cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Hypertension in Pregnancy

Hypertensive disorders of pregnancy represent the second commonest cause of direct maternal death and complicate an estimated 5-10 % of pregnancies. Classification systems aim to separate hypertension similar to that seen outside pregnancy (chronic and gestational hypertension) from the potentially fatal pregnancy-specific conditions. Preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, and eclampsia represent increasing severities of this disease spectrum. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' 2013 guidelines no longer require proteinuria as a diagnostic criterion, because of its variable appearance in the disease spectrum. The cause involves inadequate cytotrophoblastic invasion of the myometrium, resulting in placental hypoperfusion and diffuse maternal endothelial dysfunction. Changes in angiogenic and antiangiogentic peptide profiles precede the onset of clinical preeclampsia. Women with preeclampsia should be closely monitored and receive magnesium sulfate intravenously if severe features, HELLP syndrome, or eclampsia occur. Definitive therapy is delivery of the fetus. Hypertension in pregnancy increases future maternal risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disorders.
Decreasing magmatic footprints of individual volcanoes in a waning basaltic field

The distribution and characteristics of individual basaltic volcanoes in the waning Southwestern Nevada Volcanic Field provide insight into the changing physical nature of magmatism and the controls on volcano location. During Pliocene-Pleistocene times the volumes of individual volcanoes have decreased by more than one order of magnitude, as have fissure lengths and inferred lava effusion rates. Eruptions evolved from Hawaiian-style eruptions with extensive lavas to eruptions characterized by small pulses of lava and Strombolian to violent Strombolian mechanisms. These trends indicate progressively decreasing partial melting and length scales, or magmatic footprints, of mantle source zones for individual volcanoes. The location of each volcano is determined by the location of its magmatic footprint at depth, and only by shallow structural and topographic features that are within that footprint. The locations of future volcanoes in a waning system are less likely to be determined by large-scale topography or structures than were older, larger volume volcanoes.
Chromosome arrangement within a bacterium

Abstract Background: The contour length of the circular chromosome of bacteria is greater than a millimeter but must be accommodated within a cell that is only a few micrometers in length. Bacteria do not have nucleosomes and little is known about the arrangement of the chromosome inside a prokaryotic cell. Results: We have investigated the arrangement of chromosomal DNA within the bacterium Bacillus subtilis by using fluorescence microscopy to visualize two sites on the chromosome simultaneously in the same cell. Indirect immunofluorescence with antibodies against the chromosome partition protein Spo0J were used to visualize the replication origin region of the chromosome. Green fluorescent protein fused to the lactose operon repressor Lacl was used to decorate tandem copies of the lactose operon operator lacO . A cassette of tandem operators was separately inserted into the chromosome near the origin (359°), near the replication terminus (181°), or at two points in between (90° and 270°). The results show that the layout of the chromosome is dynamic but is principally arranged with the origin and terminus maximally apart and the quarter points of the chromosome in between. Conclusions: The use of cytological methods to visualize two chromosomal sites in the same cell has provided a glimpse of the arrangement of a bacterial chromosome. We conclude that, to a first approximation, the folding of the bacterial chromosome is consistent with, and may preserve, the linear order of genes on the DNA.
THE COURSE OF RENAL HYPERTENSION AFTER BILATERAL NEPHRECTOMY AND TRANSPLANTATION.

Excerpt In 1962 we lost two patients after transplantation of cadaver kidneys that never functioned. Since April 1, 1963, we have performed seven transplants without losing one patient. One kidney ...
Simulating the visual environment in real-time via software

Computer graphics has been seen since its inception as a means of simulating the visual environment. Ivan Sutherland's binocular CRTs was the first apparatus designed to place a viewing subject in a world generated by a computer. When the subject in Sutherland's apparatus turned his head, the computer generated new images in response, simulating what the subject would see if he really were in the 3-space which existed only in the computer's memory. This paper describes a system which is a practical extension of Sutherland's concept.
Chromatographic Method Validation: A Review of Current Practices and Procedures. I. General Concepts and Guidelines

Abstract Validation of analytical methodologies is widely recognized as an important aspect of the development/utilization of analytical procedures and is widely required in support of product registration applications. Detailed, specific and comprehensive guidelines for the performance of analytical validations are not universally available. In this manuscript, the role and concept of validation is defined, the necessity for validation is established and published guidelines related to appropriate validation parameters are reviewed. The validation of chromatographic methods for pharmaceutical applications is particularly emphasized.
Capacity of Multiple Unicast in Wireless Networks: A Polymatroidal Approach

A classical result in undirected wireline networks is the near optimality of routing (flow) for multiple-unicast traffic (multiple sources communicating independent messages to multiple destinations): the min cut upper bound is within a logarithmic factor of the number of sources of the max flow. In this paper, we extend the wireline result to the wireless context. In particular, we show the following meta-theorem: if for a given channel and its reciprocal channel, the cut-set bound is (approximately) achievable, then for multiple-unicast in a bidirected network comprised of such channels, the cut-set bound is (approximately) achievable within a logarithmic factor of the number of sources. The achievable scheme can be viewed as an instantiation of a simple layering principle: local physical-layer schemes combined with global routing. We use the reciprocity of the wireless channel critically in this result. We prove this result formally as a capacity approximation result for a variety of channel models, including general Gaussian networks under fast fading, networks comprised only of broadcast and MAC channels, and networks comprised of broadcast erasure channels with feedback. The capacity approximations we prove tend to have both an additive gap (power loss) and a multiplicative gap (degrees of freedom loss). The key engineering insight is that layered architectures, common in the engineering-design of wireless networks, can have near-optimal performance if the locality over which physical-layer schemes should operate is carefully designed. Feedback is shown to play a critical role in enabling the separation between the physical and the network layers. The main technical contribution is the usage of polymatroidal network as a graphical model for analyzing the performance of complex wireless networks.
Small Ball Probabilities for Linear Images of High-Dimensional Distributions

Author(s): Rudelson, Mark; Vershynin, Roman | Abstract: We study concentration properties of random vectors of the form $AX$, where $X = (X_1, ..., X_n)$ has independent coordinates and $A$ is a given matrix. We show that the distribution of $AX$ is well spread in space whenever the distributions of $X_i$ are well spread on the line. Specifically, assume that the probability that $X_i$ falls in any given interval of length $T$ is at most $p$. Then the probability that $AX$ falls in any given ball of radius $T \|A\|_{HS}$ is at most $(Cp)^{0.9 r(A)}$, where $r(A)$ denotes the stable rank of $A$ and $C$ is an absolute constant.
An X-ray spectral model for Compton-thick toroidal reprocessors

The central engines of both type 1 and type 2 active galactic nuclei are thought to harbour a toroidal structure that absorbs and reprocesses high-energy photons from the central X-ray source. Unique features in the reprocessed spectra can provide powerful physical constraints on the geometry, column density, element abundances and orientation of the circumnuclear matter. If the reprocessor is Compton-thick, the calculation of emission-line and continuum spectra that are suitable for direct fitting to X-ray data is challenging because the reprocessed emission depends on the spectral shape of the incident continuum, which may not be directly observable. We present new Monte Carlo calculations of Green's functions for a toroidal reprocessor that provide significant improvements over currently available models. The Green's function approach enables the construction of X-ray spectral fitting models that allow arbitrary incident spectra as part of the fitting process. The calculations are fully relativistic and have been performed for column densities that cover the Compton-thin to Compton-thick regime, for incident photon energies up to 500 keV. The Green's function library can easily be extended cumulatively to provide models that are valid for higher input energies and a wider range of element abundances and opening angles of the torus. The reprocessed continuum and fluorescent line emission due to Fe Kα, Fe Kβ and Ni Kα are treated self-consistently, eliminating the need for ad hoc modelling that is currently common practice. We find that the spectral shape of the Compton-thick reflection spectrum in both the soft and hard X-ray bands in our toroidal geometry is different compared with that obtained from disc models. A key result of our study is that a Compton-thick toroidal structure that subtends the same solid angle at the X-ray source as a disc can produce a reflection spectrum that is ∼6 times weaker than that from a disc. This highlights the widespread and erroneous interpretation of the so-called ‘reflection-fraction’ as a solid angle, obtained from fitting disc-reflection models to Compton-thick sources without regard for proper consideration of geometry.
The Announcement Effects of U.S. versus non‐U.S. Bank Mergers: Do They Differ?

Non-U.S. bank mergers are becoming an increasingly important part of the worldwide economic landscape. Are the market reactions to non-U.S. bank mergers similar to the reaction in the United States? I address this question by examining abnormal returns of publicly traded partners on the announcement of forty-one non-U.S. bank mergers and comparing the returns with a U.S. control group. I find acquirers in non-U.S. domestic bank mergers earn more and non-U.S. targets earn less than their U.S. counterparts. However, for the subset of mergers in countries with relatively well-developed stock markets, I find that partners earn similar returns.
Dirty Fireballs and Orphan Afterglows: A Tale of Two Transients

Orphan afterglows are transient events that are produced by cosmological fireballs and resemble gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows yet are not accompanied by gamma rays. Such transients may be produced by jetlike GRBs observed off-axis and therefore hold great promise as a test of GRB collimation. However, orphans may also be produced by "dirty fireballs," i.e., cosmological fireballs whose ejecta carry too many baryons to produce a GRB. A well-designed orphan afterglow search can distinguish between on-axis dirty fireballs and off-axis orphans in at least two ways. First, by combining real-time triggers from a wide-area, multicolor search with deeper follow-up observations, the light curve can be tracked for a time 2t1, where t1 is the age of the event at first observation. Such a light curve allows simultaneous fits to t1 and the time decay slope α with sufficient accuracy to distinguish on- and off-axis orphans. Second, radio follow-up of orphan afterglows will show whether the radio flux is falling in time (as expected for an off-axis orphan) or not (as expected for on-axis events). Additional tests involving multiband monitoring of the cooling, self-absorption, and fν peak frequencies are also possible, although they are much more observationally demanding. A further complication in orphan searches is that dirty fireballs are likely to also be collimated and that collimated dirty fireballs viewed off-axis will individually be practically indistinguishable from off-axis GRB afterglows. To recognize their presence, orphan afterglow surveys must be sufficiently extensive to catch at least some dirty fireballs on-axis.
MULTIPARAMETER PARALLEL SEARCH BRANCH SWITCHING

A continuation method (sometimes called path following) is a way to compute solution curves of a nonlinear system of equations with a parameter. We derive a simple algorithm for branch switching at...
Mimicking photosynthetic solar energy transduction

Increased understanding of photosynthetic energy conversion and advances in chemical synthesis and instrumentation have made it possible to create artificial nanoscale devices and semibiological hybrids that carry out many of the functions of the natural process. Artificial light-harvesting antennas can be synthesized and linked to artificial reaction centers that convert excitation energy to chemical potential in the form of long-lived charge separation. Artificial reaction centers can form the basis for molecular-level optoelectronic devices. In addition, they may be incorporated into the lipid bilayer membranes of artificial vesicles, where they function as components of light-driven proton pumps that generate transmembrane proton motive force. The proton gradient may be used to synthesize adenosine triphosphate via an ATP synthase enzyme. The overall energy transduction process in the liposomal system mimics the solar energy conversion system of a photosynthetic bacterium. The results of this research illustrate the advantages of designing functional nanoscale devices based on biological paradigms.
Goods Prices and Availability in Cities

This article uses detailed barcode data on purchase transactions by households in 49 U.S. cities to calculate the first theoretically founded urban price index. In doing so, we overcome a large number of problems that have plagued spatial price index measurement. We identify two important sources of bias. Heterogeneity bias arises from comparing different goods in different locations, and variety bias arises from not correcting for the fact that some goods are unavailable in some locations. Eliminating heterogeneity bias causes 97% of the variance in the price level of food products across cities to disappear relative to a conventional index. Eliminating both biases reverses the common finding that prices tend to be higher in larger cities. Instead, we find that price level for food products falls with city size.
Self-Quenching Streamers

Self quenching streamers in drift tubes have been observed both optically and electronically. The streamers of 150-200 ?m width extend out from the anode wire to 1.5 to 3 mm at atmospheric pressures. Electronic measurements show that pulses with a rise time of 5 ns reach 30 mV directly into 50 ? with a decay time of 40 ns at a two atmosphere pressure. Details of the experiments are discussed. There was no detectable residue on an anode wire after exposing it to 2 × 109 streamers for a 1 mm section.
Homochiral acetals in organic synthesis. A general enantioselective entry to carbohydrate derivatives from non-carbohydrate precursors

Abstract A general chromatographic separation of furanosides and pyranosides derived from esters of lactic acid is disclosed. Application of this separation methodology to rapid syntheses of the diastereomers of (S)-methyl lactyl 4-deoxyribopyranose is described.
NUMERICAL SOLUTION OF THE FOKKER--PLANCK EQUATIONS FOR A HYDROGEN PLASMA FORMED BY NEUTRAL INJECTION.

Abstract We describe a program for the solution of the time-dependent Fokker-Planck equations for electron and ion distribution functions in velocity space. We consider the formation of a plasma in a magnetic mirror configuration by the injection of energetic neutral atoms. In the equations we have a source of energetic protons and cold electrons, and we include losses due to scattering and charge exchange. The coupled nonlinear partial differential equations are solved by an implicit difference method which is described. Numerical results are presented for two cases of interest.
The strong semantics for logic programs

Recently, the well-founded semantics of a logic programP has been strengthened to the well-founded semantics-by-case (WFC) and this in turn has been strengthened to the extended well-founded semantics (WFE). Both WFC(P) and WFE(P) have thelogical consequence property, namely, if an atomAj is true in the theory Th(P), thenAj is true in the semantics as well. However, neither WFC nor WFE has the GCWA property, i.e., if an atomAj is false in all minimal models ofP,Aj may not be false in WFC(P) (resp. WFE(P)). We extend the ideas in WFC and WFE to define a strong well-founded semantics WFS which has the GCWA property. The strong semantics WFS(P) is defined by combining GCWA with the notion ofderived rules. Here we use a new Type-III derived rules in addition to those used in WFC and WFE. The relationship between WFS and WFC is also clarified.
Excitation of the Sodium D Line Emission Observed in the Vicinity of Io

Abstract The D2/D1 ratio observed for the sodium emission around Io appears too large for that emission to be only resonant scattering of the solar flux. An optically thick source close to the surface of Io, with an intensity comparable to that observed, could be a significant excitation source. This extra flux, in combination with the solar flux, would cause the D2/D1, ratio to he considerably greater than the value of 1.8 expected for the solar flux alone. A non-thermal mechanism is probably required to raise sufficient sodium to form the observed cloud as fast as required by the suspected time variations. The torus would then extend well beyond the boundaries calculated for a torus populated by thermal escape.
Microwave Synthesis of 5-Substituted 1H-Tetrazoles Catalyzed by Bismuth Chloride in Water

AbstractBismuth chloride was used to catalyze the [2 + 3] cycloaddition between sodium azide with aryl nitriles, aliphatic nitriles, and vinyl nitriles. A number of 5-substituted 1H-tetrazoles were synthesized in water or isopropanol/water mixtures using microwave heating. Good yields were obtained for these reactions when heated for 1 h at 120–160 °C in a 3:1 isopropanol/water mixture. A few of the less reactive nitriles required longer reaction times for good yields.
Unsymmetric chiral salen Schiff bases: A new chiral ligand pool from bis-schiff bases containing two different salicylaldehyde units

Abstract An efficient and facile synthesis of a new class of novel chiral Salen Schiff base ligands has been developed via a stepwise approach. An important feature of these new Salen ligands is that they possess two different salicylaldehyde units, therefore, while steric factor or electronic factor can be fixed on one side, electronic or/and steric factors can be tuned from the other side with different substituents.
Spontaneous cyclization of triflates derived from δ-benzyloxy alcohols: Efficient and general synthesis of C-vinyl furanosides

Abstract On reaction with triflic anhydride, the hept-1-enitols resulting from the Wittig reaction of tetra-O-benzyl d -hexopyranoses with [ Ph 3 P  CH 2 ] lead, in one step, to 3,6-anhydro-hept-1-enitol derivatives (“C-vinyl furanosides”) in high yield, by way of the participation of the benzyloxy group at C-3 with concomitant debenzylation.
Exploring the effects of urban and agricultural land use on surface water chemistry, across a regional watershed, using multivariate statistics

In this paper, the influence of anthropogenic activity on surface water chemistry is investigated. Base flow samples from dominant land use streams in the Muskegon River Watershed, Michigan, USA, were analyzed for nutrients, major ions, and trace elements. Principal component and hierarchical cluster analysis were used to investigate the processes controlling the effects of land use on the biogeochemistry of streams in this Watershed. Biogeochemical fingerprints of land use were developed based on the results of the cluster analysis. Spider diagrams which referenced the natural environment aided the identification of the individual contributions of urban and agricultural land uses to surface water chemistry. The biogeochemical fingerprints quantified support previous findings (Urb: Na, K, Cl/Ag: Ca, Mg) and produced new insights into the effects of land use on the behavior of nutrients (Ag: N and Urb: N, P) and trace elements (Urb: V, Cr, Co, Cu, Se, Rb, Mo, Sr, Cd, Pb and Ba/Ag: U and As). The higher correlations of urban than agricultural land uses with nutrients, specifically P, were not expected and may reflect the effects of fertilization and wastewater or the season the samples were taken. More study in different geologic and urban settings is needed to help refine these fingerprints, but it is becoming apparent that despite obscuring factors, land use produces consistent, quantifiable associations between biogeochemical analytes.
In vitro testing of a protease-sensitive contrast agent for optoacoustic imaging

We have designed a protease-sensitive imaging probe for optoacoustic imaging whose absorption spectrum changes upon cleavage by a protease of interest. The probe comprises an active site, a derivative of chlorophyll or natural photosynthetic bacteriochlorophyll that absorbs in the near infrared, conjugated to a peptide backbone specific to the protease being imaged. The uncleaved molecules tend to aggregate in dimers and trimers causing a change in the absorption spectrum relative to that of the monomer. Upon cleavage, the probe molecules de-aggregate giving rise to a spectrum characteristic of monomers. We show using photospectrometry that the two forms of the probe have markedly different absorption spectra, which could allow for in vivo optoacoustic identification using a multiwavelength imaging strategy. Optoacoustic measurements using a narrow-band dye laser find spectral peaks in the two forms of the probe at the expected location. The optoacoustic signal from the uncleaved probe is found to be considerably weaker than that of the cleaved probe, perhaps due to poor optical-acoustic coupling in the aggregated molecules. However, ultimately, it is detection of the cleaved probe that is of the greatest import since it reports on the protease activity of interest. PUBLISHERS NOTE 9/1/2010: The figure numbers are corrected. If you downloaded the incorrect version of Paper 75641T and no longer have access to download the correct paper, please contact CustomerService@SPIEDigitalLibrary.org for assistance.
Synthesis of a bicyclic model for the marine hepatotoxin cylindrospermopsin

A double Michael addition of ammonia to dienone 9 to give piperidinone 10 and the reaction of diamine 16 with isothiocyanate 19 to give protected guanidine 18 are the key transformations in a ten-step synthesis of the cylindrospermopsin model 22.
Pressure Effects on Polymer Coil−Globule Transitions near an LCST

A model for the pressure−temperature behavior of the coil−globule transition (CGT) of a polymer in dilute solution is developed without adjustable parameters. The predicted pressure−temperature conformational behavior semiquantitatively correlates with extant experimental data. The model yields a heating induced coil-to-globule transition (HCGT) temperature that increases with pressure until it merges with a cooling induced coil-to-globule transition (CCGT). The point at which the CCGT and HCGT meet is a hypercritical point that also corresponds to a merging of lower critical solution temperature (LCST) and upper critical solution temperatures (UCST). Theoretical results are discussed in terms of a generalized polymer/solvent phase diagram that possesses two hypercritical points.
Feature-shape and line-edge roughness measurement of deep submicron lithographic structures using small-angle neutron scattering

We demonstrate the application of small angle neutron scattering (SANS) measurements for the quick, nondestructive, and quantitative measurement of the feature shape and size and line-edge roughness of lithographically prepared structures using a model photoresist pattern consisting of a periodic grating of 0.15micrometers lines. The measurements are performed directly on structures as fabricated on a silicon wafer with no other sample preparation. For well-defined patterns placed normal to the neutron beam, we easily observe up to six orders of diffraction peaks. Analytic expressions from standard small angle scattering formalism are sued to extract the average line structure, spacing, and line-edge roughness from the peak positions and intensities. Additional structural information is obtained by tilting the pattern relative to the incident beam. Changes in the observed scattering data as a function of the tilting angle are related to characteristics such as the height of the structures and the symmetry of the line shape.
On the definition of word hyperbolic groups

Formal languages based on multiplication tables of finitely generated groups are investigated and used to give a linguistic characterization of word hyperbolic groups.
Democratization or Diversion? The Effect of Community Colleges on Educational Attainment

This article estimates the impact of community colleges on educational attainment. Community colleges give those who might not have otherwise attended college the ability to do so (democratization); they also attract students who might otherwise have attended a four-year college (diversion). The effect of democratization on educational attainment is nonnegative; the effect of diversion is unclear a priori. I use variation in access to community colleges as instrumental variables to address self-selection into types of colleges. The results suggest that two-year college students diverted from a four-year college complete fewer years of education. Overall, however, community colleges appear to increase total years of schooling but do not appear to change the likelihood of attaining a bachelor's degree.
The opportunity costs of childbearing: more than mothers business.

"This paper is an argument about gender relations. It takes the entwined themes of men's interests in parenthood, the sex division of labour and its evolution, policy for gender equity and policy to support the level of social reproduction. The emphasis on women's employment as a determinant of low fertility has to be supplemented by an examination of the assumption that only women's time use is affected by child-rearing.... Descriptive evidence about the paid and unpaid work of couples and parents is presented, largely secondary material from the UK."
Cosmic microwave background: Past, future, and present

Anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) carry an enormous amount of information about the early universe. The anisotropy spectrum depends sensitively on close to a dozen cosmological parameters, some of which have never been measured before. Experiments over the next decade will help us extract these parameters, teaching us not only about the early universe, but also about physics at unprecedented energies. One of the dangers now is that scientist are tempted to ignore the present data and rely too much on the future. This would be a shame, for hundreds of individuals have put in a great amount of time building state-of-the-art instruments, making painstaking observations at remote places on and off the globe. It seems unfair to ignore all the data that has been taken to date simply because there will be more and better data in the future. The author then makes the following claims: (1) the theory of CMB anisotropies is understood; (2) using this understanding, he is able to extract from future observations extremely accurate measurements of about ten cosmological parameters; (3) taken at face value, present data determines one of these parameters, the curvature of the universe; and (4) the present data ismore » good enough that the measurements should be believed. The first of these claims are well-known. The last claim is more controversial, but the author presents evidence for it.« less
Catalytic, Highly Enantio, and Diastereoselective Nitroso Diels−Alder Reaction

This communication presents studies that nitroso Diels−Alder adduct has been furnished in uniformly high yield and high enantioselectivity using nitrosopyridine as a substrate and copper as a catalyst. The obtained Diels−Alder adduct was easily transformed to corresponding chiral amino alcohols without loss of enantioselectivity.
Onset of coronal mass ejections due to loss of confinement of coronal flux ropes

Using MHD numerical simulations in a three-dimensional spherical geometry, we model the loss of confinement and eruption of a flux rope emerging quasi-statically into a preexisting coronal arcade field. Our numerical experiments investigated two distinct mechanisms that led to the eruption of the flux rope. In one case, the overlying arcade field declines with height slowly such that the emerging flux rope remains confined until its self-relative magnetic helicity normalized by the square of the rope's flux reaches -1.4 and the flux rope becomes significantly kinked. The kinking motion causes rotation of the tube to an orientation that makes it easier for it to rupture through the arcade field, leading to an eruption. In the second case, the overlying field declines more rapidly with height, and the emerging flux rope is found to lose equilibrium and erupt via the torus instability when its self-relative magnetic helicity normalized by the square of its flux is only approximately -0.63, before it becomes kinked. The values of the total relative magnetic helicity of the entire coronal magnetic field (including both the flux rope and the arcade field) normalized by the square of the total magnetic flux are, on the other hand, of similar magnitudes for the two cases when the eruption takes place. We compare and contrast the eruptive properties and the posteruption states resulting from the two cases.
Aspects of Manganese (III) - Promoted Oxidative Free Radical Cyclizations to Functionalized Bicyclic Systems

Abstract The stereospecific formation of trans-decalin 7 from oxidative radical cyclization of 6 and formation of functionalized bicyclic systems from radical cyclization of 3 are detailed.
A manifold imbedding algorithm for optimization problems

A manifold imbedding algorithm is described for the solution of two-point boundary value problems arising in optimization problems. A one-parameter imbedding of the initial and terminal manifolds is introduced so that a member of the resulting imbedded class of problems has an immediate solution. This problem is the first of a finite sequence of problems including the original one as last element. By a continuation procedure, these problems are successively solved. In contrast to a previous imbedding technique for solving two-point boundary value problems, the system equations are left unchanged. Intermediate problems therefore keep their physical meaning and the choice of a proper imbedding is easier. Moreover, a reduction of computation time is achieved. The manifold imbedding method may be regarded as a variation of the Newton-Raphson iterative procedure characterized by an extended region of convergence. The resulting reduction of guesswork and the unified approach to a wide range of optimization problems are amongst the favorable features. The minimization of the transfer time of a low-thrust ion rocket between the orbits of Earth and Mars illustrates the application of the method.
An Ahlfors Islands Theorem for non-archimedean meromorphic functions

We present a p-adic and non-archimedean version of Ahlfors' Five Islands Theorem for meromorphic functions, extending an earlier theorem of the author for holomorphic functions. In the non-archimedean setting, the theorem requires only four islands, with explicit constants. We present examples to show that the constants are sharp and that other hypotheses of the theorem cannot be removed.
Novel antipsychotics and severe hyperlipidemia

Newer atypical antipsychotics demonstrate superior effectiveness, with a diminished incidence of extrapyramidal side effects compared with older typical antipsychotics, but they have been associated with the development of obesity and new-onset diabetes. A small number of reports documenting modest hypertriglyceridemia related to newer antipsychotics have implicated fluperlapine, clozapine, and, most recently, olanzapine. This study summarizes the results of 14 cases of severe hypertriglyceridemia (>600 mg/dL) associated with olanzapine and quetiapine therapy occurring among inpatients at Oregon State Hospital, including 7 patients whose serum triglyceride levels exceeded 1,000 mg/ dL. Four of these patients also developed new-onset diabetes. Nine cases occurred during the first 8 months of treatment, with three cases identified within 3 months of commencing olanzapine or quetiapine therapy. Weight gain in olanzapine and quetiapine groups was modest (12.3 lb and 8.5 lb, respectively) and did not correlate with the severity of hypertriglyceridemia. Biochemical causes for severe hypertriglyceridemia associated with novel antipsychotics are unclear, but clinical monitoring of serum lipids must be added to the concerns about the metabolic consequences of therapy with certain newer antipsychotic agents.
Effects of correlated interactions in a biological coevolution model with individual-based dynamics

Models of biological coevolution have recently been proposed and studied, in which a species is defined by a genome in the form of a finite bitstring, and the interactions between species i and j are given by a fixed matrix with independent, randomly distributed elements Mij. A consequence of the stochastic independence is that species whose genotypes differ even by a single bit may have completely different phenotypes, as defined by their interactions with the other species. This is clearly unrealistic, as closely related species should be similar in their interactions with the rest of the ecosystem. Here we therefore study a model, in which the Mij are correlated to a controllable degree by means of a local averaging scheme. We calculate, both analytically and numerically, the correlation function for matrix elements Mij and Mkl versus the Hamming distance between the bitstrings representing the species. The agreement between the analytical and numerical calculations is excellent for correlations of limited range, but explainable differences arise for correlation ranges that are a significant fraction of the length of the bitstring. We compare long kinetic Monte Carlo simulations of coevolution models with uncorrelated and correlated interactions, respectively. In particular, we consider the probability density for the lifetimes of individual species. The species-lifetime distribution is close to a power law with an exponent near −2 over eight decades in time in both uncorrelated and correlated cases. The durations of quasi-steady states and power spectral densities for the diversity indices display noticeable differences. However, some qualitative features, such as 1/f behaviour in power spectral densities for the diversity indices, are not affected by the correlations in the interaction matrix.
Spray Automated Balancing of Rotors: Concept and Initial Feasibility Study

This paper describes a new balancing concept: Spray Automated Balancing Of Rotors (SABOR). The Fuel Air Repetitive Explosion (FARE) process of metal film deposition is used to apply discrete amounts of metallic or ceramic particles to a spinning rotor at a controlled angular location on the rotor. The system design and control for implementing SABOR are described. The method is used to balance a spinning disk without stopping it. Results are presented which show that the bond strengths of materials deposited by the FARE process for use in small gas turbine engines are acceptable for the level of centrifugal stresses expected
Gain Filtering for Single-Spatial-Mode Operation of Large-Mode-Area Fiber Amplifiers

Gain filtering of higher order modes in large-mode-area fibers is an extremely robust method for providing diffraction-limited performance regardless of core diameter or input beam quality. Analytic calculations demonstrate that reducing the diameter of the gain dopants compared to the waveguide diameter produces differential gain that is higher for the fundamental mode than all other fiber modes at all saturation levels. Matching the gain dopant to the mode profile is not as beneficial as a simple step profile since the primary mechanism of gain filtering is to deny gain toward the edge of the waveguide where most of the higher order mode power is contained. Numerical simulations of multikilowatt fiber amplifiers with up to 100-mum-diameter cores show that gain filtering is extremely robust, providing 99% of the output power in the fundamental mode output with only 90% of the seed power in the fundamental mode. Even with poor seed launch with 50% of the power in the fundamental mode, gain filtering can provide up to 90% of the output power in the fundamental mode.
The AMANDA neutrino telescope: Science prospects and performance at first light

We update the science prospects for the recently completed AMANDA South Pole neutrino detector. With an effective telescope area of order 104 m2 and a threshold of ∼50 GeV, it represents the first instrument of a new generation of high energy neutrino detectors, envisaged over 25 years ago. We describe the instrument and its performance, and map its expansion to a detector of kilometer dimension.
On the nature of the EGRET source at the galactic center

The recent detection of a ?-ray flux from the direction of the Galactic center by EGRET on the Compton GRO raises the question of whether this is a point source (possibly coincident with the massive black hole candidate Sgr A*) or a diffuse emitter. Using the latest experimental particle physics data and theoretical models, we examine in detail the ?-ray spectrum produced by synchrotron, inverse Compton scattering, and mesonic decay resulting from the interaction of relativistic protons with hydrogen accreting onto a point-like object. Such a distribution of high-energy baryons may be expected to form within an accretion shock as the inflowing gas becomes supersonic. This scenario is motivated by hydrodynamic studies of Bondi-Hoyle accretion onto Sgr A*, which indicate that many of its radiative characteristics may ultimately be associated with energy liberated as this plasma descends into the deep potential well. Earlier attempts to analyze this process concluded that the EGRET data are inconsistent with a massive point-like object. Here we demonstrate that a more careful treatment of the physics of p-p scattering suggests that a black hole of ~106 M? may be contributing to this high-energy emission.
Synthesis of partial nonpeptidic peptide mimetics as potential neurotensin agonists and antagonists

The synthesis of partially nonpeptidic peptides as mimetics of neurotensin (8–13)[NT(8–13)] is described. The sequence Arg8Arg9Pro10 of NT(8–13) was replaced by substituted indole-2-carboxylates as non-peptidic equivalents. For the NT(8–13) fragment, a range of dimensions was calculated with the aid of computer modelling of which a subset was translated synthetically into two structures (1 and 2) containing indole-2-carboxylates substituted with guanidines containing appendages at C-3/C-5 and C-3/C-7, respectively. Regioisomeric C-5 and C-7 substituted indole intermediates 4 and 5 were obtained from a single indole precursor 3via thermally induced nitrene insertion. The readily separable indoles 4 and 5 were isolated as a ∼1 : 1 mixture. In turn, these indoles were functionalized individually in seven steps to give the Pmc-protected bisguanidino indole-2-carboxylic acids 14a and 14b, respectively. The carboxylic acids were coupled to the resin-bound tripeptide fragment NT(11–13), and the resulting products were cleaved from the resin using a trifluoroacetic acid cocktail to give NT mimetics 1 and 2. Functional evaluation of 1 and 2 on neuroblastoma N1E-115 cells showed mimetic 1 to be an NT antagonist, while mimetic 2 was found to be an NT antagonist at low concentrations and an NT agonist at higher concentrations in the 10–100 µmol dm–3 range.
Learning Incoherent Sparse and Low-Rank Patterns from Multiple Tasks

We consider the problem of learning incoherent sparse and low-rank patterns from multiple tasks. Our approach is based on a linear multitask learning formulation, in which the sparse and low-rank patterns are induced by a cardinality regularization term and a low-rank constraint, respectively. This formulation is nonconvex; we convert it into its convex surrogate, which can be routinely solved via semidefinite programming for small-size problems. We propose employing the general projected gradient scheme to efficiently solve such a convex surrogate; however, in the optimization formulation, the objective function is nondifferentiable and the feasible domain is nontrivial. We present the procedures for computing the projected gradient and ensuring the global convergence of the projected gradient scheme. The computation of the projected gradient involves a constrained optimization problem; we show that the optimal solution to such a problem can be obtained via solving an unconstrained optimization subproblem and a Euclidean projection subproblem. We also present two projected gradient algorithms and analyze their rates of convergence in detail. In addition, we illustrate the use of the presented projected gradient algorithms for the proposed multitask learning formulation using the least squares loss. Experimental results on a collection of real-world data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed multitask learning formulation and the efficiency of the proposed projected gradient algorithms.
Investigating soil moisture feedbacks on precipitation with tests of Granger causality

Abstract Granger causality (GC) is used in the econometrics literature to identify the presence of one- and two-way coupling between terms in noisy multivariate dynamical systems. Here we test for the presence of GC to identify a soil moisture (S) feedback on precipitation (P) using data from Illinois. In this framework S is said to Granger cause P if F(P t |Ω t− Δ t )≠F(P t |Ω t− Δ t −S t− Δ t ) where F denotes the conditional distribution of P, Ω t− Δ t represents the set of all knowledge available at time t−Δt, and Ω t− Δ t −S t− Δ t represents all knowledge except S. Critical for land–atmosphere interaction research is that Ω t− Δ t includes all past information on P as well as S. Therefore that part of the relation between past soil moisture and current precipitation which results from precipitation autocorrelation and soil water balance will be accounted for and not attributed to causality. Tests for GC usually specify all relevant variables in a coupled vector autoregressive (VAR) model and then calculate the significance level of decreased predictability as various coupling coefficients are omitted. But because the data (daily precipitation and soil moisture) are distinctly non-Gaussian, we avoid using a VAR and instead express the daily precipitation events as a Markov model. We then test whether the probability of storm occurrence, conditioned on past information on precipitation, changes with information on soil moisture. Past information on precipitation is expressed both as the occurrence of previous day precipitation (to account for storm-scale persistence) and as a simple soil moisture-like precipitation-wetness index derived solely from precipitation (to account for seasonal-scale persistence). In this way only those fluctuations in moisture not attributable to past fluctuations in precipitation (e.g., those due to temperature) can influence the outcome of the test. The null hypothesis (no moisture influence) is evaluated by comparing observed changes in storm probability to Monte-Carlo simulated differences generated with unconditional occurrence probabilities. The null hypothesis is not rejected (p>0.5) suggesting that contrary to recently published results, insufficient evidence exists to support an influence of soil moisture on precipitation in Illinois.
Tackling metal regulation and transport at the single-molecule level

To maintain normal metal metabolism, organisms utilize dynamic cooperation of many biomacromolecules for regulating metal ion concentrations and bioavailability. How these biomacromolecules work together to achieve their functions is largely unclear. For example, how do metalloregulators and DNA interact dynamically to control gene expression to maintain healthy cellular metal level? And how do metal transporters collaborate dynamically to deliver metal ions? Here we review recent advances in studying the dynamic interactions of macromolecular machineries for metal regulation and transport at the single-molecule level: (1) The development of engineered DNA Holliday junctions as single-molecule reporters for metalloregulator-DNA interactions, focusing onMerR-family regulators. And (2) The development of nanovesicle trapping coupled with single molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (smFRET) for studying weak, transient interactions between the copper chaperone Hah1 and the Wilson disease protein. We describe the methodologies,the information content of the single-molecule results, and the insights into the biological functions of the involved biomacromolecules for metal regulation and transport. We also discuss remaining challenges from our perspective.
Studies of human placental aromatase

Abstract Kinetic analysis of aromatization of androstenedione (Δ4) indicates that 3 mol of oxygen and NADPH are consumed in the formation of estrone (El). During the steady state, the 3d oxidation appears to be the rate limiting step since both 19-hydroxy and 19-oxo-androstenedione accumulate prior to El. Cytochrome P-450 participation in each hydroxylation step is suggested by (1) inhibition by known P-450 inhibitors other than CO, (2) inhibition by an antibody to NADPH-cytochrome c reductase, (3) spectral studies of P-450 binding of substrate and intermediates, and (4) solubilization and partial resolution of enzyme components using digitonin and DEAE cellulose. A survey of steroidal compounds has revealed that 5α-reduced androstenedione is a potent competitive inhibitor which may be of physiologic importance in control of ovarian estrogen synthesis. Finally, many steroidal drugs used in treatment of breast cancer are competitive inhibitors. The non androgenic compound 1-ene-testololactone is effective both in vitro and in vivo suggesting that antitumor activity of steroidal drugs may be due to inhibition of estrogen synthesis rather than direct androgen action.
Stereocontrolled Synthesis of Z-Dienes via an Unexpected Pericyclic Cascade Rearrangement of 5-Amino-2,4-pentadienals

Donor−acceptor dienes known as Zincke aldehydes, which derive readily from the ring-opening reactions of pyridinium salts with secondary amines, undergo a fascinating thermal rearrangement reaction to afford Z-α,β,γ,δ-unsaturated amides with excellent stereoselectivity. Efficient, stereocontrolled access to Z-trisubstituted alkenes with two different substitution patterns is possible in three steps beginning with the appropriately substituted pyridine derivative. Preliminary studies have shown that both the amide and the monosubstituted alkene termini can be selectively functionalized. Ease of access, generality of scope, and facile product manipulation render this process attractive for the synthesis of complex polyenes.