cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Bergmann glia require continuous association with purkinje cells for normal phenotype expression

Bergmann glia (Bg) respond to the early postnatal Purkinje cell (Pc) death in Lurcher (Lc) mutant mouse cerebellum by down-regulating expression of the enzyme glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GPDH). To determine whether glial GPDH expression requires the continued presence of Pcs in adults, we used single intracerebellar injections of kainic acid to kill Pcs in wild-type mice from 7 weeks to 11 months old. Bg at all ages tested responded to Pc loss by down-regulating GPDH expression. To learn whether a high level of GPDH could be reinduced following down-regulation in Lc Bg, we grafted wild-type fetal Pcs into Lc cerebella. The influence of grafted Pcs on GPDH expression is host-age and implant-position dependent. Only Pcs implanted into hosts less than 6 weeks old were later found to be associated with GPDH-positive Bg. Grafted Pcs that migrated into the anterior folia of young hosts were more likely to be associated with GPDH-positive Bg than Pcs migrating to other positions. EM analysis showed that Bg ensheathment of grafted Pcs is thinner and more discontinuous, but qualitatively similar to normal. The results suggest that the interaction between host Bg and grafted Pcs can sustain elevated GPDH expression in Bg that have not yet down-regulated, but is not adequate to reinduce expression in those cells that have.
Event-Based Protection Scheme for a Multiterminal Hybrid DC Power System

In this paper, we investigate an event-based protection scheme for a multiterminal dc power system, which includes hybrid energy resources and various loading schemes. The proposed protection scheme transfers less data when compared with commonly used data-based protection methods, and does not require high-speed communication and synchronization. Each protection unit is able to autonomously identify the type of event using the current derivative fault identification method, employing an artificial inductive line impedance. In order to accurately set the protection relays, detailed fault current analysis considering low pass resistor capacitor filter effects are presented. The decision for fault isolation is made based on the unit judgment and the data received through high-level data communication from other interconnected units. The performance of the proposed protection scheme was evaluated under different dc feeder and bus faults. The results show that this scheme is able to accurately identify the type of fault, isolate the faulted area, and restore the system quickly while limiting the load voltage drop to its preset limit.
Energy threshholds for tumbling springs

Abstract A gravity-driven, weak helical spring such as the toy Slinky may be activated to tumble end-over-end. One way to activate this spring motion is to bend the coil assembly in a 180° arc, set each end on a horizontal support surface, and suddenly pull away one end support so that the spring impacts a step below. The nature of subsequent tumbling depends on critical step heights, the lower bounds of which are predicted for 180° and 360° somersaults. Such predictions, presented in terms of non-dimensional system parameters, are based on structural analysis and energy threshholds: an ideal balance of gravity potential energy and elastic spring energy. The predictions are complemented with experimental results, which include the effects of the compliance of the impacted surface and spring payload. Results may be applicable to the future design of unique tumbling spring “wheels” for all-terrain mobile robots.
Stimulation of NADPH-dependent reactive oxygen species formation and DNA damage by 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin in rat peritoneal lavage cells

The toxicity of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin [TCDD] and its congeners involves binding to a specific TCDD [Ah] receptor, interaction of this complex with chromatin, and the ultimate production of pleiotropic responses. The mechanism whereby these effects are produced following interaction of TCDD with the receptor complex is not known. Oxidative stress following the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) may play an important role in the toxic manifestations of TCDD. Thus, the dose and time-dependent effects of TCDD on the production of superoxide anion by peritoneal lavage cells (primarily macrophages) from rats were examined. A maximum increase in superoxide anion production occurred on day 1 after treatment in rats with 50 and 125 μg TCDD/kg. At 6 h after a single dose of 125 μg TCDD/kg, a 2.4-fold increase in superoxide anion production was observed in peritoneal lavage cells from rats. A single dose of 5 μg TCDD/kg had no effect on superoxide anion production by peritoneal lavage cells. A significant increase in DNA single strand breaks within peritoneal lavage cells occurred at 12 h after the oral administration of 50 μg TCDD/kg, and a maximum increase in DNA single strand breaks was observed on days 3–5 after treatment. No DNA damage was detected at a dose of 5 μg TCDD/kg. No difference was observed with respect to dose and time in the composition of the peritoneal lavage cells. The results clearly indicate that the oral administration of TCDD activates peritoneal lavage cells in rats, and that the activation precedes the formation of DNA single strand breaks. The results support the hypothesis that the tissue damage by TCDD may be due, at least in part, to the formation of reactive oxygen species, and macrophages may serve as one source of reactive oxygen species in response to TCDD.
Spatio-temporal localization of membrane lipid rafts in mouse oocytes and cleaving preimplantation embryos.

We report for the first time the detection of membrane lipid rafts in mouse oocytes and cleaving preimplantation embryos. Cholera toxin β (CTβ), which binds to the raft-enriched ganglioside GM1, was selected to label rafts. In a novel application a Qdot reagent was used to detect CTβ labeling. This is the first reported use of nanocrystals in mammalian embryo imaging. Comparative membrane labeling with CTβ and lipophilic membrane dyes containing saturated or unsaturated aliphatic tails showed that the detection of GM1 in mouse oocytes and embryo membranes was consistent with the identification of cholesterol- and sphingolipid-enriched rafts in the cell membrane. Distribution of the GM1 was compared with the known distribution of non-raft membrane components, and disruption of membrane rafts with detergents confirmed the cholesterol dependence of GM1 on lipid raft labeling. Complementary functional studies showed that cholesterol depletion using methyl-β-cyclodextrin inhibited preimplantation development in culture. Our results show that the membranes of the mouse oocyte and zygote are rich in lipid rafts, with heterogeneous and stage-dependent distribution. In dividing embryos, the rafts were clearly associated with the cleavage furrow. At the morula stage, rafts were also apically enriched in each blastomere. In blastocysts, rafts were detectable in the trophectoderm layer, but could not be detected in the inner cell mass without prior fixation and permeabilization of the embryo. Lipid rafts and their associated proteins are, therefore, spatio-temporally positioned to a play a critical role in preimplantation developmental events.
Influence of Reaction Products on Reaction Between Water and Soda‐Lime‐Silica Glass

The collective effects of the reaction products on the reaction between water and soda-lime-silica glass were studied by investigating the reactions of the glass with each individual reaction product. The rate-controlling processes in the reaction between water and the glass are considered to be the diffusion of cations and the breakdown of the glass network. A qualitative description of the mechanism of the reaction between the glass and water is suggested.
On Laboring and Lobbying for Lignomics: Discussion

It is tempting to invoke corrective bias and to title these remarks "Eschewed Eulogies to Eucalypts" as, at least where I come from, it is difficult to discuss any forestry or agroforestry analysis without some mention of this important genus. We have, however, no shortage of interesting titles for our presentations and I must express at the outset the delight it is to be given the opportunity of becoming more informed about the field of agroforestry economics, or what I will term for succinctness "lignomics." There is much of interest in both of these papers, but for brevity, and perhaps to broaden the discussion in a couple of directions, I will argue a contrary position on the most general features of both.
FEPS: a sensory substitution system for the blind to perceive facial expressions

This work demonstrates a visual-to-auditory Sensory Substitution System (SSD) called Facial Expression Perception through Sound (FEPS). It is designed to enable the visually impaired people to participate in a more effective social communication by perceiving their interlocutor's facial expressions. The earlier SSDs provided feedback on inferred emotions, where as, this system responds to the facial movements. This is a better method than emotion inference due to complexities in expression-to-emotion mapping, the problem of capturing multitude of possible emotions derived from a limited facial movements and the difficulty to correctly predict emotions due to lack in ground truth data. In this work, the user's ability to understand the facial expressions has been ensured by a usability study.
Transitions through Out‐of‐Keeping Acts

Within a negotiation, when an act by one party is out-of-keeping with the previous moves and underlying logic of the interaction, the act and those that follow hold the potential for creating a transition to a new logic of interaction. In this paper, we investigate the presence and role of seven distinct types of transitions resulting from out-of-keeping acts across ten complex legal negotiations. The data reveal that a critical feature differentiating across the types is the abruptness/gradualness of the transition. We explore the combination of relational, informational, and procedural acts comprising the transitions and find that all three components are present across transitions, but in different proportions and orders. Understanding the role of out-of-keeping acts in negotiations facilitates a more complete picture of the microprocesses involved in the creation of critical moments in negotiations. Coordinated action is oriented toward and based on making sense of the environmental and social challenges at hand. At the heart of the coordinated action that makes up every negotiation lies an often unstated logic for the
Confounding changes in averages with marginal effects: How anchoring can destroy economic value in strategic investment assessments

Profit maximization requires that decision makers assess marginal profits. We demonstrate that decision makers often confound marginal profits with changes in average profits (e.g., changes in return-on-investment). This results in systematic deviations from profit maximization where decision makers forgo profit-enhancing investments that reduce average profits or engage in loss-enhancing investments that decrease average losses. In other words, average profit becomes an anchor by which new investments are assessed. We conduct two decision-making experiments that show this bias and demonstrate it is pronounced when average profit data are accessible or task-relevant. Moreover, we find within-subject effects across experiments, which helps demonstrate the mechanism that invokes the bias.
The Population of the Prefectures and Cities of Japan in Most Recent Times (Based upon the results of the 1940 census)

In the Official Gazette [Kampo] for last April 18 [1941] were published the determined population figures (resulting) from the national census which was conducted on October 1, 1940.
Family matters: A cross-national examination of family bonding and victimization

Family bonding is a mainstay in theories of crime and delinquency. Recently, it has also been extended to explain exposure to victimization in the US and abroad. Although research reveals that there are differences between countries in their views about the importance of family, scholarship has not yet considered how and why the protective features of family bonding might vary across the country context according to how the family is valued. This study, using data from the second International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-2), reveals that both individual levels of family bonding and macro levels of the perceived importance of the family are negatively related to victimization. Analyses suggest that exposure to victimization and the effects of family bonding vary across contexts where the effect of family bonding on victimization is stronger in countries that view the family as more important. We conclude that these results contribute insight into the operationalization of victimization theories acr...
The Population Perspective: Review, Critique, and Relevance

While many theorists using frameworks within the population perspective accept some fundamental assumptions, they debate two issues. Debates about appropriate units of analysis and definitions of terms and debates about selected processes continue. This paper reviews accepted assumptions and continued debates and offers alternative resolutions to these debates. The paper concludes by realistically identifying how the population perspective may enhance understanding of organizations.
An Architecture for Web-Services Based Interest Management in Real Time Distributed Simulation

The Experimentation Command and Control Interface (XC2I) project has developed an architecture for a Web-service based viewer/controller for use with distributed simulations supporting military experiments. As part of this activity, a capability for Interest Management with three functions is being created. The functions are Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Area of Interest Management (AOIM), and Aggregation Interest Management (AGIM). While the approach is compatible with High Level Architecture (HLA) for Modeling and Simulation, primary information exchange takes place using the Web services, i.e. software-to-software messaging interfaces that operate over Web protocols such as XML/SOAP. This paper presents a Web Services Internet Management (WSIM) architecture designed to achieve these capabilities in a way that is compatible with simulations using the HLA. The protocols and information flow structure are described, along with the architecture's design rationale, interest management rules, and plans for its implementation. The paper concludes with a description of potential for future development of WSIM, including adoption of the Command and Control Information Exchange Data Model (C2IEDM) and use of Overlay Multicast for data distribution.
Effects of reactivation context on glucose modulation of reactivated memories

We used a passive avoidance to active avoidance negative transfer design to investigate the context- and dose-dependent effects of glucose on reactivated memories in rats. Memory reactivation consisted of reexposing rats 24 h after passive avoidance training to contextual and learning cues that had been present during training. Immediate postreactivation glucose administration was followed 24 h later by active avoidance (discrimination reversal) training. The memory reactivation treatments were designed to reactivate the rats’ memories with different degrees of fidelity. We found a direct relationship between the effectiveness of the memory reactivation treatment and the further enhancement of memory by postreactivation administration of glucose (100 mg/kg). In another experiment, we found that changes in memory strengthening or retrievability were both dose (glucose: 100, 320, or 1,000 mg/kg) and reactivation context dependent. Our results demonstrate that modulation of a reactivated memory or second experience is the combined effect of both an exogenous environmental context-dependent and an endogenous glucose-dependent memory-modulating system.
An Experimental Test of Motivational and Content Control on Dispute Mediation

Research examined the effects of two types of mediation techniques-content control and motivational control-on the likelihood of reaching agreement and on the type of agreement (integrative versus compromise) reached. A laboratory experiment was conducted in which 86 pairs of male college students acted in simulated negotiations as disputants. Trained mediators used either content control in the form of narrowing the scope of discussion, motivational control in the form of making the parties aware of the additional costs of failing to settle the dispute, both techniques, or neither technique. When the mediators used content control, the number of multi-issue disputes resolved and the likelihood producing a compromise agreement increased. The use of motivational control had no significant effects. The implications of the results for mediation practice and future research are discussed.
FORECASTING WITH MIXED-FREQUENCY FACTOR MODELS IN THE PRESENCE OF COMMON TRENDS

We analyze the forecasting performance of small mixed-frequency factor models when the observed variables share stochastic trends. The indicators are observed at various frequencies and are tied together by cointegration so that valuable high-frequency information is passed to low-frequency series through the common factors. Differencing the data breaks the cointegrating link among the series and some of the signal leaks out to the idiosyncratic components, which do not contribute to the transfer of information among indicators. We find that allowing for common trends improves forecasting performance over a stationary factor model based on differenced data. The “common-trends factor model” outperforms the stationary factor model at all analyzed forecast horizons. Our results demonstrate that when mixed-frequency variables are cointegrated, modeling common stochastic trends improves forecasts.
Stealth seeds: Bioproperty, biosafety, biopolitics

Transgenic seeds in both India (Bt cotton) and Brazil (glyphosate-resistant soybeans) spread widely and rapidly through farming communities outside the reach of biosafety or bioproperty institutions. Stealth transgenics are saved, cross-bred, repackaged, sold, exchanged and planted in an anarchic agrarian capitalism that defies surveillance and control of firms and states. The outcome is more pro-poor than alternative modes of diffusion, but undermines a growing consensus in the international development community on appropriate bio- safety and intellectual property institutions for biotechnology. Second, stealth procurement of biotechnology divides nominally pro-poor political coalitions, driven by a great ideational divide on uncertainties and risks of transgenics. The ability of seeds to move underground through stealth strategies of farmers undermines widely-assumed bio-safety-regime capability. Likewise, property in biotechnology appears less monopolistic and powerful, more relational and contingent. Stealth practices of farmers in pursuit of transgenics contrary to wishes of firms, states and many NGOs suggest a different model of the farmer than that often encountered in both developmentalist and anti-'GMO' discourse: more active, creative and autonomous, less hapless and supine. Resultant incapacity of social institutions to secure interests of firms and states in biotechnology renders more likely eventual development of controls from genetic engineering - the 'terminator technology' of political dramaturgy.
Continuous infusion β-lactams for intensive care unit pulmonary infections

This study evaluated the pharmacodynamics of continuous infusion beta-lactams against pulmonary isolates of Gram-negative bacteria from patients managed in intensive care units (ICUs) in the USA. Multiple 10,000-patient Monte Carlo simulations were performed by integrating pharmacokinetic data from healthy individuals with 2408 MICs from the 2002 Intensive Care Unit Surveillance System database. These pharmacodynamic simulations suggested that continuous infusion regimens of cefepime, aztreonam, ceftazidime and piperacillin-tazobactam 13.5 g have the greatest likelihood of achieving pharmacodynamic targets against isolates of Enterobacteriaceae in the ICU. Beta-lactams are unlikely to achieve pharmacodynamic targets against Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Acinetobacter baumannii when administered as monotherapy.
The role of human capital, motivation and supervisor sponsorship in predicting career success

Based on Turner's (1960) contest- and sponsored-mobility systems, a comprehensive model of the determinants of career success was examined. Human capital and motivational variables represented the contest-mobility system whereas leader–member exchange and supervisor career mentoring represented the sponsored-mobility system. Results based on data from 245 supervisor–subordinate dyads indicated limited support for the contest-mobility system and strong support for the sponsored-mobility system. Interestingly, the two forms of sponsorship were differentially related to career outcomes. Specifically, leader–member exchange was positively related to salary progression, promotability, and career satisfaction. Career mentoring, however, was only related to promotability. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The precautionary principle stimulus for solutions- and alternatives-based environmental policy

Abstract The precautionary principle is increasingly discussed in debates over appropriate measures to address complex and uncertain risks. The principle has generally been defined as having two main components: preventive action in the face of uncertainty and reversing the burden of proof. In isolation, these two components would suggest that precaution is primarily reactive to potential problems rather than proactive. More recent statements have suggested that thorough assessment of alternatives is critical to the effective implementation of the precautionary principle. Alternatives assessment—also referred to as options analysis and facility planning—redirects environmental science and policy debates from characterizing problems to identifying solutions. In this commentary, we examine the rationale for a focus on alternatives assessment in implementing the precautionary principle. We examine methods and examples of alternatives assessment, as well as opportunities for the principle's integration in environmental policy. We argue that a greater focus on alternatives assessment can enhance the ability of decision makers to make truly precautionary decisions, stimulate innovation toward sustainable production, and more effectively place burdens on to those creating risks. Such a focus forms an essential component of a shift from “problem-based” environmental policy to “solutions-based” policy. This shift requires adequate research resources, tools, and a government commitment to a new paradigm of environmental protection. We conclude that we will only reach the goal of sustainable production if we change our environmental protection focus from figuring out how bad the situation will be to seeking alternatives to problematic activities and designing the conditions for a more sustainable future.
Probabilistic Modeling of Anticipation in Human Controllers

This paper presents a methodology for determining whether human operators anticipate future control needs in order to compensate for time delays when controlling remote vehicles. The approach utilizes techniques drawn from the machine learning community in order to learn statistical models of human decision making. Models are fit to an experimental data set generated by remote operations of a robot subjected to time delays between 0 and 2.5 s, using the least angle regression (LARS) and sparse multinomial logistic regression (SMLR) algorithms. These algorithms make use of regularization to reduce the effects of overparameterization due to redundant or noisy environmental features. Models learned by LARS achieve an average prediction rate between 81% and 98%, depending on time delay, while those learned by SMLR achieve average rates between 68% and 86%. A novel metric of feature “importance” is used to evaluate the relative contributions of environmental features to model performance, motivated by the structure of the LARS algorithm. The degree to which human operators rely on anticipation is determined by examining how “importance” scores for features representing different prediction horizons vary with increasing time delay.
Effects of ultra-wideband electromagnetic pulses on pre-neoplastic mammary epithelial cell proliferation.

. Electromagnetic ultra-wideband pulses (UWB) or nanopulses, are generated by a wide range of electronic devices used in communications and radar technology. However, the specific effects of nanopulse exposure on cell growth and function have not been extensively investigated. Here, studies have been conducted to determine the effects of prolonged exposure to non-ionizing, low to moderate intensity nanopulses on the growth of pre-neoplastic CL-S1 mammary epithelial cells in vitro. Cells were grown in culture and maintained in serum-free defined medium containing 10 ng/ml EGF and 10 µg/ml insulin as comitogens. Studies showed that 0.25–3.0 h exposure to nanopulses of 18 kV/m field intensity, 1 kHz repetition rate and 10 ns pulse width had no effect on CL-S1 cell growth or viability during the subsequent 72-h culture period. However, exposure to similar nanopulses for prolonged periods of time (4–6 h) resulted in a significant increase in cell proliferation, as compared to untreated controls. Additional studies showed that nanopulse exposure enhanced CL-S1 cell growth when cells were maintained in media containing only EGF, but had no effect on cells maintained in defined media that were mitogen-free or containing only insulin. Studies also showed that the growth-promoting effects of nanopulse exposure were associated with a relatively large increase in intracellular levels of phospho-MEK1 (active) and phospho-ERK1/2 (active) in these cells. These findings demonstrate that prolonged exposure to moderate levels of UWB enhanced EGF-dependent mitogenesis, and that this growth-promoting effect appears to be mediated by enhanced activation of the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signalling pathway in pre-neoplastic CL-S1 mammary epithelial cells.
APOBEC3G and APOBEC3F Act in Concert To Extinguish HIV-1 Replication.

ABSTRACT The multifunctional HIV-1 accessory protein Vif counters the antiviral activities of APOBEC3G (A3G) and APOBEC3F (A3F), and some Vifs counter stable alleles of APOBEC3H (A3H). Studies in humanized mice have shown that HIV-1 lacking Vif expression is not viable. Here, we look at the relative contributions of the three APOBEC3s to viral extinction. Inoculation of bone marrow/liver/thymus (BLT) mice with CCR5-tropic HIV-1JRCSF (JRCSF) expressing a vif gene inactive for A3G but not A3F degradation activity (JRCSFvifH42/43D) displayed either no or delayed replication. JRCSF expressing a vif gene mutated to inactivate A3F degradation but not A3G degradation (JRCSFvifW79S) always replicated to high viral loads with variable delays. JRCSF with vif mutated to lack both A3G and A3F degradation activities (JRCSFvifH42/43DW79S) failed to replicate, mimicking JRCSF without Vif expression (JRCSFΔvif). JRCSF and JRCSFvifH42/43D, but not JRCSFvifW79S or JRCSFvifH42/43DW79S, degraded APOBEC3D. With one exception, JRCSFs expressing mutant Vifs that replicated acquired enforced vif mutations. These mutations partially restored A3G or A3F degradation activity and fully replaced JRCSFvifH42/43D or JRCSFvifW79S by 10 weeks. Surprisingly, induced mutations temporally lagged behind high levels of virus in blood. In the exceptional case, JRCSFvifH42/43D replicated after a prolonged delay with no mutations in vif but instead a V27I mutation in the RNase H coding sequence. JRCSFvifH42/43D infections exhibited massive GG/AG mutations in pol viral DNA, but in viral RNA, there were no fixed mutations in the Gag or reverse transcriptase coding sequence. A3H did not contribute to viral extinction but, in combination with A3F, could delay JRCSF replication. A3H was also found to hypermutate viral DNA. IMPORTANCE Vif degradation of A3G and A3F enhances viral fitness, as virus with even a partially restored capacity for degradation outgrows JRCSFvifH42/43D and JRCSFvifW79S. Unexpectedly, fixation of mutations that replaced H42/43D or W79S in viral RNA lagged behind the appearance of high viral loads. In one exceptional JRCSFvifH42/43D infection, vif was unchanged but replication proceeded after a long delay. These results suggest that Vif binds and inhibits the non-cytosine deaminase activities of intact A3G and intact A3F, allowing JRCSFvifH42/43D and JRCSFvifW79S to replicate with reduced fitness. Subsequently, enhanced Vif function is acquired by enforced mutations. In infected cells, JRCSFΔvif and JRCSFvifH42/43DW79S are exposed to active A3F and A3G and fail to replicate. JRCSFvifH42/43D Vif degrades A3F and, in some cases, overcomes A3G mutagenic activity to replicate. Vif may have evolved to inhibit A3F and A3G by stoichiometric binding and subsequently acquired the ability to target these proteins to proteasomes.
The cloud

The forum title "Sustainably Ours" was chosen to suggest two things about sustainability. First, sustainability is collectively ours---it is an issue of collective global fate accumulated from individual and sovereign actions. Second, our CHI community is especially responsible for certain issues of and approaches to sustainability---how interactivity is implicated in material effects, behavioral change, changing sociopolitical contexts of design, and mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Eli Blevis, Editor | eblevis@indiana.edu
Does increase in birth weight change the normal labor curve

OBJECTIVE This study is designed to assess the effect of birth weight on the duration of labor. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective review of the electronic database created by the Consortium on Safe Labor, reflecting labor and delivery information from 12 clinical centers from 2002 to 2008. Population included all laboring women in the 19 participating hospitals, excluding those with malpresentation, fetal anomalies, elective repeat cesarean, multiple gestations, gestational age less than 34 weeks, and delivery with less than two cervical examinations. Birth weight categories include less than 2,500 g, 2,500 to 3,000 g, 3,000 to 3,500 g, 3,500 to 4,000 g, and greater than 4,000 g. Interval censored regression analysis was used to determine distribution of times for cervical dilation progression in centimeters. RESULTS A total of 146,904 maternal records were reviewed. In nulliparous, traverse times increased as birth weight increased, both in successful trial of labor and also those who ultimately required cesarean delivery (p < 0.01). In multiparous with successful trial of labor, traverse times increased as birth weight increased from 5 to 8 cm (p < 0.01). From 8 to 10 cm, traverse times increased by birth weight, though this was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION We have shown that in a large cohort of contemporary laboring women, as birth weight increases, progression in labor is, in fact slower.
Biological Studies of Polistes in North Carolina (Hymenoptera: Vespidae)

Polistes fuscatus, P. exclamans , and P. annularis were the most abundant of the six Polistes species occurring in the study area, and consequently received more attention than P. hunteri, P. metricus , or P. rubiginosus . Though nest founding by overwintering queens began in early April, most nests were established in late April and early May. For exclamans the average duration of the egg, larval, and pupal stages were, respectively, 11, 20, and 14 days, or a total of about 45 days from egg to adult; fuscatus and hunteri required similar lengths of time. Over 95% of the prey of these three species consisted of free-feeding lepidopterous larvae. The prey of annularis came mostly from wooded areas, while that of fuscatus and exclamans was typically associated with herbaceous vegetation of open fields. Seasonal changes in the composition of the prey were correlated with changes in its seasonal abundance or feeding habits. In a fuscatus colony, returning wasps with prey and fiber were a relatively small percentage of the total returners, most of which were unladen or carried water or liquid sweets. Both diurnal and seasonal variations in the number of returners with various materials were influenced by temperature. The most commonly observed natural enemies of Polistes were two ichneumonids, Polistiphaga stupida and P. fulva , the pyraustid lepidopteron Dicymolomia pegasalis , and various species of spiders.
Integrated Systems in the More-Than-Moore Era: Designing Low-Cost Energy-Efficient Systems Using Heterogeneous Components

Moore&#x2019;s law has provided a metronome for semiconductor technology over the past four decades. However, when CMOS transistor feature size and interconnect dimensions approach their fundamental limits, aggressive scaling will no longer play a significant role in performance improvement. How should the semiconductor industry provide new value in each generation of products in such a scenario? While Moore&#x2019;s law driven scaling has traditionally focused on improving computation performance (through faster clock frequencies and recently, more parallelism) and memory capacity, electronic systems of the future will provide value by being multi-functional. We envision that integrated systems of the future will perform diverse functions (in addition to traditional computation, storage and communication) such as real-time sensing, energy harvesting, and on-chip testing, to name a few. Enabling such diverse functionality with high performance, high reliability and a low energy budget in a single system requires a radical shift in the principles of system design and integration. Instead of focusing on improving the performance of traditional digital CMOS circuits or exploring nanotechnologies for Silicon and CMOS replacements, we espouse cohesive design and integration of multiple device technologies and diverse components in a single heterogeneous system that is high-performance, energy-efficient and reliable.
Instrumentation for expanding intensive care.

The concept of the intensive care unit may change with the availability of miniature, portable and wireless instrumentation for patient monitoring.This type of monitoring system is desirable if improved care is to be based on greater use of instrumentation and optimal use of limited nursing personnel.
Many-body localization and mobility edge in a disordered spin- 1 2 Heisenberg ladder

We examine the interplay of interaction and disorder for a Heisenberg spin-1/2 ladder system with random fields. We identify many-body localized states based on the entanglement entropy scaling, where delocalized and localized states have volume and area laws, respectively. We first establish the dynamic phase transition at a critical random field strength ${h}_{c}\ensuremath{\sim}8.5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.5$, where all energy eigenstates are localized beyond that value. Interestingly, the entanglement entropy and fluctuations of the bipartite magnetization show distinct probability distributions which characterize different phases. Furthermore, we show that for weaker $h$, energy eigenstates with higher-energy density are delocalized while states at lower-energy density are localized, which defines a mobility edge separating these two phases. With increasing disorder strength, the mobility edge moves towards higher-energy density, which drives the system to the phase of the full many-body localization.
Structure-Activity Relationships of (+)-Naltrexone-Inspired Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4) Antagonists

Activation of Toll-like receptors has been linked to neuropathic pain and opioid dependence. (+)-Naltrexone acts as a Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) antagonist and has been shown to reverse neuropathic pain in rat studies. We designed and synthesized compounds based on (+)-naltrexone and (+)-noroxymorphone and evaluated their TLR4 antagonist activities by their effects on inhibiting lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced TLR4 downstream nitric oxide (NO) production in microglia BV-2 cells. Alteration of the N-substituent in (+)-noroxymorphone gave us a potent TLR4 antagonist. The most promising analog, (+)-N-phenethylnoroxymorphone ((4S,4aR,7aS,12bR)-4a,9-dihydroxy-3-phenethyl-2,3,4,4a,5,6-hexahydro-1H-4,12-methanobenzofuro[3,2-e]isoquinolin-7(7aH)-one, 1j) showed ∼75 times better TLR-4 antagonist activity than (+)-naltrexone, and the ratio of its cell viability IC50, a measure of its toxicity, to TLR-4 antagonist activity (140 μM/1.4 μM) was among the best of the new analogs. This compound (1j) was active in vivo...
Effect of pH on intrinsic factor and nonintrinsic factor vitamin B12 binding in human gastric juice neutralized in vivo.

The effect of an acid environment on the quantification of the vitamin B12-binding substances of normal human gastric juice collected by in vivo neutralization has been studied in 7 subjects. A progressive decline in both intrinsic factor and nonintrinsic factor B12 binding, as measured by immunoassay with increasing exposure to an acid pH, has been demonstrated. Reduction in intrinsic factor B12 binding occurred over a wide range of initial intrinsic factor activity and was significant after 10 to 15 min of exposure to an acid pH. An average reduction in intrinsic factor activity of 20% after 15 min, increasing to 38% after 1 hr of exposure, was observed. The B12 binding of partially purified human intrinsic factor which did not possess peptic activity was not affected by acidification, indicating that the effect in gastric juice is probably a proteolytic one. These observations emphasize the importance of attempting to eliminate autodigestive effects by the use of in vivo neutralization in any quantitative study of gastric intrinsic factor secretion.
Cytochrome C Oxidase Deficiency and Respiratory Distress

A newborn male presenting with severe respiratory insufficiency, generalized muscle weakness, and lactic acidemia is reported from the Department of Pediatrics, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, Japan.
Transduction of TAT-NF-YA Fusion Protein into K562 Human Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia Cells Upregulates HOXB4 Activity.

Protein transduction to redirect hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) fate for clinical therapy is an attractive alternative to genetic modification, in that the stem cell genome is not permanently modified. Indeed, published studies suggest that protein transduction with HOXB4, similar to retroviral overexpression of HoxB4, can increase HSC competitive repopulating ability. We have recently found that the trimeric transcription factor NF-Y, by modulation of its regulated subunit NF-YA, controls the expression of several HSC activating genes, including the Hox4 paralogs HoxB4, HoxC4, HoxD4 as well as p27, telomerase, Notch1, and LEF1. We have therefore now asked whether we can deliver NF-YA to hematopoietic cells by fusion with the protein transduction domain of the HIV-1 TAT protein, and modeled the molecular and biological activity of this protein by its effects on the HoxB4 promoter in vitro and in vivo. First, we designed and tested three fusion constructs expressing human NF-YA: with an N-terminal 6-histidine leader, a C-terminal 6xHis tag, and a GST tag at the N-terminus of NF-YA. Recombinant proteins bearing either the N- or C-terminal His-tag were poorly expressed under diverse growing and induction conditions, and were highly contaminated with bacterial host proteins. GST-fusion protein showed a much higher expression level and no host protein contamination, so all experiments were performed using GST-constructs. Next, electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA) demonstrated that purified GST-TAT-NF-YA binds to HoxB4 promoter probes identically to endogenously translated NF-YA. NIH 3T3 fibroblasts, or K562 cells cultured in 0.1–2mM GST-TAT-NF-YA for 1.5h, but not without recombinant protein, showed bright cytoplasmic and nuclear fluorescence upon staining with anti-GST. To test the ability of GST-TAT-NF-YA to activate the HoxB4 promoter in live cells, GST-TAT-NF-YA’s effect was measured both on transfected HOXB4 promoter reporter constructs and on endogenous HoxB4 mRNA. First, when GST-TAT-NF-YA was incubated with K562 cells electroporated with HoxB4 promoter/luciferase, along with plasmids encoding the NF-Ya partners NF-YB, NF-YC, USF1, USF2 (and Renilla luciferase for transfection control), normalized luciferase activity calculated as a % relative to control HoxB4-luc activity increased in an NF-YA concentration-dependent fashion. More pronounced effects were seen when GST-TAT-NF-YA protein was added to stably transfected HOXB4-luc K562 cell lines, with up to 2.7 fold increased HoxB4-luc activity versus control cells. Importantly, addition of GST-TAT-NF-YA protein to unmanipulated K562 cells increased expression of endogenous HoxB4 mRNA 2-2.5X, as measured by real-time PCR. Taken together, these data demonstrate that NF-YA protein can be biochemically, efficiently and functionally delivered to hematopoietic cells via TAT-mediated technology, providing a promising alternative to gene transfer to stimulate multiple HSC-activating genes.
Major Birth Defects and Newer Antiepileptic Drugs

The association between fetal exposure to newer-generation antiepileptic drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy and the risk of major birth defects was studied by researchers at the Statens Serum Institut, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Postwar Education, Reading Schemes, and Race: Leila Berg and Nippers

Education legislation before the end of World War II attempted to create a new (school) world for children that would prepare them for citizenship in a modern Britain. But by the mid-1960s, it had become clear that the new education wasn’t working for all Britain’s schoolchildren—particularly the West Indian child. Mainstream educational publishers began to investigate ways of incorporating the new immigrants into reading scheme texts specifically. This chapter discusses a variety of these reading schemes, focusing particularly on the writer and editor Leila Berg and her reading scheme for working-class and new immigrant children, Nippers.
Information infrastructures to support ambitious instruction in urban schools: bringing diverse perspectives to bear on a tough problem

Urban schools are notoriously "loosely coupled," that is, school practitioners generally operate in isolation from each other, with only tenuous and impersonal connections with school, local, or state administrations. The causes of this range from the social to the structural. The results are obstructive to the possibility of ambitious instruction. One constructive wedge into transforming schools toward ambitious instruction is the development of an enriched information infrastructure that can support teaching and learning in classrooms. Through design research in developing this infrastructure, we stand to learn a great deal about school transformation, and about the design of technologies and social practices to support effective use of information about students.
Natural history of hepatitis B virus in HIV-infected patients

Both human immunodeficiency virus–1 (HIV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) are transmitted via mucosal and percutaneous routes, so approximately 10% of HIV–infected persons worldwide are coinfected with HBV. In the USA, the HIV Outpatient Study found that between 1996 and 2007, the prevalence of HBV was stable ranging from 7.8 to 8.6% with the greatest fraction being in men who have sex with men [1]. Thus, chronic HBV is a continuing important coinfection in the HIV–infected population.
Nanoporous dielectric films: Fundamental property relations and microelectronics applications

Publisher Summary This chapter deals with porous materials that are proposed to replace dense SiO2 as the interlayer dielectric in future microelectronic devices. The properties of any porous material depend upon the material's microstructure and process history. For a fully connected material, the elastic modulus varies with the square of the density and thermal conductivity, like the dielectric constant, which vary linearly with density. Any defects in the structure of the material tend to increase the dependence of the property of interest on the density or porosity. The adhesion between layers, the stability of a layer deposited on a porous material, and inter diffusion between layers depend upon the porosity of the material and the intermolecular forces governing the strength of the interaction between the layers. Adhesion also depends upon intrinsic stresses in the layers and the ambient environment. Adhesion and stability of Cu films are better on xerogel films compared with solid SiO2. Cu may diffuse into porous materials under electrical bias. Diffusion depends upon the surface chemistry of the material and its porosity. Leakage currents and C–V curve shifts are larger with an Al electrode than with a Cu electrode for silica xerogel-based capacitor structures. When the organic capping groups are removed from the xerogel prior to metal deposition, C–V tests indicates Cu ion diffusion at temperatures as low as 100°C. A model of diffusion through porous solids successfully simulates the current observed during BTS testing of silica xerogels and may extend to be applied to the polymers.
Effects of Heregulin on Muscle: A Biochemical and Histological Analysis

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, the most common inherited X-linked genetic disease affecting 1 in 5000 boys, results from a dysfunctional dystrophin protein encoded by the DMD gene. Dystrophin interacts with protein complexes linking the extracellular matrix to the cytoskeleton of muscle fibers. Without dystrophin functioning properly, sarcolemmal membrane stabilization is compromised during the mechanical rigors involved with muscle contraction leading to progressive muscular dystrophy. Heregulin/neuregulin-1 (HRG), a member of the epidermal growth factor family has been shown to induce neuromuscular junction (NMJ) gene expression in vitro and improve skeletal muscle function in dystrophic mice. However, it is unclear if the HRG effects were due to proliferation, cell survival, differentiation, or stimulation of NMJ formation to improve excitation-contractile coupling. To identify a mechanism of action, HRG effects were investigated through in vitro and in vivo experiments: characterization of downstream signaling, observation of the effects on acetylcholine receptor clustering in vitro, and observation of NMJ morphology in vivo. In this study we show through Western blots and electrochemiluminesence assays that AKT and ERK were activated by HRG, but downstream effects were not clear. HRG decreased laminin-induced AChR clusters in a dose dependent manner in vitro, resulting in the possible reorganization of AChRs. In vivo, HRG was found to partially restore NMJ formation and increase axonal and muscle integration in the NMJ. This study provides evidence that a mechanism of action for the positive effects of HRG on the dystrophic phenotype in mdx mice are due to a reorganization of AChRs and an improvement in NMJ formation, potentially improving excitation contraction coupling.