cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
PHOTOAFFINITY LABELING OF ADRENERGIC RECEPTORS IN NEURONAL MEMBRANES

Abstract Adrenergic binding proteins in rat neuronal membranes were covalently labeled with 3H-catecholamines. A fraction of the covalent binding was saturable and inhibited by α adrenergic agents. When the labeled membrane proteins were separated by electrophoresis, about 50% of the proteins were labeled, many at different specific activities. The covalent binding of catecholamines to all of these proteins was blocked by oxymetazoline at a concentration known to define α adrenergic receptor binding.
Participation in Philanthropic Activities: Donating Money and Time

The 1994 Independent Sector Survey of Giving and Volunteering conducted by the Gallup Organization was used to study the propensities with which people are solicited for money or time as well as the probabilities that people will volunteer time or donate money or property, given they have been solicited or not solicited, utilizing a two-stage probit analysis. Forty-five percent of respondents were asked by philanthropic organizations to volunteer time in 1994. Of those, 80% did volunteer. Some 78% of respondents were asked to donate money or property in 1994. Of those, 85% donated some money or property. Human, social, and cultural capital explained those who were solicited to volunteer. The same variables plus income variables determined whom to be solicited for donating money or property. Human, social, and cultural capital and income variables accounted for more variation in the probabilities to volunteer or donate, given respondents were not asked to contribute, than the probabilities to volunteer or donate, given respondents were asked to contribute.
Background and Scope

Structural mechanics is concerned with the behavior of solid objects (or assemblies of them) under the action of applied loads. The behavior is usually described by idealized models from which the internal forces and displacements are found. We present, in the following chapters, the stiffness formulated matrix methods as models to tackle some of the fundamental problems facing engineers in structural mechanics.
Faculty development in addiction medicine: project SAEFP, a one-year follow-up study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The goal of Project SAEFP (Substance Abuse Education for Family Physicians, pronounced SAFE) was to increase the number of residency teaching faculty with expertise in addiction medicine. This paper reports the results of a 12-month follow-up study conducted to assess changes in residency teaching and clinical practice of 165 residency teaching faculty who participated in this project. METHODS The Project SAEFP work group conducted a series of 5-day courses in the fall of 1990 at 10 sites around the country. The 165 faculty participants were taught how to use a set of 12 residency teaching modules that focused on clinical areas important to primary care physicians. The follow-up study consisted of a structured telephone interview. The findings were compared to previous interviews conducted before, and 3 months after, faculty participation in the course. RESULTS The findings suggest long-term increases in the amount of teaching, clinical practice, and consultations conducted by the family medicine faculty who participated in this faculty development project. CONCLUSION The findings of this study suggest that an intensive 5-day course using learner-centered teaching techniques can have a significant impact on primary care teaching faculty.
Creating Urban Agricultural Systems: An Integrated Approach to Design

Creating Urban Agriculture Systems provides you with background, expertise, and inspiration for designing with urban agriculture. It shows you how to grow food in buildings and cities, operate growing systems, and integrate them with natural cycles and existing infrastructures. It teaches you the essential environmental inputs and operational strategies of urban farms, and inspires community and design tools for innovative operations and sustainable urban environments that produce fresh, local food. Over 70 projects and 16 in-depth case studies of productive, integrated systems, located in North America, Europe, and Asia ,are organized by their emphasis on nutrient, water, and energy management, farm operation, community integration and design approaches so that you can see innovative strategies in action. Interviews with leading architecture firms, including WORKac, Kiss + Cathcart, Weber Thompson, CJ Lim/Studio 8, and SOA Architectes, highlight the challenges and rewards you face when creating urban agriculture systems. Catalogs of growing and building systems, a glossary, bibliography, and abstracts will help you find information fast.
A Model to Predict Postoperative Axial Length in Children Undergoing Bilateral Cataract Surgery With Primary Intraocular Lens Implantation.

Purpose To develop a model for predicting postoperative globe axial length (AL) in children undergoing bilateral cataract surgery with primary intraocular lens (IOL) implantation in children older than 2 years. Design Retrospective case series. Methods Children were included only if AL data were available for both eyes before surgery and at least 1 year after surgery. We analyzed variables that could influence globe axial growth and developed a multivariable generalized estimating equation regression model to predict postoperative AL. Results Sixty-four children were included. The median age at surgery and at follow-up was 5.1 and 12.5 years, respectively. AL measurements were obtained in both eyes during 242 visits. The median AL before and at last follow-up was 22.2 and 23.1 mm, respectively. Beta value for the final model to predict postoperative AL is as below: intercept (1.93), preoperative AL (0.91), age at cataract surgery (–0.07), age at follow-up (0.14), and interaction between age at surgery and age at follow-up (–0.005). Using this model, for a hypothetical patient operated at 2.5 years of age with a 20.5 mm AL would be estimated to have a 22.8 mm AL at 18 years of age. Conclusion IOL power selection is a major challenge of pediatric cataract surgery attributable to unpredictable future eye growth. This model theoretically could be used to predict individual future adult size AL for each child undergoing cataract surgery, helping the surgeon to customize the selection of an IOL power at implantation and also to help the parents understand what to expect.
Tacrolimus-induced Diabetic Ketoacidosis in a Polymyositis Patient Precipitated by Fluconazole: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Tacrolimus is a reversible calcineurin inhibitor. It is commonly used as an immunosuppressive drug in the treatment of T cell mediated diseases such as polymyositis, graft rejection in solid organ transplant, graft-versus-host disease in hematopoietic stem cell transplant, and is postulated to have diabetogenic potential. Fluconazole, on the other hand, is frequently prescribed antifungal therapy. Fluconazole increases the serum level of tacrolimus into the supratherapeutic range, thus developing drug toxicity if the dose is unadjusted. Diabetic ketoacidosis is a rare adverse drug effect reported with the use of tacrolimus. In this report, we present a case of DKA in a 60-year-old woman with polymyositis on low dose corticosteroids and tacrolimus, precipitated by the use of fluconazole. We highlight the pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying the effect of fluconazole on tacrolimus levels causing an accelerated development of DKA along with the review of literature on this potentially life-threatening condition.
Cachexia in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: Risk Factors and Relation to Disease Activity and Damage.

OBJECTIVE Cachexia is a disorder characterized by involuntary weight loss in addition to loss of homeostatic control of both energy and protein balance. Despite an abundance of data from other inflammatory diseases, cachexia in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) remains a largely undescribed syndrome. The present study was undertaken to define the prevalence of cachexia in SLE and to identify the main factors that place patients at risk of developing cachexia. METHODS A total of 2,452 patients in a prospective SLE cohort had their weight assessed at each visit. Patients were categorized into 5 predetermined groups based on weight. Cachexia was defined based on modified Fearon criteria (5% stable weight loss in 6 months without starvation relative to the average weight in all prior visits and/or a weight loss of >2% without starvation relative to the average weight in all prior cohort visits and a body mass index [BMI] of <20 kg/m2 ). Risk of cachexia within 5 years of cohort entry was based on Kaplan-Meier estimates. The association of prior disease manifestations with risk of cachexia adjusted by current steroid use was determined using Cox regression. An analysis of variance test was used to determine whether Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics/American College of Rheumatology Damage Index (SDI) scores varied based on cachexia status. RESULTS Within 5 years of cohort entry, 56% of patients developed cachexia, 18% of which never recovered their weight during follow-up. The risk factors for cachexia development were a BMI of <20 kg/m2 , current steroid use, vasculitis, lupus nephritis, serositis, hematologic lupus manifestations, positive anti-double-stranded DNA, anti-Sm, and anti-RNP. Patients with intermittent cachexia had significantly higher SDI scores compared to those with continuous cachexia or without cachexia. CONCLUSION Cachexia is an underrecognized syndrome in patients with SLE. SLE patients with intermittent cachexia have the highest risk of future organ damage.
Toward Responsible AI by Planning to Fail

The potential for AI technologies to enhance human capabilities and improve our lives is of little debate; yet, neither is their potential to cause harm and social disruption. While preventing or minimizing AI biases and harms is justifiably the subject of intense study in academic, industrial and even legal communities, an approach centered on acknowledging and planning for AI-based failures has the potential to shed new light on how to develop and deploy responsible AI-based systems. In this talk, I will discuss the sociotechnical nature of several inherent and unavoidable AI failures and why it is important for the industry to systematically and proactively identify, assess, and mitigate harms caused by such failures in our AI-based products and services. I will then present Microsoft's recently released Guidelines for Human-AI Interaction and how we've been using them at Microsoft to help teams think through and prepare for different types of AI failures.
Multicarrier Spectral Shaping Performance in Non-White Interference Channels: Experimental Results

In a recent work, we proposed a spectral shaping (SS) algorithm, which via adaptively selecting and allocating subcarrier powers at the transmitter can attain additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) theoretical performance results in non-white (e.g., interference) spectra. This algorithm, knowing the received interference channel power spectral density at the transmitter, solves an optimization problem to maximize the Shannon capacity subject to a few constraints. Solving this problem provides the selected subcarriers and allocates the total available power among them in order to attain the equivalent AWGN channel bit error ratio (BER), hence improving performance and maximizing the reliability, which is critical for aeronautical communication systems. One simple idea for point-to-multipoint communication using SS is that subcarriers experiencing very high interference are not used for the specific air-station (AS) which is experiencing the high-power interference, but they can still be used for other users. In this paper, after a brief description of the algorithm, via measurements, we test the algorithm and show the measurement results. The spectrally non-white channel can be from non-white noise, or more commonly, interference. In these measurements, the SS communication system was tested along with the Gaussian pulse shaped distance measuring equipment (DME) signals. The DME is pertinent for currently proposed L-band aviation communication systems, where an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based system, the L-band digital aeronautical communication system (LDACS) has been proposed as an inlay multicarrier communication system between the DME channels. The results presented in this paper using 64-QAM modulation order as a highly required energy-per-bit modulation example, show how using this adaptive technique can improve performance and reliability especially in low SNR situations, hence could be beneficial for future applications in L-band aviation or other non-white channels in other fields.
Evolved increases in hemoglobin-oxygen affinity and Bohr effect coincided with the aquatic specialization of penguins.

Abstract Dive capacities of air-breathing vertebrates are dictated by onboard O2 stores, suggesting that physiological specializations of diving birds like penguins may have involved adaptive changes in convective O2 transport. It has been hypothesized that increased hemoglobin (Hb)-O2 affinity improves pulmonary O2 extraction and enhance capacities for breath-hold diving. To investigate evolved changes in Hb function associated with the aquatic specialization of penguins, we integrated comparative measurements of whole-blood and purified native Hbs with protein engineering experiments based on site-directed mutagenesis. We reconstructed and resurrected ancestral Hbs representing the common ancestor of penguins and the more ancient ancestor shared by penguins and their closest nondiving relatives (order Procellariiformes, which includes albatrosses, shearwaters, petrels, and storm petrels). These two ancestors bracket the phylogenetic interval in which penguin-specific changes in Hb function would have evolved. The experiments revealed that penguins evolved a derived increase in Hb-O2 affinity and a greatly augmented Bohr effect (reduced Hb-O2 affinity at low pH). Although an increased Hb-O2 affinity reduces the gradient for O2 diffusion from systemic capillaries to metabolizing cells, this can be compensated by a concomitant enhancement of the Bohr effect, thereby promoting O2 unloading in acidified tissues. We suggest that the evolved increase in Hb-O2 affinity in combination with the augmented Bohr effect maximizes both O2 extraction from the lungs and O2 unloading from the blood, allowing penguins to fully utilize their onboard O2 stores and maximize underwater foraging time.
We still cannot hear: Staff perceptions of personal protective equipment impact on speech and communication in the operating theater during pediatric airway surgery.

We wish to highlight the continued impact of personal protective equipment (PPE) (filtering facemask and powered respirators) as a barrier to communication when used during aerosol generating procedures such as pediatric airway surgery in the operating theatre during the endemic phase of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and present our multi-cadre staff survey to emphasize an ongoing potential patient safety issue inherent to current guidance.
Recent advances in HIV-associated chronic lung disease clinical research

Purpose of review To highlight recently published, clinically focused research on chronic lung disease in adult persons with human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) (PWH). Recent findings Chronic lung disease was the most common comorbidity in hospitalized PWH in New York and second-most common condition in ambulatory PWH in Canada. The elevated risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in PWH has been widely recognized, but PWH are also at higher risk for asthma and worse asthma outcomes. Expanded assessments of lung structure and function, such as single-breath diffusing capacity of carbon monoxide (DLCO), exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO), and chest computed tomography (CT) have provided new insights into HIV effects on the lungs. New biomarker analyses are emerging, but further studies are needed to validate predictive biomarkers for chronic lung disease in PWH. Clinical trials addressing chronic lung disease in PWH are few in number. Summary Chronic lung disease is a common and high-impact comorbidity among PWH. Future studies should collect more comprehensive lung assessments such as DLCO, FeNO, and chest CT in order to better phenotype lung derangements in HIV. Clinical trials are desperately needed to reduce the rising burden of chronic lung disease in PWH.
Lower Case Truth: Bridging Affect Theory and Arts-Based Education Research to Explore Color as Affect:

As education researchers increase our focus on affect as a crucial dimension of school practice and pedagogy, we also have the responsibility of taking up the paradoxical nature of seeking to repre...
Conflict-Related Sexual Violence

This article reviews the remarkable growth in empirical literature in political science on wartime sexual violence against civilians, including rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, and other form...
Is Sacral Dysmorphism Protective Against Spinopelvic Dissociation? Multicenter Case Series.

Objectives Investigate the incidence of sacral dysmorphism (SD) in patients with spinopelvic dissociation (SPD). Design Retrospective case series. Setting Two academic level 1 trauma centers. Patients/participants One thousand eight hundred fifty adult patients with sacral and pelvic fractures (OTA/AO 61-A, B, C). Intervention Plain pelvic radiographs and CT scans. Main outcome measurements Incidence of SD in patients with SPD. Secondary radiographic evaluation of fracture classification and deformity on sagittal imaging. Results Eighty-two patients with SPD were identified, and 12.2% displayed features of SD, significantly less than reported in the literature. The S2 sacral body was the most common horizontal fracture location in patients with SD and nondysmorphic sacra (ND). Roy-Camille type I patterns were more common in ND (35%), versus type II in SD patients (40%). SD patients had lower body mass indexes (19.7 vs. 25.2, P = 0.001). Segmental kyphosis (22.5 degrees ND vs. 23.8 degrees SD, P = 0.838) and sacral kyphosis (26 degrees ND vs. 31 degrees SD, P = 0.605) were similar between groups. Percutaneous fixation was the most common surgical technique. Conclusions We report a significantly lower prevalence of SD in patients with SPD than previously reported in the literature. This suggests that variations in sacral osseous anatomy alter force transmission across the sacrum during traumatic loading, which may be protective against certain high-energy fracture patterns. Preoperative evaluation of sacral anatomy is critical, not only in determining the size and orientation of sacral segment safe zones for screw placement, but also to better understand the pathomechanics involved in sacral trauma. Level of evidence Prognostic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Constant-pattern design method for displacement chromatography.

Abstract Displacement chromatography can be used for the purification of many types of chemicals and biochemicals. In the constant-pattern mode, this method can be used for concentrating and separating various mixtures, leading to higher yields and sorbent productivities than elution chromatography. There are, however, no commercial-scale applications of displacement chromatography. One major barrier is the difficulty in specifying the design variables for reaching a constant-pattern state. A second barrier is that productivity is limited when the feed mixture contains a minority component. In this study, a constant-pattern design method is developed to overcome the first barrier. Theoretical analyses and strategically chosen combinations of key dimensionless groups are used for reducing the multi-dimensional parameter space into a two-dimensional space. Systematic rate model simulations are used to find a general correlation, which divides the two-dimensional space into a transient region and a constant-pattern region. A predictive design method based on the general correlation is developed to find the designs for achieving required product purities and yields with the highest productivities. The design method was shown to increase significantly the productivities or yields for the separations of three binary mixtures. To overcome the second barrier, a multi-zone displacement chromatography method is presented for dividing the separation tasks in multiple zones. For a specific ternary mixture containing a minority component, the sorbent productivity for a two-zone design was 680 times higher than that of a single-column design. This method can be used for developing efficient displacement chromatography processes for purifying a wide range of complex mixtures.
Testing Asset Pricing Models on Individual Stocks

This paper tests asset pricing models using individual stocks as test assets, rather than sorted portfolios. Sorted portfolios have the severe limitation that the researcher must know, in advance, reliable predictors of expected returns. We show how to generate appropriately sized tests and verify that our tests have considerable test power. In simulations when the CAPM describes the population, our tests (correctly) reject the Fama and French (2015) six factor model 97.5% of the time, while our tests (incorrectly) reject the CAPM less than 5%. We apply our tests to several leading factor models and reject nine of the eleven models tested. The instrumented factor model of Kelly, Pruitt and Su stands out as the most successful.
Location-Aware Services and QR Codes for Libraries by Joe Murphy

Location-aware services utilize mobile devices to allow people to note their location, learn of nearby services, or find nearby friends. Joe Murphy writes about how to set up a variety of different...
Evaluating the Security of Three Java-Based Mobile Agent Systems

The goal of mobile agent systems is to provide a distributed computing infrastructure supporting applications whose components can move between different execution environments. The design and implementation of mechanisms to relocate computations requires a careful assessment of security issues. If these issues are not addressed properly, mobile agent technology cannot be used to implement real-world applications. This paper describes the initial steps of a research effort to design and implement security middleware for mobile code systems in general and mobile agent systems in particular. This initial phase focused on understanding and evaluating the security mechanisms of existing mobile agent systems. The evaluation was performed by deploying several mobile agents systems in a testbed network, implementing attacks on the systems, and evaluating the results. The long term goal for this research is to develop guidelines for the security analysis of mobile agent systems and to determine if existing systems provide the security abstractions and mechanisms needed to develop real-world applications.
Effects of soil pH and nitrogen fertility on the population dynamics of Thielaviopsis basicola

Black root rot of tobacco, caused by Thielaviopsis basicola, is generally severe at soil pH values >5.6 and suppressed under more acidic conditions (pH < 5.2). Soil acidifying fertilizers containing NH4–N are generally recommended for burley tobacco production in North Carolina, but the effects of N form and application rate on development of black root rot and on the population dynamics of T. basicola have not been determined. Greenhouse and laboratory studies were conducted to evaluate the effects of N form (NH4+ or NO3−) and rate on pathogen and disease parameters at several initial soil pH levels. A moderately-conducive field soil, initial pH 4.7, was adjusted to a pH of 5.5 or 6.5 by the addition of CaOH2, then amended with the desired nitrogen form and rate. Pathogen populations were determined over time. In addition, spore production in extracts of roots from plants grown in the various nitrogen and pH treatments was determined. Finally, because tobacco responds to acidic soil conditions and exposure to NH4–N by accumulating high concentrations of the polyamine putrescine, the toxicity of putrescine on vegetative growth and reproduction of T. basicola was investigated. Low soil pH and high levels of NH4–N suppressed reproduction of T. basicola in soil and in root extract, while use of NO3–N and depletion of NH4–N resulted in rapid increases in populations of T. basicola. At 20 mM, putrescine inhibited hyphal growth by 60% and aleuriospore production by 98%. Fertilizers that reduced soil pH also reduced reproduction by T. basicola, and thus have potential for management of black root rot by suppressing populations of T. basicola over multiple years of crop production. The suppression of T. basicola and black root rot observed with NH4–N amendments may partially be due to development of an inhibitory environment in the root and not solely to changes in rhizosphere pH.
Monoclonal Antibodies Against ICAM-1 and CD18 Attenuate Cerebral Vasospasm After Experimental Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in Rabbits

Background and Purpose —Inflammatory responses have been implicated in the elaboration of several forms of central nervous system injury, including cerebral vasospasm after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). A critical event participating in such responses is the recruitment of circulating leukocytes into the inflammatory site. Two of the key adhesion molecules responsible for the attachment of leukocytes to endothelial cells are intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and the common β chain of the integrin superfamily (CD18). This study examined the effects of monoclonal antibodies on ICAM-1 and the effects of CD18 on cerebral vasospasm after SAH. Methods —A rabbit model of SAH was utilized to test the influence of intracisternally administered antibodies to ICAM-1 and CD18 on cerebral vasospasm. Antibodies were administered alone or in combination, and the cross-sectional area of basilar arteries was assessed histologically on day 2 post-SAH. Results —Treatment with antibodies to ICAM-1 or CD18 inhibited vasospasm by 22% and 27%, respectively. When administered together, the attenuation of vasospasm increased to 56%. All of these effects achieved statistical significance. Conclusions —These findings provide the first evidence that the severity of cerebral vasospasm can be attenuated using monoclonal antibodies against ICAM-1 and CD18. The results reinforce the concept that cell-mediated inflammation plays an important role in cerebral vasospasm after SAH and suggest that therapeutic targeting of cellular adhesion molecules can be of benefit in treating cerebral vasospasm.
Metadata or Cataloguing?: A False Choice

ABSTRACT Libraries, their collections, and bibliographic control are essential components of the provision of access to recorded knowledge. Cataloguing is a primary method of biblographic control. Full or traditional cataloguing is very expensive, but relying on keyword searching is inadequate. Alternatives for a solution to cataloguing needs for electronic resources including the use of metadata and the Dublin Core are examined. Many questions exist regarding the long-term future of today's electronic documents. Recommendations are made for preserving recorded knowledge and information in the electronic resources for future generations.
Inorganic chemistry: How calcium affects oxygen formation.

Calcium is an essential component of the catalyst that forms oxygen from water during photosynthesis. It seems that part of calcium's job is to enable the release of oxygen from this catalyst.
Improved Monte Carlo linear solvers through non-diagonal splitting

Fast, but approximate, solutions to linear algebra problems have many potential applications, such as in graph partitioning, preconditioning, information retrieval, etc. Monte Carlo techniques appear attractive for such needs. While Monte Carlo linear solvers have a long history, their application has been limited due to slow convergence. Despite the development of techniques to improve their accuracy, current methods suffer from the drawback that they are stochastic realizations of inherently poor iterative methods. The reason for such choices is the need for efficient Monte Carlo implementation, which has restricted the splittings that are considered. However, in this paper we demonstrate that such restrictions are not necessarily required, and that efficient Monte Carlo implementations are possible even with splittings that do not appear amenable to it.
Injection and mobility of potassium ions in liquid helium

Abstract Potassium ions from a hot tungsten wire are injected into He II; their mobility is found to be two to three percent lower than that of ‘normal’ positive ions.
Explaining Support for Non-nationalist Parties in Post-conflict Societies in the Balkans

Abstract Parties willing to engage in cross-ethnic political cooperation are essential for the stability and democracy of ethnically divided post-conflict states. The investigation of voting in Macedonia and Bosnia, which are similarly small, impoverished, ethnically fragmented and threatened states that arose out of Yugoslavia, helps uncover factors that encourage voters to support parties willing to engage in cooperative multiethnic governance. Analysis of survey data suggests that supporters of the non-nationalist challengers in the first post-violence elections expressed both strong positive associations with the past communist system and clear negative assessments of the governing record of the incumbent nationalists, sentiments that were stronger among Macedonians than among Bosniaks. Data, however, call into question popular contentions that voters' support for non-nationalists is rooted in their social tolerance or engagement in civil society. The finding that Macedonian support for non-nationalis...
Design considerations in the development of a spherical mobile robot

The design problems in the development of a spherical mobile robot are discussed in this paper. These problems include dynamics and design of the propulsion mechanism, motion planning and control problems, actuator selection and sensor placement, design and fabrication of the exo-skeleton, and other issues related to power management and computing. Each of the problems are discussed in brief and presented in relation to the spherical mobile robot currently under development at Michigan State University.
A rational difference equation

Abstract We investigate the boundedness character, the periodic nature, and the global asymptotic stability of all positive solutions of the equation in the title with positive parameters and nonnegative initial conditions.
On reducing energy management delays in disks

Enterprise computing systems consume a large amount of energy, the cost of which contributes significantly to the operating budget. Consequently, dynamic energy management techniques are prevalent. Unfortunately, dynamic energy management for disks impose delays associated with powering up the disks from a low-power state. Systems designers face a critical trade-off: saving energy reduces operating costs but may increase delays; conversely, reduced access latency makes the systems more responsive but may preclude energy management. In this paper, we propose a System-wide Alternative Retrieval of Data (SARD) scheme. SARD exploits the similarity in software deployment and configuration in enterprise computers to retrieve binaries transparently from other nodes, thus avoiding access delays when the local disk is in a low-power state. SARD uses a software-based approach to reduce spin-up delays while eliminating custom buffering, shared memory infrastructure, or the need for major changes in the operating system. SARD achieves over 71% reduction in delays on trace-driven simulations and in an actual implementation. This will encourage users to utilize energy management techniques more frequently. SARD also achieves an additional 5.1% average reduction in energy consumption for typical desktop applications compared to the widely-used timeout-based disk energy management.
Optical detection of electron-electron double resonance (EEDOR) in zero field of the triplet state

Abstract An optically detected electron-electron double resonance (EEDOR) experiment is demonstrated on the triplet state of pyrimidine by using two concentric microwave helices. EEDOR extends the use of optical detection methods in observing zero field (z.f.) transitions between z.f. levels that are either nonradiative or have equal population at very low temperatures.
Environmental Impacts of High Level Radioactive Waste Disposal

The potential hazards of the high level waste produced by one year of all nuclear power in the U. S. are calculated as a function of time for direct gamma radiation, inhalation, and ingestion, and scales are given for consequences of the worst credible handling. The probability for buried waste to be released into the environment by several pathways is estimated, and several factors of related interest are discussed.
Agmatine Stimulates Hepatic Fatty Acid Oxidation A POSSIBLE MECHANISM FOR UP-REGULATION OF UREAGENESIS

We demonstrated previously in a liver perfusion system that agmatine increases oxygen consumption as well as the synthesis of N-acetylglutamate and urea by an undefined mechanism. In this study our aim was to identify the mechanism(s) by which agmatine up-regulates ureagenesis. We hypothesized that increased oxygen consumption and N-acetylglutamate and urea synthesis are coupled to agmatine-induced stimulation of mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation. We used 13C-labeled fatty acid as a tracer in either a liver perfusion system or isolated mitochondria to monitor fatty acid oxidation and the incorporation of 13C-labeled acetyl-CoA into ketone bodies, tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates, amino acids, and N-acetylglutamate. With [U-13C16] palmitate in the perfusate, agmatine significantly increased the output of 13C-labeled beta-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetate, and CO2, indicating stimulated fatty acid oxidation. The stimulation of [U-13C16]palmitate oxidation was accompanied by greater production of urea and a higher 13C enrichment in glutamate, N-acetylglutamate, and aspartate. These observations suggest that agmatine leads to increased incorporation and flux of 13C-labeled acetyl-CoA in the tricarboxylic acid cycle and to increased utilization of 13C-labeled acetyl-CoA for synthesis of N-acetylglutamate. Experiments with isolated mitochondria and 13C-labeled octanoic acid also demonstrated that agmatine increased synthesis of 13C-labeled beta-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetate, and N-acetylglutamate. The current data document that agmatine stimulates mitochondrial beta-oxidation and suggest a coupling between the stimulation of hepatic beta-oxidation and up-regulation of ureagenesis. This action of agmatine may be mediated via a second messenger such as cAMP, and the effects on ureagenesis and fatty acid oxidation may occur simultaneously and/or independently.
Impact of live medication therapy management on cholesterol values in patients with cardiovascular disease

Abstract Objective To compare the impact of clinical pharmacist (CP) recommendations through a live, primary care-based, medication therapy management (MTM) protocol on low-density-lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in patients who have cardiovascular disease (CVD) with standard, chart-review MTM. Methods Patients with established CVD who were not at their LDL goal were identified and analyzed by either a chart-review MTM service or a live, one-on-one pharmacist–physician MTM service over a 6-month timeframe. For the chart-review MTM service, recommendations were communicated through an electronic medical record (EMR) that the physician and pharmacist had access to. Results Primary outcomes included mean LDL reduction from baseline, number of patients achieving their LDL goal, and percent of implemented CP recommendations. Mean LDL reduction from baseline in the chart-review MTM group and the live MTM group was 36 mg/dL ± 23.2 mg/dL ( P = 0.001) and 62 mg/dL ± 28.3 mg/dL ( P = 0.001), respectively. The difference between these two groups was statistically significant ( P = 0.001). The chart-review MTM group had 30% of patients reach their LDL goal with 66.3% of CP recommendations implemented compared to 51.3% and 86.3% for the same parameters in the live MTM group ( P = 0.006 and P = 0.003, respectively). Conclusion Although both MTM services provide a significant LDL reduction from baseline in patients with CVD, live MTM provides significantly greater LDL reductions, implemented CP recommendations, and goal attainment than chart-review MTM. Thus, live MTM services are more effective than chart-review MTM services, at least within the clinics that these protocols were assessed for the purposes of this study.
Fresh Surgical Specimens Yield Breast Stem/Progenitor Cells and Reveal Their Oncogenic Abnormalities

Background The process by which breast cancer stem cells arise is unknown. It may be that the benign stem cells in breast tissue are transformed into malignant stem cells through the acquisition of genetic abnormalities. In this study, we collected and compared benign and malignant breast stem/progenitor cells to determine whether specific genetic abnormalities occur in breast cancer stem/progenitor cells within the human body.
Ocular phenotype of Fbn2-null mice.

Purpose Fibrillin-2 (Fbn2) is the dominant fibrillin isoform expressed during development of the mouse eye. To test its role in morphogenesis, we examined the ocular phenotype of Fbn2(-/-) mice. Methods Ocular morphology was assessed by confocal microscopy using antibodies against microfibril components. Results Fbn2(-/-) mice had a high incidence of anterior segment dysgenesis. The iris was the most commonly affected tissue. Complete iridal coloboma was present in 37% of eyes. Dyscoria, corectopia and pseudopolycoria were also common (43% combined incidence). In wild-type (WT) mice, fibrillin-2-rich microfibrils are prominent in the pupillary membrane (PM) during development. In Fbn2-null mice, the absence of Fbn2 was partially compensated for by increased expression of fibrillin-1, although the resulting PM microfibrils were disorganized, compared with WTs. In colobomatous adult Fbn2(-/-) eyes, the PM failed to regress normally, especially beneath the notched region of the iris. Segments of the ciliary body were hypoplastic, and zonular fibers, although relatively plentiful, were unevenly distributed around the lens equator. In regions where the zonular fibers were particularly disturbed, the synchronous differentiation of the underlying lens fiber cells was affected. Conclusions Fbn2 has an indispensable role in ocular morphogenesis in mice. The high incidence of iris coloboma in Fbn2-null animals implies a previously unsuspected role in optic fissure closure. The observation that fiber cell differentiation was disturbed in Fbn2(-/-) mice raises the possibility that the attachment of zonular fibers to the lens surface may help specify the equatorial margin of the lens epithelium.
On the effect of ramp rate in damage accumulation of the CPV die-attach

It is commonly understood that thermal cycling at high temperature ramp rates may activate unrepresentative failure mechanisms. Increasing the temperature ramp rate of thermal cycling, however, could dramatically reduce the test time required to achieve an equivalent amount of thermal fatigue damage, thereby reducing overall test time. Therefore, the effect of temperature ramp rate on physical damage in the CPV die-attach is investigated. Finite Element Model (FEM) simulations of thermal fatigue and thermal cycling experiments are made to determine if the amount of damage calculated results in a corresponding amount of physical damage measured to the die-attach for a variety of fast temperature ramp rates. Preliminary experimental results are in good agreement with simulations and reinforce the potential of increasing temperature ramp rates. Characterization of the microstructure and resulting fatigue crack in the die-attach suggest a similar failure mechanism across all ramp rates tested.
Viscoelastic Indentation of Extremely Soft Biological Samples

Though tissue mechanics serve an important biological function, as in embryonic organ development, a paucity of experimental methods exists to measure these interactions. We used an atomic force microscope (AFM) to measure local mechanical properties of unfixed cryosections of mouse embryonic tooth, which served as a model for organ morphogenesis. AFM is commonly used for tissue indentation; however, most of these studies analyze adult tissues that are mechanically more robust than embryonic tissues, and thus existing experimental protocols do not address the technological limitations of AFM indentation into extremely soft materials ( 50%) between the software-prescribed and actual applied loads that arise from tissue deformation and the artifacts just mentioned. Since there is no closed-form solution to the integral of the noisy load history, analysis of the indentation data is more complicated. To address this, we took a numerical approach, which produced an average correction of 11% in the instantaneous shear modulus, 10% in the infinite-time shear modulus and 19% in the creep function time constant of relaxation in data from 20 indentations. In addition, this approach was able to successfully resolve subtle differences (<10 Pa) in local tissue stiffness. Thus, our method produces a more sensitive and accurate viscoelastic measurement of extremely soft embryonic tissues, which may greatly aid in uncovering the micromechanical determinants of embryonic tissue development.
Performance of an Electrokinetic Shuttle Polymerase Chain Reactor

An alternative polymerase chain reactor (PCR) driven by electrokinetic flow was developed and tested. A single straight microchannel and a double-T intersection were designed for injection of DNA samples and thermal cycling by shuttling between constant temperature zones. Thermal performance of the device was studied using numerical and analytical models to understand the temperature distribution. Devices were made on a polycarbonate substrate by hot embossing with a micromilled brass mold insert. A PID control system, with a tolerance of ± 0.2°C, was used to maintain the temperatures in each zone during experiments. Power consumption in each zone was predicted using thermal simulations. Molecular diffusion of 500 bp DNA was evaluated using two methods, an empirical equation and an analytical model, and the diffusion length after 20 cycles from both models was 100 μm with a 0.97 μm difference. Electroosmotic flow (EOF) was minimized by using dynamic coating and Joule heating was reduced by decreasing the KCl component in the DNA cocktail. Successful amplification of 500 bp DNA fragments at shuttle velocities of 1mm s-1 (620 seconds), 2mm s-1 (310 seconds), and 3mm s-1 (207 seconds) was demonstrated for 20 thermal cycles. The amplification efficiencies were 31%, 28%, and 18%, respectively. Unintentional flows resulting from siphoning phenomenon due to hydrostatic pressure, and Laplace pressure due to surface tension, may be responsible for the reduced amplification performance.Copyright © 2006 by ASME
Rats prefer the Home Cage to the Runway following Intermittent but not Consistent Reinforcement

SEVERAL sources of evidence suggest that, in both the Skinner box and runway, an intermittent schedule of reinforcement could be a source of aversion. Time-out studies show that when a pigeon or rat can turn off a stimulus which is associated with a particular reinforcement schedule, the frequency and duration for which it does so vary inversely with the probability of reinforcement1,2. Furthermore, when rats or pigeons are given a choice between equal schedules of reinforcement which are predictable in one case and unpredictable in another, they choose the former3,4.
Comment on "Changes in the Rates of North Atlantic Major Hurricane Activity During the 20th Century"

Atlantic major hurricanes have a profound impact on human and natural environments. Understanding and predicting these storms’ occurrence on daily, intraseasonal, interannual, multidecadal and climatic timescales can be of tremendous benefit and should be pursued vigorously. Elsner et al. [2000] (hereafter as EJN) address multidecadal changes of Atlantic basin major hurricanes - those tropical cyclones with maximum sustained surface winds of at least 50 m/s. However, aspects of EJN analysis are questionable because its treatment of the Atlantic major hurricane database may be erroneous, because its proposed link to the North Atlantic Oscillation is unsubstantiated, and because it fails to cite or acknowledge key earlier studies. Treating the record of Atlantic major hurricanes since 1900 as trustworthy in its entirety is very questionable. The assumption that the records of major hurricane activity are complete before the advent of aircraft reconnaissance leads directly to the erroneous conclusion that major hurricanes became much more numerous starting in 1943. That year - not coincidentally - was the beginning of routine aircraft flights into hurricanes [Sumner 1944]. EJN state that “the observational bias is smallest for the strong storms considered here”. It is unclear how the authors come to this conclusion. Major hurricanes typically stay at that intensity for an average of 2-3 days and have their 50 m/s or higher winds concentrated in the mesoscale (10s of km) eyewall [Landsea 1993; Powell and Houston 1998]. Before aircraft and satellite reconnaissance, it was simply not possible to detect such small transient features offshore consistently or reliably. Holland [1981] demonstrated that even when numerous ships and buoys are in a strong tropical cyclone, the actual intensity is likely to be drastically underestimated without aircraft or satellite data. Another way to understand the problem is a comparison of the relationship between all major hurricanes to the subset that have hit the United States. (The latter should be sampled adequately back to the beginning of the 20th Century.) These two records are correlated at r=0.41 for the years 1943-99 (less than 17% of the variance) versus r=0.78 for 1900-1942 (over 61% of the variance). (These two correlation coefficients show a strong significant difference in a two-tailed test with a p-value of less than 0.03.) Since in nature the relationship should be relatively steady over time, one can conclude that before the mid-1940s, the Atlantic major hurricane records were less likely to include those that did not strike the United States. Solow and Moore [2000] come to similar conclusions as stated above by analyzing the ratio of landfalling U.S. hurricanes to all Atlantic basin hur
Shrinkage behaviour of low-profile unsaturated polyester resins

Abstract A dilatometer, designed and built in-house, was applied to the study of low-profile unsaturated polyester resins. The change in polymer morphology as a function of polymerization shrinkage and low-profile additive (LPA)-induced plateau region, and the role of fissure formation in the LPA mechanism were investigated. An LPA mechanism was proposed based on the findings of this study. Also included in this work was the effect of pressure and thickening on shrinkage control. Finally, a series of bulk moulding compound compression mouldings was performed to investigate the relationship between polymerization shrinkage control and moulded panel surface quality and moulding shrinkage.