cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Recent Soviet Experience and Western Laws of Population Migration.

The change in Soviet policy also offers the opportunity to compare recent Soviet population movement with generalization about internal migration phenomena observed for some time now in Western nations. Probably the most famous set of generalizations is E. G. Ravenstein’s pioneering "The Laws of Migration" based on the British Census of 1881 and subsequent observations concerning the experience of more than twenty countries. Ravenstein concluded that most migrants proceed short distances that females are numerous in short distance moves that when migrants do move great distances they tend to travel to large urban centers and that the economic motive predominates. In addition he generalized that migration proceeds by stages and that for each stream of migration a counter-stream or reverse flow develops. Ravenstein also surmised that migration occurs more frequently in rural than in urban areas and that the level of population movement increases as an economy becomes more complex. Taking into account more current research Everett S. Lee formulated a set of laws in "A Theory of Migration" which summarizes much of what demographers know concerning the volume of internal migration streams and counter-streams and the characteristics of migrants. It is the purpose of this paper to determine the degree to which recent Soviet migration can be adequately described by generalizations concerning Western experience. Rather than adhering to the letter of the lawsof either Ravenstein or Lee this survey and comparison proceeds according to an outline based on both works. (excerpt)
Multiple-criteria optimization

Abstract In many chromatographic optimization problems, it is unusual to find only one response that must be optimized. Multiple-criteria optimization methods allow the combination of several responses into a single figure-of-merit. Origins are traced to Harringtons' “desirability functions” and Zadeh's “fuzzy sets”.
Drug-binding proteins after liver transplantation: are they significant?

In patients with liver disease, the synthesis of drug-binding proteins may be impaired. After liver transplantation, levels of drug-binding proteins are unknown. Consequently, concentrations of albumin and α-acid glycoprotein (AAG) were measured in stable patients after liver transplantation. Albumin levels were decreased from normal (4.5 ± 3 gm per dl) in patients with liver disease before (3.4 ± 0.7) and after transplantation (3.4 ± 0.8). AAG levels were decreased from normal (67 ± 20 mg per dl) in patients with liver disease (46 ± 22) but were higher than normal after transplantation (121 ± 28). AAG is an acutephase reactant, the synthesis of which may have been stimulated by the surgical procedure. The effect of these changes on drug metabolism was not studied.
Single-stage election procedures for large electorates

Abstract The Condorcet efficiency of single-stage election procedures is considered under the assumption of impartial culture for large electorates. The most efficient ranked voting rule is either Borda rule or a truncated scoring rule. A decision rule is established to determine the number of candidates, k , that individuals should be required to vote for, whether or not ranking should be required, and the scoring rule that should be used if ranking is required. This decision depends upon the number of candidates available and the probabilities that individuals will vote if they must rank k candidates or simply report k candidates.
Intervention with the aldose reductase inhibitor, tolrestat, in renal and retinal lesions of streptozotocin-diabetic rats.

The progressive increase in urinary albumin excretion, which precedes the development of diabetic nephropathy, can be prevented in diabetic rats if the aldose reductase inhibitor, tolrestat, is administered at the initiation and throughout the duration of hyperglycaemia. We therefore determined the ability of tolrestat to intervene in the further progression of already established urinary albumin excretion of streptozotocin-diabetic female Wistar rats. Two months after streptozotocin injection, diabetic rats were grouped as low-urinary albumin excretion (0.2–1.0 mg albumin/day) or high-urinary albumin excretion (1.9–5.9 mg albumin/day), at which time tolrestat intervention (25 mg/kg per day) was begun for half of the diabetic rats in each urinary albumin excretion group. After six months of treatment tolrestat caused a significant reduction in the urinary albumin excretion rate of the low-urinary albumin excretion group only. The diabetes-induced rise of total urinary protein in both groups was significantly reduced by tolrestat. Furthermore, the diabetes-induced increase (49%) in the thickness of the basement membranes of retinal capillaries from the outer plexiform layer was significantly diminished by tolrestat administration. In conclusion, intervention therapy with the aldose reductase inhibitor, tolrestat, can reduce the progression of urinary albumin excretion and retinal basement membrane thickening in long-term diabetic rats.
Sample size determinations when two binomial proportions are very small

Sample size determination for testing the hypothesis of equality of proportions with a specified type I and type I1 error probabilitiesis of ten based on normal approximation to the binomial distribution. When the proportionsinvolved are very small, the exact distribution of the test statistic may not follow the assumed distribution. Consequently, the sample size determined by the test statistic may not result in the sespecifiederror probabilities. In this paper the author proposes a square root formula and compares it with several existing sample size approximation methods. It is found that with small proportion (p≦.01) the squar eroot formula provides the closest approximation to the exact sample sizes which attain a specified type I and type II error probabilities. Thes quare root formula is simple inform and has the advantage that equal differencesare equally detectable.
Income Tax Preparation Assistance Service Learning Program: A Multidimensional Assessment

The authors present a multidimensional assessment of the outcomes and benefits of an income tax preparation assistance (ITPA) service learning program. They measure the perceived proximate benefits at the delivery of the service program, the actual learning outcome benefits prior to graduation, and the perceived long-term benefits from a postgraduation alumni survey. Overall, service receivers, service providers, and alumni value their experience and participation in the ITPA program. Assessment of learning outcomes indicates significant increases in participants’ perceived knowledge application, problem-solving, and communication skills. Moreover, the assessed actual learning outcome (i.e., knowledge of individual taxation topics) is notably higher among students participating in the ITPA program than it is for nonparticipating students.
Drawing the Line: The Cultural Cartography of Utilization Recommendations for Mental Health Problems *

In the 1990s, sociologists began to rethink the failure of utilization models to explain whether and why individuals accessed formal treatment systems. This effort focused on reconceptualizing the underlying assumptions and processes that shaped utilization patterns. While we have built a better understanding of how social networks structure pathways to care and how disadvantaged sociocultural groups face substantial barriers to treatment, we have less understanding of the larger cultural context in which individuals recognize and respond to symptoms. Drawing from recent innovations in the sociology of culture, we develop the concept of “cultural mapping” to describe if and how individuals discriminate among different available sources of formal treatment. Using data from the 1996 Mental Health Module of the General Social Survey, we compare Americans’willingness to recommend providers in the general medical and specialty mental health sectors. The results indicate that, despite unrealistically high levels of endorsement, individuals do discriminate between providers based on their evaluation of the problem, underlying causes, and likely consequences. While perceived severity leads individuals to suggest any type of formal care, problems attributed to biological causes are directed to general or specialty medical providers (doctors, psychiatrists, and hospitals); those matching symptoms for schizophrenia or seen as eliciting violence are allocated to the specialty mental health sector (psychiatry, mental hospital); and those seen as being caused by stress are sent to nonmedical mental health providers (i.e., counselors). These findings help to explain inconsistencies in previous utilization studies, and they suggest the critical importance of maintaining a dialogue between medical sociology and the sociology of culture.
Criteria for the economic evaluation of lipid studies in health systems.

From the perspective of a health system as a drug purchaser, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the traditional pharmacoeconomic cost-outcomes techniques of comparator drug evaluation are of limited application. The reason is that such approaches fail to address the information needs of drug purchasers. The key question that these evaluations should address is: If a new product is introduced to formularly, what will be the net impact on the costs of treatment of that disease or therapy area and on the outcomes profile of the treating population? It is on these criteria that claims made for lipid therapies should be judged. Issues that the traditional approach fails to address include: 1) the impact of budget constraints, 2) the determinants and impact of therapy switching, 3) the impact of poor compliance on claims for cost-effectiveness, and 4) the way in which more integrative approaches to treatment delivery might reinforce claims made for particular products. Guidelines are important in this process because they set out the informational requirements and analytical standards required of drug manufacturers making a submission to pharmacy and therapeutics committees. This paper identifies what may be considered to be the minimum informational requirements and suggests how a systems approach to drug evaluation could apply in the area of lipid therapy and the claims for competing products.
Sensorineural hearing loss from quinolinic acid : a neurotoxin in middle ear effusions

Quinolinic acid (QUIN) is an endogenous metabolite that exerts a neurotoxic effect by binding to specific neuronal receptors. Studies involving a broad spectrum of infectious and inflammatory central nervous system diseases have suggested a role for QUIN in causing neuronal injury. Since there is evidence for presence of the QUIN receptor in mammalian cochleas, QUIN was measured in middle ear effusions (MEEs). Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry detected QUIN in each of 65 diluted human MEEs, with a mean of 482 +/- 75 (SEM) nmol/L and a range from 15 to 2667 nmol/L. QUIN was also detected in each of 197 chinchilla MEEs from five different models of otitis media, with a mean of 10.6 +/- 1.3 (SEM) mumol/L and a range from 0.23 to 146.0 mumol/L (corrected for dilution). To determine whether QUIN causes sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL), QUIN solutions were placed on round window membranes (RWM) for 20 to 240 minutes, in 20 chinchillas. SNHL was detected by electrocochleography in QUIN-exposed animals, but not in saline controls. We conclude that QUIN is present in MEEs and that QUIN in the middle ear has the potential to cross the RWM and cause sensorineural hearing loss, possibly by binding to specific neuronal receptors in mammalian cochleas.
Stateless model checking concurrent programs with maximal causality reduction

We present maximal causality reduction (MCR), a new technique for stateless model checking. MCR systematically explores the state-space of concurrent programs with a provably minimal number of executions. Each execution corresponds to a distinct maximal causal model extracted from a given execution trace, which captures the largest possible set of causally equivalent executions. Moreover, MCR is embarrassingly parallel by shifting the runtime exploration cost to offline analysis. We have designed and implemented MCR using a constraint-based approach and compared with iterative context bounding (ICB) and dynamic partial order reduction (DPOR) on both benchmarks and real-world programs. MCR reduces the number of executions explored by ICB and ICB+DPOR by orders of magnitude, and significantly improves the scalability, efficiency, and effectiveness of the state-of-the-art for both state-space exploration and bug finding. In our experiments, MCR has also revealed several new data races and null pointer dereference errors in frequently studied real-world programs.
Roughness-Induced Transition in a Supersonic Boundary Layer

Direct numerical simulation is used to investigate the transition induced by threedimensional isolated roughness elements in a supersonic boundary layer at a free stream Mach number of 3.5. Simulations are performed for two different configurations: one is a square planform roughness and the other is a diamond planform roughness. The mean-flow calculations show that the roughness induces counter rotating streamwise vortices downstream of the roughness. These vortices persist for a long distance downstream and lift the low momentum fluid from the near wall region and place it near the outer part of the boundary layer. This forms highly inflectional boundary layer profiles. These observations agree with recent experimental observations. The receptivity calculations showed that the amplitudes of the mass-flux fluctuations near the neutral point for the diamond shape roughness are the same as the amplitude of the acoustic disturbances. They are three times smaller for the square shape roughness.
Relationships among several demographic variables and the Change Seeker Index.

-The Change Seeker Index (CSI), an instrument for measuring "preference for stimulus complexity," was administered to 277 college students. Correlations were computed for the CSI with college curriculum, parents' occupation, birth order and other demographic variables. Most correlations, with the exception of perceived political ideology, were zero-order; 3 other correlations reached statistical significance but were of questionable theoretical or practical significance. The finding of nonrelationship of the CSI with birth order was discussed in light of recent reports of significant relationships of birth order with other measures of stimulus-complexiry preference.
Quantal aspects of the spatial resolution of energy-loss measurements in electron microscopy I. Broad-beam geometry

Abstract Quantal aspects of spatial resolution in combined energy-loss—electron microscopy are considered. Working in the first Born approximation, it is shown that for coherent broad-beam irradiation the probability of stimulating a localized excitation in matter may be calculated as if the electron executed classical rectilinear motion at constant velocity, v, as v becomes very large. Corrections to this expression may be expressed as a power series in inverse powers of v and may be considered to originate in the quanta1 properties of the electron. The first correction term is displayed explicitly. The impact-parameter dependence of excitation of some localized systems is studied numerically.
PAT proteins, an ancient family of lipid droplet proteins that regulate cellular lipid stores

The PAT family of lipid droplet proteins includes 5 members in mammals: perilipin, adipose differentiation-related protein (ADRP), tail-interacting protein of 47 kDa (TIP47), S3-12, and OXPAT. Members of this family are also present in evolutionarily distant organisms, including insects, slime molds and fungi. All PAT proteins share sequence similarity and the ability to bind intracellular lipid droplets, either constitutively or in response to metabolic stimuli, such as increased lipid flux into or out of lipid droplets. Positioned at the lipid droplet surface, PAT proteins manage access of other proteins (lipases) to the lipid esters within the lipid droplet core and can interact with cellular machinery important for lipid droplet biogenesis. Genetic variations in the gene for the best-characterized of the mammalian PAT proteins, perilipin, have been associated with metabolic phenotypes, including type 2 diabetes mellitus and obesity. In this review, we discuss how the PAT proteins regulate cellular lipid metabolism both in mammals and in model organisms.
Calibration of a Computational Model to Predict Mist/Steam Impinging Jets Cooling With an Application to Gas Turbine Blades

In heavy-frame advanced turbine systems, steam is used as a coolant for turbine blade cooling. The concept of injecting mist into the impinging jets of steam was experimentally proved as an effective way of significantly enhancing the cooling effectiveness in the laboratory under low pressure and temperature conditions. However, whether or not mist/steam cooling is applicable under actual gas turbine operating conditions is still subject to further verification. Recognizing the difficulties of conducting experiments in an actual high-pressure, high-temperature working gas turbine, a simulation using a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model calibrated with laboratory data would be an opted approach. To this end, the present study conducts a CFD model calibration against the database of two experimental cases including a slot impinging jet and three rows of staggered impinging jets. The calibrated CFD model was then used to predict the mist cooling enhancement at the elevated gas turbine working condition. Using the experimental results, the CFD model has been tuned by employing different turbulence models, computational cells, and wall y + values. In addition, the effects of different forces (e.g., drag, thermophoretic, Brownian, and Saffman's lift force) are also studied. None of the models is a good predictor for all the flow regions from near the stagnation region to far-field downstream of the jets. Overall speaking, both standard k-e and Reynolds stress model (RSM) turbulence models perform better than other models. The RSM model has produced the closest results to the experimental data due to its capability of modeling the nonisotropic turbulence shear stresses in the 3D impinging jet fields. The simulated results show that the calibrated CFD model can predict the heat transfer coefficient of steam-only case within 2-5% deviations from the experimental results for all the cases. When mist is employed, the prediction of wall temperatures is within 5% for a slot jet and within 10% for three-row jets. The predicted results with 1.5% mist at the gas turbine working condition show the mist cooling enhancement of 20%, whereas in the laboratory condition, the enhancement is predicted as 80%. Increasing mist ratio to 5% increased the cooling enhancement to about 100% at the gas turbine working condition.
Spontaneous pneumothorax: A single-institution, 12-year experience in patients under 16 years of age

Abstract Objective : To characterize the natural history and outcome of spontaneous pneumothorax in patients under age 16 years. Design: This is a retrospective review in which all patients admitted to the authors' institution (between December 1980 and July 1993) with a diagnosis of spontaneous pneumothorax were included. Information was obtained from the hospital records. Setting: This study was performed in a university childrens' hospital. Patients: All patients under 16 years with a diagnosis of spontaneous pneumothorax were included. Results: Seventeen patients were admitted and analyzed. Their age range was 2 to 16 years; 65% were male. Only three admissions were for recurrence. The main symptoms included chest pain (100%), shortness of breath (41%), and cough (6%). Chest tube drainage was successful in 65% of the cases; the median time was 4 days. Two patients had a persistent air leak. An underlying cause was recognized in 42% of cases. Seven operations were necessary, and the mean follow-up period in 31 months, with no recurrence reported to date. Conclusion: Spontaneous pneumothorax occurs in the pediatric population, although it is less common than in adults. An underlying pathology is more frequently observed in pediatric patients, but recurrence is less common. Chest tube drainage alone is sufficient treatment for the majority of patients; however, a significant number require some form of surgical intervention.
BENIGN PROSTATIC HYPERPLASIA: CLINICAL OVERVIEW AND VALUE OF DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING

The term benign prostatic hyperplasia has traditionally been used to describe a constellation of obstructive and irritative voiding symptoms that occur in men as they age. Such symptomatology may be due to a variety of causes, including prostatic enlargement. Thus, the term lower urinary tract symptoms has replaced BPH to describe this symptom complex. The evaluation and treatment of LUTS continues to be a significant part of urology practice in the United States, as well as a significant component of medical resource utilization. Currently, indication for treatment in patients with LUTS is most often based on subjective measurements of symptom severity and bother. Consequently, imaging does not play a major role in the evaluation of such patients. Recent data suggest that the size of the prostate gland may predict which patients with LUTS will develop progressive symptoms and complications. Moreover, both prostate size and the histologic composition of BPH may help to select patients for specific treatment options. Thus, radiologic imaging may eventually play a larger role in the diagnosis and treatment of LUTS in the future. After review of the literature, it appears that routine upper urinary tract imaging in patients with LUTS or BPH is not warranted. Selective use of such imaging tests in patients with BPH and either hematuria, laboratory evidence of renal insufficiency (elevated BUN or creatinine), or a history of urinary tract infection, urolithiasis, previous urinary tract surgery, or congenital or acquired renal disease remains indicated. Local imaging of the prostate can be performed with either MR imaging or TRUS. Although MR imaging provides excellent resolution of internal prostatic anatomy, information with respect to the ratio of glandular to stromal tissue in the prostate, and an accurate estimate of prostate volume, its use in patients with BPH is limited by its high cost and limited availability. In contrast, TRUS remains an important tool in the evaluation of patients with prostatic disease. Similar to MR imaging, TRUS provides excellent images of internal prostatic anatomy and an accurate estimate of prostate volume prior to treatment. In addition, this imaging modality is noninvasive, cost-efficient, easily adapted to office use, and able to provide guidance for transrectal prostate biopsy.
Why web sites are lost (and how they're sometimes found)

IntroductionThe web is in constant flux---new pages and Web sites appear daily, and old pages and sites disappear almost as quickly. One study estimates that about two percent of the Web disappears from its current location every week.2 Although Web users have become accustomed to seeing the infamous "404 Not Found" page, they are more taken aback when they own, are responsible for, or have come to rely on the missing material.Web archivists like those at the Internet Archive have responded to the Web's transience by archiving as much of it as possible, hoping to preserve snapshots of the Web for future generations.3 Search engines have also responded by offering pages that have been cached as a result of the indexing process. These straightforward archiving and caching efforts have been used by the public in unintended ways: individuals and organizations have used them to restore their own lost Web sites.5To automate recovering lost Web sites, we created a Web-repository crawler named Warrick that restores lost resources from the holdings of four Web repositories: Internet Archive, Google, Live Search (now Bing), and Yahoo;6 we refer to these Web repositories collectively as the Web Infrastructure (WI). We call this after-loss recovery Lazy Preservation (see the sidebar for more information). Warrick can only recover what is accessible to the WI, namely the crawlable Web. There are numerous resources that cannot be found in the WI: password protected content, pages without incoming links or protected by the robots exclusion protocol, and content hidden behind Flash or JavaScript interfaces. Most importantly, WI crawlers do not have access to the server-side components (for example, scripts, configuration files, databases, among others) of a Web site.Nevertheless, upon Warrick's public release in 2005, we received many inquiries about its usage and collected a handful of anecdotes about the Web sites individuals and organizations had lost and wanted to recover. Were these Web sites representative? What types of Web resources were people losing? Given the inherent limitations of the WI, were Warrick users recovering enough material to reconstruct the site? Were these losses changing their behavior, or was the availability of cached material reinforcing a "lazy" approach to preservation?We constructed an online survey to explore these questions and conducted a set of in-depth interviews with survey respondents to clarify the results. Potential participants were solicited by us or the Internet Archive, or they found a link to the survey from the Warrick Web site. A total of 52 participants completed the survey regarding 55 lost Web sites, and seven of the participants allowed us to follow-up with telephone or instant messaging interviews. Participants were divided into two groups:1. Personal loss: Those who had lost (and tried to recover) a Web site that they had personally created, maintained or owned (34 participants who lost 37 Web sites).2. Third party: Those who had recovered someone else's lost Web site (18 participants who recovered 18 Web sites).
Fully aromatic thermotropic liquid crystalline homopolyesters of 3,4′‐benzophenone dicarboxylic acid

A series of fully aromatic, thermotropic homopolyesters, derived from 3,4'-benzophenone dicarboxylic acid and various aromatic diols, was prepared by the melt polycondensation method. The aromatic diols used in the study were hydroquinone, 2,6-, 1,4-, 1,5-, 2,3-, and 2,7-naphthalenediol isomers. All of the homopolyesters of 3,4'-benzophenone dicarboxylic acid with aromatic diols (except that with 2,7-naphthalenediol) formed a nematic LC phase in the melt. They had the T g 's in the range of 133-164°C, the melting transitions (T m ) in the range 305-360°C and the high thermal stabilities (T d ) in the range of 410-483°C
A 45nm 1.3GHz 16.7 double-precision GFLOPS/W RISC-V processor with vector accelerators

A 64-bit dual-core RISC-V processor with vector accelerators has been fabricated in a 45 nm SOI process. This is the first dual-core processor to implement the open-source RISC-V ISA designed at the University of California, Berkeley. In a standard 40 nm process, the RISC-V scalar core scores 10% higher in DMIPS/MHz than the Cortex-A5, ARM’s comparable single-issue in-order scalar core, and is 49% more area-efficient. To demonstrate the extensibility of the RISC-V ISA, we integrate a custom vector accelerator alongside each single-issue in-order scalar core. The vector accelerator is 1.8× more energy-efficient than the IBM Blue Gene/Q processor, and 2.6× more than the IBM Cell processor, both fabricated in the same process. The dual-core RISC-V processor achieves maximum clock frequency of 1.3 GHz at 1.2 V and peak energy efficiency of 16.7 doubleprecision GFLOPS/W at 0.65 V with an area of 3 mm.
Effects of the detergent Tween 80 on Thermomonospora curvata

Tween 80 (0.1%, v/v) added to Thermomonospora curvata growing in minimal medium caused a transient lowering of the dry cell mass, decreased the optimal growth temperature of the thermophile from 62 to 54°C, and increased extracellular esterase activity. Cells grown in the presence of Tween 80 had decreased concentrations of branched chain fatty acids and increased concentrations of oleic acid. The detergent removed surface protuberances from mycelia and increased the liberation of enzymes active against crystalline cellulose, but did not stimulate liberation of enzymes active against carboxymethylcellulose, starch or pectin.
The role of glycosylation in ionotropic glutamate receptor ligand binding, function, and trafficking.

Members of the ionotropic glutarnate receptor (iGluR) family have between 4 and 12 consensus asparagine (N)-linked glycosylation sites. They are localized on the extracellular N-termini, and the loop between the penultimate and last transmembrane domains. These regions also contain the essential elements for formation of the ligand binding site. N-linked glycosylation does not appear to be essential for formation of the ligand binding site per se, but there are demonstrated interactions between glycosylation state and ligand binding affinity, receptor physiology, susceptibility to allosteric modulation and, in some cases, trafficking. There is no indication of a general role for N-linked glycosylation in iGluRs; instead the effects of glycosylation vary among glutamate receptor subtypes and splice variants, with specific effects on structure or function with different subunits.
The Myth of the Older Historical School of Economics

It is a commonplace of German historiography and the history of economic thought in particular that German economists pursued a Sonderweq in the second half of the nineteenth century, rejecting the theoretical bases of laissez-faire doctrines that were common in Britain and France in favor of a study of economic history. This is generally viewed as taking place in two stages: first, an “older German historical school” that began to question the accepted dogmas of Smithian economics beginning in the 1840s, with the work of Wilhelm Roscher, Bruno Hildebrand, and Karl Knies. This allegedly preceded the “younger historical school” of the 1870s and after, dominated by Gustav Schomoller, Lujo Brentano, and Georg Friedrich Knapp. In calling the existence of this older school a myth, I want to draw on the currently fashionable connotation of the word “myth”: to say, in other words, that this received notion contains some important elements of truth—but masked in such a way as to distort its significance.
Holocene Sedimentation in Tanner Basin, California Continental Borderland

Piston cores collected from Tanner Basin, an outer basin of the California Continenta Borderland, record evidence for hemipelagic and “turbidite” sedimentation that is in accord with Curray9s model for a Holocene sea-level rise. Decreasing amounts of terrigenous sediments were contributed as rising sea level flooded previously exposed banks and shelves and reduced stream gradients on land. Radiocarbon and paleontologic dates provide markers for the computation of sedimentation rates which show that the contributions of biogenic and terrigenous fines have been essentially constant for about the past 7500 years, reflecting a greatly reduced rate of sea-level rise. Carbonate contributions, primarily from foraminifera, appear to have been constant, or nearly so, over the past 12,000 years. This reflects little change in the oceanographic circulation over the outer borderland. Data show that the Holocene record is continuous over the entire basin floor, although variable in absolute magnitude, and that the thickness of hemipelagic material is related to topography. The older concept of a rain of particles producing a uniform veneer without regard to topographic irregularities is not supported, but rather, fines are laterally transported and conform to bathymetry in the same fashion that relief controls the discontinuous “turbidite” sedimentation.
Inhibition of mitogen activated protein kinases increases the sensitivity of A549 lung cancer cells to the cytotoxicity induced by a kava chalcone analog

We are interested in investigating the biological activity of chalcones, a major class of compounds found in the beverage kava, in order to develop potent and selective chemopreventive candidates. Consumption of kava in the South Pacific Islands is inversely correlated with cancer incidence, even among smokers. Accordingly, chalcones have anti-cancer activities in animal and cell culture models. To investigate signaling pathways that affect chalcone action we studied a potent analog, (E)-3-(3-hydroxy-4-methoxyphenyl)-1-(3,4,5-trimethoxyphenyl)prop-2-en-1-one (chalcone-24). Chalcone-24 was selected from a series of chalcone analogs that were synthesized based on the structures derived from flavokawain compounds found in kava, and screened in A549 lung cancer cells for induction of cytotoxicity and inhibition of NF-κB, a transcription factor associated with cell survival. Incubation of A549 cells with chalcone-24 resulted in a dose-dependent inhibition of cell viability, inhibition of NF-κB, activation of caspases, and activation of extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK); ERK1/2 and JNK are mitogen activated protein kinases that play central roles in regulating cell fate. Pharmacological inhibitors of ERK1/2 or JNK increased the sensitivity of A549 cells to chalcone-24-induced cytotoxicity, without affecting NF-κB or caspase activity. These results will help refine the synthesis of chalcone analogs to maximize the combination of actions required to prevent and treat cancer.
Secretion of Ovine Luteinizing Hormone in Vitro: Differential Positive Control by 17β-Estradiol and a Preparation of Porcine Ovarian Inhibin

17β-Estradiol (E2) and an enriched preparation of porcine ovarian inhibin can positively regulate LH secretion in two different ways in ovine pituitary cell cultures. One major effect of these agents is to increase the sensitivity of cultures to low levels of LHRH or LHRH analogs. The second effect is to increase culture responsiveness to high levels of LHRH or its analogs. Prolonged treatment with 1 nM E2, for instance, increased pituitary sensitivity to d-Lys6-LHRH by 10-fold, since it lowered the EDso of d-Lys6-LHRH from approximately 400 pm to about 40 pm; the maximum LH secretory response to d-Lys6- LHRH (1–100 nm) was not changed, however. In contrast, short term treatment with an E2-free preparation of porcine ovarian inhibin could increase, by 350%, normal LH responsiveness to high levels of d-Lys6-LHRH (1–100 nm), but had no effect on sensitivity; the EDM remained unchanged. Chronic treatment with inhibin eventually increased sensitivity, and interestingly, a short treatment with E2 (6 h) caused ...
Males accelerate reproductive development in female montane voles

The influence of males on two measures of reproductive activation was investigated in female montane voles ( Microtus montanus ) in the laboratory. Females housed with males from weaning at 18 days of age exhibited earlier vaginal opening and earlier vaginal cornification than females introduced to males on day 38. The responses of weanling females housed across a wire-mesh barrier from males were intermediate to those of the other two groups.
Interaction between a high-velocity star and a hot dense cloud

In order to investigate the fate of a high-velocity star confined to a massive gas cloud, the hydrodynamic behavior of a radiation-dominated flow past a finite-size gravitating object is calculated. Such a study is important in the context of quasars and active galactic nuclei, since large gas clouds have been suggested to be associated with the phenomena occurring in these systems. In particular, we study the processes of mass and energy exchange between the ambient gas and the star. A significant result is that the effective accretion cross-section is found to be a substantial fraction of the stellar geometrical cross-section. Consequently, the buildup of massive stars via accretion of the surrouding gas may be important in determining the evolution of the system of stars confined to the cloud.
High-resolution 13C nuclear magnetic resonance studies of small unilamellar vesicles containing glycophorin A

Glycophorin A, the major sialoglycoprotein of the human erythrocyte membrane, has been incorporated in small unilamellar vesicles containing phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine in varying proportions. Hydrocarbon chains of these two lipids have been selectively enriched with 13C and 13C-NMR spin relaxation parameters have been monitored in the presence and absence of protein. Perturbations to 13C line-widths and spin-lattice relaxation times are found to be small and consistent with relatively weak interactions. The perturbations, though small, show some specificity. The carbonyl carbons in both phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine are broadened, but in addition the olefinic carbons in phosphatidylethanolamine are broadened.
Directionality principles in thermodynamics and evolution

Directionality in populations of replicating organisms can be parametrized in terms of a statistical concept: evolutionary entropy. This parameter, a measure of the variability in the age of reproducing individuals in a population, is isometric with the macroscopic variable body size. Evolutionary trends in entropy due to mutation and natural selection fall into patterns modulated by ecological and demographic constraints, which are delineated as follows: (i) density-dependent conditions (a unidirectional increase in evolutionary entropy), and (ii) density-independent conditions, (a) slow exponential growth (an increase in entropy); (b) rapid exponential growth, low degree of iteroparity (a decrease in entropy); and (c) rapid exponential growth, high degree of iteroparity (random, nondirectional change in entropy). Directionality in aggregates of inanimate matter can be parametrized in terms of the statistical concept, thermodynamic entropy, a measure of disorder. Directional trends in entropy in aggregates of matter fall into patterns determined by the nature of the adiabatic constraints, which are characterized as follows: (i) irreversible processes (an increase in thermodynamic entropy) and (ii) reversible processes (a constant value for entropy). This article analyzes the relation between the concepts that underlie the directionality principles in evolutionary biology and physical systems. For models of cellular populations, an analytic relation is derived between generation time, the average length of the cell cycle, and temperature. This correspondence between generation time, an evolutionary parameter, and temperature, a thermodynamic variable, is exploited to show that the increase in evolutionary entropy that characterizes population processes under density-dependent conditions represents a nonequilibrium analogue of the second law of thermodynamics.
Channel prediction for adaptive modulation in underwater acoustic communications

In this paper we explore the feasibility of predicting an underwater acoustic (UWA) channel impulse response one travel time ahead. Our work is motivated by the design of UWA communication systems that will employ adaptive modulation, whose performance relies on the ability to predict the channel up to a few seconds into the future. The possibility of predicting the channel response is demonstrated using real data collected during an experiment conducted in shallow water off the western coast of Kauai, Hawaii, in June 2008. The key to enabling prediction is decoupling of the effects of motion-induced phase offset from the more slowly varying channel path gains. It is shown that a significant performance improvement can be achieved using prediction as compared to using outdated channel estimates.
Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer based integrated actuator for atomic force microscope cantilevers

The atomic force microscope (AFM) is a versatile tool for imaging and modifying surfaces on atomic scales. The core of the device is a cantilever beam with a sharp tip. The cantilever usually measures a few hundred microns in length and tens of microns in width. Many imaging or surface modification applications require actuation of this micron scale beam. In this paper, a novel actuation mechanism is introduced. The method uses radiation pressure generated by capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (cMUT). The cMUTs are fabricated on top of the cantilever beams and they operate in the megahertz range generating a DC radiation pressure in the immersion medium such as water or air. The integrated cMUT cantilever system compares favorably with piezoelectric film activated and with non-integrated ultrasonic actuation schemes. The cMUT cantilever does not require any alignment of the actuator to the cantilever. Moreover, it works in air as well as in water and is readily used with parallel cantilever probes. Finally, it is an IC compatible technology solution.
Calling amplified haplotypes in next generation tumor sequence data

During tumor initiation and progression, cancer cells acquire a selective advantage, allowing them to outcompete their normal counterparts. Identification of the genetic changes that underlie these tumor acquired traits can provide deeper insights into the biology of tumorigenesis. Regions of copy number alterations and germline DNA variants are some of the elements subject to selection during tumor evolution. Integrated examination of inherited variation and somatic alterations holds the potential to reveal specific nucleotide alleles that a tumor "prefers" to have amplified. Next-generation sequencing of tumor and matched normal tissues provides a high-resolution platform to identify and analyze such somatic amplicons. Within an amplicon, examination of informative (e.g., heterozygous) sites deviating from a 1:1 ratio may suggest selection of that allele. A naive approach examines the reads for each heterozygous site in isolation; however, this ignores available valuable linkage information across sites. We, therefore, present a novel hidden Markov model-based method-Haplotype Amplification in Tumor Sequences (HATS)-that analyzes tumor and normal sequence data, along with training data for phasing purposes, to infer amplified alleles and haplotypes in regions of copy number gain. Our method is designed to handle rare variants and biases in read data. We assess the performance of HATS using simulated amplified regions generated from varying copy number and coverage levels, followed by amplicons in real data. We demonstrate that HATS infers the amplified alleles more accurately than does the naive approach, especially at low to intermediate coverage levels and in cases (including high coverage) possessing stromal contamination or allelic bias.
New roles for astrocytes: redefining the functional architecture of the brain

Astrocytes have traditionally been considered ancillary, satellite cells of the nervous system. However, work over the past decade has revealed that they interact with the vasculature to form a gliovascular network that might organize not only the structural architecture of the brain but also its communication pathways, activation, thresholds and plasticity. The net effect is that astroglia demarcate gray matter regions, both cortical and subcortical, into functional compartments whose internal activation thresholds and external outputs are regulated by single glial cells. The array of these astrocyte-delimited microdomains along the capillary microvasculature allows the formation of higher-order gliovascular units, which serve to match local neural activity and blood flow while regulating neuronal firing thresholds through coordinative glial signaling. By these means, astrocytes might establish the functional as well as the structural architecture of the adult brain.
Recent developments in mental health: perspectives and services.

zation, community mental health care, schizophrenia, mental health policy, mental illness Observers of the history of mental health policy note recurrent cycles reflect­ ing changing perceptions of treatment opportunities and altered willingness to invest public resources. These historical trends are a product of social ideologies, changing public opinion, fiscal conditions, new technologies, and changes in political dialogue. In the 30 years following World War II, major changes in concepts of mental health and provision of mental health services have been apparent, but the US is again ambivalent. Whether this period is simply one of readjustment in a long-range trend or a major discontinuity and realignment of priorities relevant to community-based systems of mental health care remains unclear. I take as my point of departure developments in the past ten years; however, to put these in perspective, a brief review of long-term mental health trends is helpful. POST-WORLD WAR II MENTAL HEALTH POLICY A confluence of social, economic, and technological influences transformed mental health services in the post-World War II period. These already have been reviewed in detail (8, 23, 26), but we need some general observations to put current public policy in its proper context. Experience in the selective
Low-Abundance Drug-Resistant HIV-1 Variants: Finding Significance in an Era of Abundant Diagnostic and Therapeutic Options

Several prospective and retrospective studies have shown that genotypic testing for drug-resistant HIV-1 variants has helped health-care providers better understand patient responses to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and make wiser choices for both initial and salvage therapy. The standard approach to genotypic resistance testing begins with plasma HIV-1 RNA extraction, reverse transcription, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, and it ends with the direct sequencing of PCR products by use of the standard dideoxynucleotide terminator sequencing method developed by Sanger 30 years ago. The high mutation rate of HIV-1 and the complex population genetics of HIV-1 in infected patients complicate the interpretation of standard genotypic tests for resistant variants because these tests are generally unable to detect minority or low-abundance drug-resistant mutations (DRMs) that are present at levels <20% of the virus quasispecies in a clinical sample.
Spatial frequency heterodyne imaging of aqueous phase transitions inside multi-walled carbon nanotubes

The evaporation and condensation of water on multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) surfaces was studied as a function of temperature and time using X-ray spatial frequency heterodyne imaging (SFHI). SFHI is an imaging modality that produces an absorption and scatter image in a single exposure, and has increased sensitivity to variations in electron density relative to more common place X-ray imaging techniques. Differing features exhibited in the temporal scatter intensity profiles recorded during evaporation and condensation revealed the existence of an absorption–desorption hysteresis. Effects on the aforementioned phenomena due to chemical functionalization of the carbon nanotube surfaces were also monitored. The increased interaction potential between the functionalized MWCNT walls and water molecules altered the evaporation event time scale and increased the temperature at which condensation could take place. Theoretical calculations were used to correlate the shape of the observed scatter profiles during condensation to changes in the MWCNT cross section geometry and configuration of the contained water volume. Changes in evaporation time scales with temperature coincided with the boiling point for confined water predicted by the Kelvin equation, indicating that a thermodynamic description of mesoscopic confined water is permissible in some instances.
Review of Dark Matter Direct Detection Using Cryogenic Detectors

The direct detection of the Universe’s Dark Matter is one of the key questions in particle astrophysics. Cryogenic based detectors offer advantages in low radioactive backgrounds, target mass, sensitivity to the small energy depositions and rejection of possible background sources. I will summarize the main experimental approaches, including both cryogenic crystal and liquid targets and the options pursued for their signal readout. Recent advances from around the world and prospects for future proposed experiments will be discussed.