cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Amino Acid-stimulated Ca2+ Oscillations Produced by the Ca2+-sensing Receptor Are Mediated by a Phospholipase C/Inositol 1,4,5-Trisphosphate-independent Pathway That Requires G12, Rho, Filamin-A, and the Actin Cytoskeleton

Abstract The G protein-coupled Ca2+-sensing receptor (CaR) is an allosteric protein that responds to two different agonists, Ca2+ and aromatic amino acids, with the production of sinusoidal or transient oscillations in intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i). Here, we examined whether these differing patterns of [Ca2+]i oscillations produced by the CaR are mediated by separate signal transduction pathways. Using real time imaging of changes in phosphatidylinositol 4,5-biphosphate hydrolysis and generation of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate in single cells, we found that stimulation of CaR by an increase in the extracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]o) leads to periodic synthesis of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate, whereas l-phenylalanine stimulation of the CaR does not induce any detectable change in the level this second messenger. Furthermore, we identified a novel pathway that mediates transient [Ca2+]i oscillations produced by the CaR in response to l-phenylalanine, which requires the organization of the actin cytoskeleton and involves the small GTPase Rho, heterotrimeric proteins of the G12 subfamily, the C-terminal region of the CaR, and the scaffolding protein filamin-A. Our model envisages that Ca2+ or amino acids stabilize unique CaR conformations that favor coupling to different G proteins and subsequent activation of distinct downstream signaling pathways.
Curricular modules: 3D and immersive visualization tools for learning

Abstract The Center for Arts and Technology has undertaken a project designed to integrate the ideas of students and faculty from different disciplines. Curricular modules are created using virtual reality to illustrate six scientific principles that have traditionally been difficult for students to understand in a two-dimensional, static environment. The modules are developed by student/faculty cross-disciplinary teams. A benefit of the team approach is the mutual understanding that is gained by working with individuals with different expertise and backgrounds.
Time-limited involvement of dorsal hippocampus in unimodal discriminative contextual conditioning

Converging evidence examining the effects of post-training manipulations of the hippocampus suggests that the hippocampus may play a time-limited role in the maintenance of a variety of forms of memory. In particular, either lesions or inactivation of the dorsal hippocampus results in many cases in a time-limited retrograde impairment in nondiscriminative contextual conditioning paradigms. However, the extent to which hippocampal manipulations result in a time-limited retrograde amnesia for a variety of forms of learning has recently been called into question (reviewed in Sutherland, Sparks, & Lehmann (2010)). The present study examined the effect of inactivation of the dorsal hippocampus either 7, 28, or 42 days following training in an explicitly nonspatial, discriminative contextual conditioning paradigm (Otto & Poon, 2006; Parsons & Otto, 2008). Inactivation of the dorsal hippocampus resulted in a significant deficit in the expression of contextual conditioning at 7 and 28 days, but not 42 days, following training. Importantly, inactivation of the hippocampus did not affect either baseline freezing levels or conditioning to an explicit CS. Together with previous data exploring hippocampal contributions to discriminative unimodal contextual conditioning, these data suggest that the hippocampus may play a particularly prominent role in the temporary maintenance of memory in discriminative contextual paradigms.
Resonance-region radar target identification using aspect sampling

We investigate the performance of three target identification algorithms that rely on aspect samples of target features extracted from multifrequency resonance-region radar returns. The first algorithm uses only the amplitudes of radar returns, the second uses amplitudes in conjunction with feature-space trajectories, and the third uses complex radar returns and time-domain correlations. To test the algorithms, the Numerical Electromagnetic Code was used to generate radar returns of five test targets made of conducting wires. Simulation results show that very low identification error probabilities can be achieved with relatively large sampling intervals, few frequencies and low computing costs.
Mature Dendritic Cells Infiltrate the T Cell-Rich Region of Oral Mucosa in Chronic Periodontitis: In Situ, In Vivo, and In Vitro Studies

Previous studies have analyzed the lymphoid and myeloid foci within the gingival mucosa in health and chronic periodontitis (CP); however, the principal APCs responsible for the formation and organizational structure of these foci in CP have not been defined. We show that in human CP tissues, CD1a(+) immature Langerhans cells predominantly infiltrate the gingival epithelium, whereas CD83(+) mature dendritic cells (DCs) specifically infiltrate the CD4(+) lymphoid-rich lamina propria. In vivo evidence shows that exacerbation of CP results in increased levels of proinflammatory cytokines that mediate DC activation/maturation, but also of counterregulatory cytokines that may prevent a Th-polarized response. Consistently, in vitro-generated monocyte-derived DCs pulsed with Porphyromonas gingivalis strain 381 or its LPS undergo maturation, up-regulate accessory molecules, and release proinflammatory (IL-1beta, PGE(2)) and Th (IL-10, IL-12) cytokines. Interestingly, the IL-10:IL-12 ratio elicited from P. gingivalis-pulsed DCs was 3-fold higher than that from Escherichia coli-pulsed DCs. This may account for the significantly (p < 0.05) lower proliferation of autologous CD4(+) T cells and reduced release of IFN-gamma elicited by P. gingivalis-pulsed DCs. Taken together, these findings suggest a previously unreported mechanism for the pathophysiology of CP, involving the activation and in situ maturation of DCs by the oral pathogen P. gingivalis, leading to release of counterregulatory cytokines and the formation of T cell-DC foci.
Phylogeography of the Northern short-tailed shrew, Blarina brevicauda (Insectivora: Soricidae): past fragmentation and postglacial recolonization.

Blarina brevicauda is distributed across the northeastern region of North America, in areas previously covered by Pleistocene glaciers. Previous molecular systematic study of the species in the genus Blarina suggested the presence of two distinct eastern and western phylogroups within B. brevicauda , in agreement with traditionally recognized semi-species. To expand the previous work, a collection of 76 individuals from 14 localities collected throughout the range of B. brevicauda was used to assess the mitochondrial (mt) cytochrome b genealogy for this species. Minimum evolution, maximum parsimony, analysis of molecular variance and nested clade analysis each supported the same conclusions of two well-differentiated and monophyletic east–west groups, separated by the Mississippi River. Denser sampling in areas immediately East of the Mississippi basin revealed further subdivision within the eastern phylogroup into an East-Central and an Appalachian clade. The western phylogroup differed from the eastern phylogroup by 2.5% mean absolute DNA sequence difference. About 65% of the genetic variance among samples was explained by the east–west subdivision alone. High haplotype diversities, low nucleotide diversities and unimodal mismatch distributions within subclades suggest recent expansion or diversification within each group. No phylogeographic structure was found within the western phylogroup, but genetic structure because of restricted gene flow and isolation by distance was inferred for the eastern group. The present distribution of B. brevicauda is best explained by past fragmentation and range expansion events during and following the Pleistocene glacial cycles.
Fostering an Environmental Ethic through Service Learning

Objective: To explore connections between environmental education, public concern for environmental health, and service learning. Methods: A 20-item survey was administered to same students at the beginning and end of a 15-week Environmental Health course. Qualitative data were collected from reflective papers based on students involved in community based learning. Results: The findings of the study revealed that students grew in their sense of environmental responsibility; significantly increased their “level of concern” for 18 of the 20 environmental variables measured; and viewed community action as empowering. Conclusion: Students’ participation in an Environmental Health course and engagement in service learning increased their overall support for a variety of environmental issues.
On the clouds of uranus

Several models for the atmosphere of Uranus are considered. If the H2 abundance is less than 250 km-am and the internal heat source is only a few percent of the total emitted energy then the cloud at the base of the atmosphere may be composed of solid CH4 particles, while if the H2 abundance is greater than 250 km-am or if the internal heat source is near the current upper limit of 35% of the total emitted energy the cloud at the base of the atmosphere may be composed of either solid NH3 or H2S particles.
New hope: community-based misoprostol use to prevent postpartum haemorrhage

The wide gap in maternal mortality ratios worldwide indicates major inequities in the levels of risk women face during pregnancy. Two priority strategies have emerged among safe motherhood advocates: increasing the quality of emergency obstetric care facilities and deploying skilled birth attendants. The training of traditional birth attendants, a strategy employed in the 1970s and 1980s, is no longer considered a best practice. However, inadequate access to emergency obstetric care and skilled birth attendants means women living in remote areas continue to die in large numbers from preventable maternal causes. This paper outlines an intervention to address the leading direct cause of maternal mortality, postpartum haemorrhage. The potential for saving maternal lives might increase if community-based birth attendants, women themselves, or other community members could be trained to use misoprostol to prevent postpartum haemorrhage. The growing body of evidence regarding the safety and efficacy of misoprostol for this indication raises the question: if achievement of the fifth Millennium Development Goal is truly a priority, why can policy makers and women’s health advocates not see that misoprostol distribution at the community level might have life-saving benefits that outweigh risks?
From spikes to space: reconstructing features of the environment from spikes alone

A common stimulus reconstruction paradigm involves first computing the receptive fields of recorded neurons (using both spike trains and the presented stimuli), and then using the receptive field information together with neuronal activity in order to "predict" the pattern of stimuli based on local stimulus features. Some brain regions (such as hippocampus) undergo remapping of receptive fields, depending on context. How do downstream neurons integrate the mosaic of individual neuronal responses, with potentially varying receptive fields, to extract global characteristics of presented stimuli? In rodent dorsal hippocampus spatial information is encoded by place cells, i.e. pyramidal cells that fire in a restricted convex area of the spatial environment, and are mostly silent outside. The receptive fields of individual place cells (place fields) can be thus thought of as small convex domains in a two-dimensional environment. The place fields for the same neurons re-map from one spatial environment to another. In this work we show how certain global features of a spatial environment can be computed from hippocampal spiking activity alone. In particular, we consider a variety of two-dimensional environments which differ in the number of obstacles (or holes) constraining the region accessible to a freely-foraging rat. Assuming only basic properties of hippocampal place fields, we construct an algorithm that distinguishes between these different environments by computing standard topological invariants (homology groups) from population spiking activity. These invariants precisely determine the numbers of obstacles/holes in the environment – and can be computed without ever using any position-tracking information, or any other feature of the rat's trajectory through space. In particular, we never compute place fields or any other correlations between cell firing and external stimuli. We tested the algorithm using simulated data, staying as close as possible to physiological parameters seen in real data. For each of five distinct environments, open field and N-obstacle environments for N = 1,..,4, we simulated place cell spike trains corresponding to a random walk. (Place fields in different environments were completely unrelated.) The algorithm correctly identified each environment from the population spiking data. Furthermore, on shuffled data sets, the computed homology groups reflected high-dimensional, non-physical environments. We have thus shown that global features of the spatial environment can be reconstructed from hippocampal place cell spiking activity alone.
Surface myoelectric signal classification using the AR-GARCH model

In myoelectric prostheses design, it is normally assumed that the necessary control information can be extracted from the surface myoelectric signals. In the pattern classification paradigm for controlling myoelectric prosthesis, the autoregressive (AR) model coe cients are generally considered an e cient and robust feature set. However, no formal statistical methodologies or tests are reported in the literature to analyze and model the myoelectric signal as an AR process. We analyzed the myoelectric signal as a stochastic time-series and found that the signal is heteroscedastic, i.e., the AR modeling residuals exhibit a time-varying variance. Heteroscedasticity is a major concern in statistical modeling because it can invalidate statistical tests of significance which may assume that the modeling errors are uncorrelated and that the error variances do not vary with the e ects being modeled. We subsequently proposed to model the myoelectric signal as an Autoregressive-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (AR-GARCH) process and used the model parameters as a feature set for signal classification. Multiple statistical tests including the Ljung-Box Q-test, Engle’s test for heteroscedasticity, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the goodness of fit test were performed to show the validity of the proposed model. Our experimental results show that the proposed AR-GARCH model coe cients, when used as a feature set in two di erent classification schemes, significantly outperformed (p < :01) the conventional AR model coe cients.
Models for Indirect Estimation of Soil Hydraulic Properties

retention and hydraulic conductivity characteristics. Indirect methods can be classified into semiphysical methods that are based on mechanical assumptions regarding particle and pore arrangements, and statistical methods that are known as pedotransfer functions. Both classes are described and evaluated on their merits, and some characteristic examples are given. A list of applicable software is described at the end of the article and an extensive reference list provides sufficient material for further background information.
The Evidence for Soybean Products as Cancer Preventive Agents

There is much evidence suggesting that compounds present in soybeans can prevent cancer in many different organ systems. The evidence for specific soybean-derived compounds having a suppressive effect on carcinogenesis in animal model systems is limited, however. There is evidence that the following isolated soybean derived products suppress carcinogenesis in vivo: a protease inhibitor, the Bowman-Birk inhibitor, inositol hexaphosphate (phytic acid) and the sterol β-sitosterol. Other compounds that may be able to suppress carcinogenesis in animals are the soybean isoflavones. Soybean compounds reported to have other types of anticarcinogenic activity include soybean trypsin inhibitor, saponins and genistein. There is much evidence to suggest that diets containing large amounts of soybean products are associated with overall low cancer mortality rates, particularly for cancers of the colon, breast and prostate. It is believed that supplementation of human diets with certain soybean products shown to suppress carcinogenesis in animals could markedly reduce human cancer mortality rates
Mouse models of MeCP2 disorders share gene expression changes in the cerebellum and hypothalamus

A group of post-natal neurodevelopmental disorders collectively referred to as MeCP2 disorders are caused by aberrations in the gene encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MECP2). Loss of MeCP2 function causes Rett syndrome (RTT), whereas increased copy number of the gene causes MECP2 duplication or triplication syndromes. MeCP2 acts as a transcriptional repressor, however the gene expression changes observed in the hypothalamus of MeCP2 disorder mouse models suggest that MeCP2 can also upregulate gene expression, given that the majority of genes are downregulated upon loss of MeCP2 and upregulated in its presence. To determine if this dual role of MeCP2 extends beyond the hypothalamus, we studied gene expression patterns in the cerebellum of Mecp2-null and MECP2-Tg mice, modeling RTT and MECP2 duplication syndrome, respectively. We found that abnormal MeCP2 dosage causes alterations in the expression of hundreds of genes in the cerebellum. The majority of genes were upregulated in MECP2-Tg mice and downregulated in Mecp2-null mice, consistent with a role for MeCP2 as a modulator that can both increase and decrease gene expression. Interestingly, many of the genes altered in the cerebellum, particularly those increased by the presence of MeCP2 and decreased in its absence, were similarly altered in the hypothalamus. Our data suggest that either gain or loss of MeCP2 results in gene expression changes in multiple brain regions and that some of these changes are global. Further delineation of the expression pattern of MeCP2 target genes throughout the brain might identify subsets of genes that are more amenable to manipulation, and can thus be used to modulate some of the disease phenotypes.
Model uncertainty in security assessment of power systems

In this paper, we address the issue of quantifying effects of model uncertainty on transmission security in a power market. The paper addresses two types of uncertainties: 1) structural (e.g., branch outages), which are modeled by contingency scenarios, and 2) perturbations of model parameters (e.g., branch impedance), which are described by sensitivity analysis. The paper embeds these considerations in an optimization procedure that checks if transmission security is maintained and, when necessary, generates minimal corrections in existing contractual transactions that ensure security. Given our interest in real-time applications, we consider problem formulations guaranteeing solution existence and global optimality. A detailed sensitivity analysis based on approximate matrix inversion and linear programming perturbation theory is performed. The paper proposes a linearized ac power flow model to describe the transmission network. The model is studied on a benchmark example of the New England/New York interconnection with 68 nodes.
Alternative Fates of Keratinocytes Transduced by Human Papillomavirus Type 18 E7 during Squamous Differentiation

The human papillomavirus type 18 (HPV-18) E7 protein promotes S-phase reentry in postmitotic, differentiated keratinocytes in squamous epithelium to facilitate vegetative viral DNA amplification. To examine the nature and fate of the differentiated cells that reenter S phase, organotypic cultures of primary human keratinocytes transduced with HPV-18 E7 were pulse-chase-pulse-labeled with 3H-thymidine (3H-TdR) and bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU). The kinetics of the appearance of doubly labeled suprabasal cells demonstrate that E7 expression did not promote prolonged S phase. Rather, there was a considerable lag before a small percentage of the cells reentered another round of S phase. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis, indeed, revealed a small fraction of the cells with more than 4n chromosomes in the differentiated strata. Differentiated cells positive for 3H-TdR, BrdU, or both often had enlarged nuclei or were binucleated. These results suggest that S phase is not followed by cell division, although nuclear division may occur. Interestingly, a significant fraction of differentiated cells that entered S phase subsequently accumulated p27kip1 protein with a kinetics preceding the accumulation of cyclin E. We conclude that E7-transduced, differentiated keratinocytes that enter S phase have two alternative fates: (i) a low percentage of cells undergoes endoreduplication, achieving higher than 4n ploidy, and (ii) a high percentage of cells accumulates the p27kip1, cyclin E, and p21cip1 proteins, resulting in arrest and preventing further S-phase reentry.
The placebo effect on mood and behavior: the role of the endogenous opioid system

Evidence from clinical and experimental studies has shown that placebos influence mood and behavior, that endogenous opioids are involved in the placebo effect, and that the endogenous opioid system is related to psychological events. Recent studies have also demonstrated that the endogenous opioid system is closely connected with other neurotransmitter systems in the brain. The author suggests that the interaction between the endogenous opioid system and different neurotransmitter systems in the brain mediates the placebo effect on mood and behavior of both healthy and sick people.
Pre-earthquake signals – Part I: Deviatoric stresses turn rocks into a source of electric currents

Abstract. Earthquakes are feared because they often strike so suddenly. Yet, there are innumerable reports of pre-earthquake signals. Widespread disagreement exists in the geoscience community how these signals can be generated in the Earth's crust and whether they are early warning signs, related to the build-up of tectonic stresses before major seismic events. Progress in understanding and eventually using these signals has been slow because the underlying physical process or processes are basically not understood. This has changed with the discovery that, when igneous or high-grade metamorphic rocks are subjected to deviatoric stress, dormant electronic charge carriers are activated: electrons and defect electrons. The activation increases the number density of mobile charge carriers in the rocks and, hence, their electric conductivity. The defect electrons are associated with the oxygen anion sublattice and are known as positive holes or pholes for short. The boundary between stressed and unstressed rock acts a potential barrier that lets pholes pass but blocks electrons. Therefore, like electrons and ions in an electrochemical battery, the stress-activated electrons and pholes in the "rock battery" have to flow out in different directions. When the circuit is closed, the battery currents can flow. The discovery of such stress-activated currents in crustal rocks has far-reaching implications for understanding pre-earthquake signals.
A parallel and non-conformal Interior Penalty Discontinuous Galerkin method for the time-domain Maxwell'S equations

In this article a parallel and non-conformal Interior Penalty Discontinuous Galerkin (IPDG) method is presented to solve time domain Maxwell's equations. The computational domain is decomposed into non-overlapping sub-domains. Each sub-domain is meshed independently providing great flexibility in the meshing process. The non-conformal triangulations at sub-domain interfaces are naturally supported by IPDG. An upwind flux is used in IPDG, to provide for optimal convergence rates. Moreover a MPI parallelization along with a local time-stepping strategy is applied to significantly increase the efficiency of the method.
Molecular Immunotherapeutics and Vaccines for Renal Cell Carcinoma and Its Vasculature

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) remains a significant health concern since many patients present with metastatic disease at initial diagnosis. RCC tumors are typically highly vascularized due to dysregulated angiogenesis, resulting in leaky, chaotic blood vessels that serve to limit immune effector cell access to the tumor, that may in part be responsible for the modest clinical success noted for cancer immunotherapeutic approaches. Current first-line therapeutics in the advanced-stage disease setting include anti-angiogenic small molecule drugs that have yielded high objective clinical response rates, although these tend to be transient in nature, with most patients ultimately becoming drug refractory.
Conducted signals within arteriolar networks initiated by bioactive amino acids

Our purpose was to determine the specificity of l-arginine (l-Arg)-induced conducted signals for intra- vs. extracellular actions ofl-Arg. Diameter and red blood cell velocities were measured for a...
n-3 fatty acids increase postischemic blood flow but do not reduce myocardial necrosis

The effects of a fish oil-supplemented diet on infarct size and regional myocardial blood flow were examined in a rat model of acute ischemia followed by reperfusion. Thirty-five rats were fed a diet containing 20% by weight: fish oil (FO), rich in n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids; corn oil (CO), with predominantly n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids; or beef tallow (BT), containing large amounts of saturated fatty acids. After 6-12 wk on the diet, animals underwent 40 min of left coronary artery occlusion followed by 2 h of reperfusion. Regional transmural myocardial blood flow was determined with radioactive microspheres at 30 min of occlusion and again 30 min after reperfusion. Infarct size was determined with triphenyltetrazolium chloride. Blood flow was virtually undetectable within the ischemic zone in all groups during occlusion. With reperfusion, however, ischemic zone absolute blood flow and relative flow (normalized to nonischemic zone flow) were significantly greater in the fish oil group [2.4 +/- 0.25 ml.min-1.g-1, 44 +/- 4% vs. 1.7 +/- 0.3, 29 +/- 5% for CO (P less than 0.05 vs. FO), and 1.4 +/- 0.3, 29 +/- 5% for BT (P less than 0.05 vs. FO)]. Despite differences in reperfusion blood flow, average percent transmural extent of infarction was nearly identical (68 +/- 4, 68 +/- 5, and 64 +/- 3%) and overall infarct size was similar (38 +/- 3, 36 +/- 4, and 29 +/- 3%) for FO, CO, and BT groups, respectively. In conclusion, dietary supplementation with fish oils increases postischemic blood flow but has no effect on extent of myocardial infarction in this ischemia-reperfusion model in rats.
Comment: The Social Neuroendocrinology Example: Incorporating Culture Resolves Biobehavioral Evolutionary Paradoxes

The target meta-analysis (Wood, Kressel, Joshi, & Louie, 2014) raises a number of red flags for research on menstrual shifts in women’s psychology. In this commentary, I particularly address one: the near-absent attention to sociocultural forces in this body of work. I use social neuroendocrinology as one example of a research paradigm that integrates both evolution and socialization into studies of human behavior. I argue that incorporating attention to social constructions actually provides clearer answers to evolutionary questions and also fills the biobehavioral comparative mandate by seriously attending to human specificities alongside cross-species generalities. I close by noting that human bodies simultaneously reflect evolved and sociocultural forces, an understanding that undergirds contemporary biobehavioral research.
The pancreatic polypeptide (PP-fold) family: gastrointestinal, vascular, and feeding behavioral implications.

AbstractHistorical Background. Of the four recognized peptide hormones secreted by the endocrine pancreas, pancreatic polypeptide (PP) was the third to be discovered, isolated, and characterized. Insulin (1921-22) and glucagon (1923) preceded and somatostatin (1975) followed the isolation of PP in 1968. Despite this sequence of events—and the time interval since its discovery—PP remains somewhat of an enigma both in name and in function. The reluctance to label this polypeptide with a more descriptive title than the lackluster PP it bears stems largely from the fact that while broad actions may be attributed to it, no outstanding or dominating effect has been identified with its actions. Thus, the only characteristic carried by use of the phrase PP is to signify the species of PP one is discussing, such as avian, bovine, rat, porcine, ovine, and human, for example. The avian structure has 15 identities (of a total of 36) with that of bovine PP, and the latter differs by one or two residues from most other...
β-Amyloid Deposition Is Associated with Decreased Right Prefrontal Activation during Task Switching among Cognitively Normal Elderly

The accumulation of β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer9s disease (AD), has been associated with functional alterations, often in an episodic memory system with a particular emphasis on medial temporal lobe function. The topography of Aβ deposition, however, largely overlaps with frontoparietal control (FPC) regions implicated in cognitive control that has been shown to be impaired in early mild AD. To understand the neural mechanism underlying early changes in cognitive control with AD, we examined the impact of Aβ deposition on task-evoked FPC activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans. Forty-three young and 62 cognitively normal older adults underwent an fMRI session during an executive contextual task in which task difficulty varied: single (either letter case or vowel/consonant judgment task) vs dual (switching between letter case and vowel/consonant decisions) task. Older subjects additionally completed 18 F-florbetaben positron emission tomography scans and were classified as either amyloid positive (Aβ+) or negative (Aβ−). Consistent with previous reports, age-related increases in brain activity were found in FPC regions commonly identified across groups. For both task conditions, Aβ-related increases in brain activity were found compared with baseline activity. For higher cognitive control load, however, Aβ+ elderly showed reduced task-switching activation in the right inferior frontal cortex. Our findings suggest that with Aβ deposition, brain activation in the cognitive control region reaches a maximum with lower control demand and decreases with higher control demand, which may underlie early impairment in cognitive control with AD progression. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The accumulation of β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides, a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer9s disease, spatially overlaps with frontoparietal control (FPC) regions implicated in cognitive control, but the impact of Aβ deposition on FPC regions is largely unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging with a task-switching task, we found Aβ-related increases in FPC regions compared with baseline activity. For higher cognitive control load, however, Aβ-related hypoactivity was found in the right inferior frontal cortex, a region highly implicated in cognitive control. The findings suggest that with Aβ deposition, task-related brain activity may reach a plateau early and undergo downstream pathways of neural dysfunction, which may relate to the early impairment of cognitive control seen in the progression of Aβ pathology.
Latino Mothers’ and Fathers’ Caregiving With Their School-Age Children

This study examined the levels of Latino mothers’ and fathers’ involvement in their school-age children’s care and the relationships between parents’ socio-economic status (SES) variables, sense of community, community provisions, and marital satisfaction with their involvement in children’s routine and demand care. Mothers and fathers from 159 intact Latino families participated in the study. Multivariate analyses revealed that mothers spent significantly more time in providing child care than fathers did. The gender of the child did not make a difference in the amount of time mothers and fathers invested in children’s care. Whereas community provisions and marital satisfaction predicted mothers’ involvement in routine care, sense of community and community provisions predicted mothers’ involvement in demand care. None of the predictors were related to fathers’ involvement in routine or demand care. Findings are discussed in light of gender role differences in parental involvement with children within La...
First-Time Patellofemoral Dislocation: Risk Factors for Recurrent Instability.

Patellofemoral instability is a complex problem, which can be difficult to manage. The purpose of this study was to describe the demographics of patients with a first-time patellofemoral dislocation, and identify risk factors for recurrent instability. This was a single institution, institutional review board–approved, retrospective review of >2,000 patients with a patellar dislocation between 1998 and 2010. Inclusion criteria are as follows: (1) no prior history of patellofemoral subluxation or dislocation of the affected knee; (2) X-rays within 4 weeks of the initial instability episode; and (3) a dislocated patella requiring reduction, or history/findings suggestive of acute patellar dislocation (effusion/hemarthrosis, tenderness along the medial parapatellar structures, and apprehension with lateral patellar translation). Clinical records and radiographs were reviewed. The Caton-Deschamps and Insall-Salvati indices were used to evaluate patella alta. Trochlear dysplasia was assessed using the Dejour classification system. Skeletal maturity was graded based on the distal femoral and proximal tibial physes, using one of the following categories: open, closing, or closed. Three hundred twenty-six knees (312 patients) met the aforementioned criteria. There were 145 females (46.5%) and 167 males (53.5%), with an average age of 19.6 years (range, 9–62 years). Thirty-five patients (10.7%) were treated with surgery after the initial dislocation. All others were initially managed nonoperatively. Of the 291 patients managed nonoperatively, 89 (30.6%) had recurrent instability, 44 (49.4%) of which eventually required surgery. Several risk factors for recurrent instability were identified, including younger age (p
Investigation in different sites and identified of Siraitia grosvenorii root-knot nematode

In the 14 luohanguo orchard survey herbal root-knot nematode field conditions in luohanguo grain form Liuzhou,Guilin,Nanning of Guangxi county.The results found that ten Luohanguo sites infested root-knot nematode,incidence of a disease in between 2%~100%,root in disease index to 2.00%~81.60%.Identifying pathogen morphology,two species were identified as Meloidogyne incognita and Meloidogyne javanica based on morphological characters,M.incognita was the dominant specie.
Vibrational and Electronic Stark Effects in Green Fluorescent Protein

The use of unnatural amino acids to probe non-covalent interactions, dynamics, and folding in proteins is growing rapidly. Specifically, para-cyanophenylalanine (pCNF) is an attractive probe of electrostatics because of its sensitivity to electric fields and its minimal structural perturbation when replacing phenylalanine or tyrosine. However, due to the potential for hydrogen bonding to the nitrile moiety there is potential for the introduction of nonnative interactions, which can cloud our understanding of native proteins. Usual attempts to quantify the extent of nitrile perturbation include functional assays or structural measurements. While structure and function are undoubtedly linked to electrostatic environment, they are not direct reporters of it. An intrinsic reporter of electrostatic environment would allow for the direct comparison of environments with and without an extrinsic nitrile probe. Boxer and coworkers have shown that the intrinsic fluorophore of green fluorescent protein (GFP) is sensitive to electric fields in a manner consistent with a linear Stark effect. Here we incorporate multiple pCNF probes into buried sites near the GFP fluorophore and measure changes in the electric field environment from both the nitriles and the fluorophore in response to a series of amino acid mutations. Our results show that pCNF probes can be incorporated near the GFP fluorophore without affecting the electric field changes experienced by the fluorophore. Additionally, changes in electric field measured from the nitrile are in agreement with those measured from the fluorophore. These results suggest that, for this model system, nitrile probes do not significantly perturb the native electrostatic environment. The agreement of changes in electric field from vibrational and electronic Stark effect probes inside the beta barrel of GFP suggests nitrile frequencies can be interpreted in terms of the Stark effect even when they participate in hydrogen bonding.
Co-operative signaling between leukocytes and endothelium mediating firm attachment

This chapter focuses on the interactions of leukocytes and endothelial cells that are necessary for adhesion sufficiently stable to withstand the shear forces of flowing blood. Some aspects of the interplay between shear rates and the functions of specific adhesion molecules will be discussed, as will possible signaling steps in the cascade of events leading to stable adhesion (though signaling pathways will not be discussed). In addition, simple observations of cell interactions will be presented to emphasize the potential influence of surface topography on the sequence of events that control firm adhesion and its localization.
Housing for essential service workers during an oil boom: opportunities and policy implications

This article analyzes the affordability of housing in two counties in western North Dakota, during a period of rapid economic and population growth, triggered by increased oil industry activity. The focus is on affordability issues of essential service workers—such as teachers, nurses, police officers, and local government employees—who are also the moderate-income earners in a community. Findings presented in the article shows that essential service workers face considerable housing affordability issues, because of the housing market conditions generated by the economic and population growth. Findings also show that conventional housing assistance programs are of little use to solve the affordability issues of essential service workers. The article further explores three models or mechanisms that could be used to improve the affordability of housing: a community land trust (CLT) model, a property tax exemption model, and a low-interest model. Analysis shows that the CLT model has considerable financial potential toward provision of housing that is affordable to essential service workers.
Modeling the Effect of Temperature and Water Activity on the Thermal Resistance of Salmonella Enteritidis PT 30 in Wheat Flour

ABSTRACT Salmonella continues to be a problem associated with low-moisture foods, particularly given enhanced thermal resistance at lower water activity (aw). However, there is a scarcity of thermal inactivation models accounting for the effect of aw. The objective of this study was to test multiple secondary models for the effect of product (wheat flour) aw on Salmonella enterica Enteritidis phage type 30 thermal resistance. A full-factorial experimental design included three temperatures (75, 80, and 85°C) and four aw values (~0.30, 0.45, 0.60, and 0.70). Prior to isothermal treatment, sample aw was achieved by equilibrating samples in a humidity-controlled conditioning chamber. Two primary models (log linear and Weibull type) and three secondary models (second-order response surface, modified Bigelow type, and combined effects) were evaluated using the corrected Akaike information criterion and root mean squared errors. Statistical analyses of the primary models favored the log-linear model. Incorporat...
Estimation of Copula Models for Time Series of Possibly Different Lengths

The theory of conditional copulas provides a means of constructing flexible multivariate density models, allowing for time-varying conditional densities of each individual variable, and for time-varying conditional dependence between the variables. Further, the use of copulas in constructing these models often allows for the partitioning of the parameter vector into elements relating only to a marginal distribution, and elements relating to the copula. This paper presents a two-stage (or multi-stage) maximum likelihood estimator for the case that such a partition is possible. We extend the existing statistics literature on the estimation of copula models to consider data that exhibit temporal dependence and heterogeneity. The estimator is flexible enough that the case that unequal amounts of data are available on each variable is easily handled. We investigate the small sample properties of the estimator in a Monte Carlo study, and find that it performs well in comparisons with the standard (one-stage) maximum likelihood estimator. Finally, we present an application of the estimator to a model of the joint distribution of daily Japanese yen - U.S. dollar and euro - U.S. dollar exchange rates. We find some evidence that a copula that captures asymmetric dependence performs better than those that assume symmetric dependence.
An Assessment of Antioxidant and Antiproliferative Activities of SuperGrain Quinoa

Quinoa is known to be an excellent source of natural antioxidants and therefore the extract of quinoa seed was considered to have a significant anti-inflammatory activity. Two different varieties of quinoa seeds and six different solvents hexane, acetone, methanol, ethanol, ethyl acetate and water were used as solvent for extraction in the present study. Extracts from water, methanol and ethanol showed significant antioxidant and phytochemical activities. Water extract showed highest Phenol content (89.73 ± 1.74), antioxidant activity (1586 ± 41.42) and DPPH scavenging capacities (82.71 ± 0.03) compared to other solvents used for extraction. IC50 value for percentage DPPH scavenging capacities by water extract was 14.71 ± 0.02, compared to ascorbic acid (7.15 ± 0.13), which is a control. All extracts exhibit significantly high levels of flavonoid content. Ethyl acetate extract represented highest (88.41 ± 0.37) NO scavenging capacity. Lowest IC50 value (52.58 ± 0.14) for NO scavenging capacity was identified for ethanol extract compared to control (24.19 ± 3.53). Ascorbic acid used as control in both DPPH and Nitric oxide scavenging capacities measurement. Quinoa seed extracts from all six solvents found to have antimicrobial activities towards gram positive bacteria but not towards all gram negative bacteria. All extracts showed significant anti proliferative activities towards P 116 cells.
How 'The Big Short' Flipped a Traditional Principles of Macroeconomics Course: Teaching to a Dominant Event in Students' Lives

After the financial crisis, macroeconomics became an unsettled discipline raising pedagogical challenges as to how to teach principles courses. This article concerns a principles of economics course that was initially taught with traditional methods. After students performed poorly during the initial course period, and engagement and attendance was subpar, it was discovered that most students, though young, were deeply affected by, and emotionally invested in, the financial crisis that caused the Great recession. They were also conversant with, and enthusiastic about, popular movies related to the crisis. Therefore, the class was flipped to teach to the dominant macroeconomic event in students’ lives—the financial crisis. The notion of teaching to seminal economic events that loom large in student cognition is the primary pedagogical contribution of this article. The tools were 1) the flipped classroom; 2) experiential learning; 3) the use of popular movies as teaching tools; and 4) the requirement of a major research paper to solidify the learning from innovative techniques. This approach substantially raised student grades, resulted in a dramatic rise in attendance and student engagement, and demonstrably enhanced the creative and critical thinking of students.
Ortho-para interconversion in cation-water complexes: The case of V+(H2O) and Nb+(H2O) clusters

Vanadium and niobium cation-water complexes, V+(H2O) and Nb+(H2O), are produced by laser vaporization in a pulsed supersonic expansion, mass selected in a time-of-flight spectrometer, and studied with infrared photodissociation spectroscopy using rare gas atom (Ar, Ne) complex predissociation. The vibrational bands measured in the O-H stretching region contain K-type rotational sub-band structure, which provides insight into the structures of these complexes. However, rotational sub-bands do not exhibit the simple patterns seen previously for other metal ion-water complexes. The A rotational constants are smaller than expected and the normal 3:1 intensity ratios for K = odd:even levels for independent ortho:para nuclear spin states are missing for some complexes. We relied on highly correlated internally contracted multi-reference configuration interaction and Coupled Cluster [CCSD(T)] electronic structure calculations of those complexes with and without the rare gas atoms to investigate these anomalies. Rare gas atoms were found to bind via asymmetric motifs to the hydrated complexes undergoing large amplitude motions that vibrationally average to the quasi-C2v symmetry with a significant probability off the C2 axis, thus explaining the reduced A values. Both vanadium and niobium cations exhibit unusually strong nuclear spin coupling to the hydrogen atoms of water, the values of which vary with their electronic state. This catalyzes ortho-para interconversion in some complexes and explains the rotational patterns. The rate of ortho-para relaxation in the equilibrated complexes must therefore be greater than the collisional cooling rate in the supersonic expansion (about 106 s-1).
Understanding the Influence of [EMIM]Cl on the Suppression of the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction on Transition Metal Electrodes.

We have studied the influence of low concentrations (0.1 M) of the ionic liquid 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([EMIM]Cl) on suppressing the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) using polycrystalline Ag, Cu, and Fe electrodes in aqueous acidic and basic media. HER suppression is generally desired when aiming to catalyze other reactions of interests, e.g., CO2 electro-reduction. Cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry measurements were performed at potentials between −0.2 and −0.8 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) to investigate HER activity in a simulated CO2 electrolysis environment without the CO2. In an acidic electrolyte, a decrease in HER activity was observed for all three electrodes with the largest effect being that of Fe, where the HER activity was suppressed by 75% at −0.5 V versus RHE. In contrast to the effect of [EMIM]Cl in an acidic electrolyte, no HER suppression was observed in basic media. Using 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy on the electrolyte before and af...
Cares, Identification, and Agency Reductionism

Reductionists about agency maintain that an agent's causing something is reducible to states and events involving the agent causing something. Some worry that reductionism cannot accommodate robust forms of agency, such as self-determination. One reductionist answer to this worry, which I call ‘identification reductionism,’ contends that self-governing agents are identified with certain attitudes, and so these attitudes causing a decision count as the agent's self-determining the decision. I argue that a prominent species of identification reductionism developed by Harry Frankfurt, Agnieszka Jaworska, Jeffrey Seidman, and David Shoemaker – according to which an agent is identified with his (deepest) cares – is inadequate.