K for p-type and from ZT similar to 1.0 to ZT similar to 1.6 at 800 K for n-type, resulting in respective efficiencies (300-850 K) of eta > 13% and eta similar to 16%. (C) 2014 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.