cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Extracorporeal shock wave‐induced proliferation of periosteal cells

The cambium cells of the periosteum are an important cell source for select tissue engineering/regenerative medicine applications due to their osteogenic and chondrogenic potential. However, the cambium layer is only 2–5 cells thick, which complicates its harvest, and the low cell number limits its suitability for certain applications. Extracorporeal shock waves (ESWs) have been reported to cause periosteal osteogenesis following cambium layer thickening. This study quantified the proliferation of cambium cells in the femur and tibia of adult rats following ESW treatment at two different energy flux densities. Four days after application of ESWs, there was a significant (3- to 6-fold) increase in cambium layer thickness and cell number. Proliferation was seen with an energy flux density as low as 0.15 mJ/mm2. The tibial cambium cells were more proliferative than those of the femur, with the cells closest to the ESW source proliferating the most. Within the thickened periosteum, α-smooth muscle actin and von Willebrand Factor expression were upregulated, suggesting a vascular role in ESW osteogenesis. Bone formation was seen within the stimulated periosteum at day 4. We propose that non-invasive ESWs can be used to rapidly stimulate cambium cell proliferation, providing a larger cell population for use as a progenitor cell source for tissue engineering applications, than can normally be provided by periosteum. © 2011 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29: 1536–1543, 2011
Barrels: 25 Years Later

I thank Herb Killackey for his nice introduction. Time flies when you're having fun, and it was a revelation when Herb pointed out that this meeting of Barrels marks 25 years since the publication of my paper with the late Hendrik Van der Loos introducing barrels
Indications for Seminal Vesicle Biopsy and Laparoscopic Pelvic Lymph Node Dissection in Men With Localized Carcinoma of Prostate

AbstractPurpose: The ability of seminal vesicle biopsy and laparoscopic pelvic lymph node dissection to identify patients with stage T3 or N+ disease before undergoing treatment for localized carcinoma of the prostate was investigated.Materials and Methods: A total of 157 patients with clinical stages T1a to T2c prostate cancer underwent ultrasound guided seminal vesicle biopsy (3 or each side) and 130 underwent subsequent laparoscopic pelvic lymph node dissection.Results: Of 157 patients 23 (14.6 percent) had a positive seminal vesicle biopsy. Predictors of a positive seminal vesicle biopsy were stages T2b to T2c versus T1a to T2a disease (20 percent versus 4 percent, respectively, p = 0.005), Gleason score 7 or more versus less than 7 (34 percent versus 9 percent, respectively, p less than 0.0001) and prostate specific antigen (PSA) 4 to 10 ng./ml., 10 to 20 ng./ml. or more than 20 ng./ml. (9 percent, 14 percent and 27 percent, respectively, p = 0.03). Of 130 patients 14 (10.7 percent) had a positive la...
Dental Disease Prevalence in a Prison Population

This study compares dental disease prevalence in a prison population and a nonprison population in the same state. The prison population in this study consisted of 99 male residents (age 18–30) of a medium-security prison in eastern Iowa. Data were collected during a pretreatment screening using a standard DMFT index. This prison population is compared to a nonprison male population (N = 101, age 18–30) from the Iowa Survey of Oral Health (1980). Data indicated that there are statistically significant differences (p<.0001) between the two populations in each of the individual components of the DMF. In the prison population, the mean number of decayed teeth (3.0) and the mean number of missing teeth (1.7) are significantly higher in comparison to the nonprison population (0.8 and 0.6, respectively). The prison population demonstrated significantly fewer filled teeth (5.6) in comparison to the nonprison population (9.0). The data indicated, however, that there are no statistically significant differences in the total DMFT between the prison population (x = 10.53) and the nonprison population (x = 10.55). In summary, the prison population demonstrated a significantly higher number of decayed and missing teeth and fewer filled teeth in comparison to a nonprison population in the same state and in the same year (1980).
Environmental management of the Colorado River within the Grand Canyon

Irreversible environmental changes are occurring along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon as a result of regulation of the river flow by the Glen Canyon Dam. The questions of primary importance in managing this great natural resource are 1) in what manner and how rapidly are the physical and ecological adjustments taking place, and 2) is the increased use of the river for recreational boating contributing to the degradation? Human use along the Colorado River is limited, for the most part, to the relic, pre-dam fluvial deposits colloquially called “beaches.” With the new river regime these deposits are positioned well above the present high-water stage, 27,000 cubic feet/second (cfs), or 765 cubic meters/second (cms), so they are not replenished periodically as they were prior to construction of the dam in 1963. The dominant natural processes now are aeolian sand transport and mass wasting. The float-trip passengers use the river beaches for hiking, camping, and. lunch stops. At the most desirable sites thirty to forty people camp on the beaches each night over a four to five month season. Human impact includes incorporation of campsite litter, burial of chemically treated waste, and the direct stress associated with people walking on the vegetation and unstable sedimentary deposits. Results of our investigations indicate that the rate of degradation at the most heavily used sites exceeds the capacity of aeolian processes to reestablish natural landscapes. Therefore, careful management of float trjps is needed if these environments are to be maintained in a natural state rather than a “sand-box” state.
The effects of SCH 23390 and raclopride on cocaine-induced analepsis and EEG arousal in rabbits

The effects of the dopamine D1 and D2 receptor antagonists on cocaine-induced, cholinergically-mediated analeptic and hippocampal theta activity in anesthetized rabbits were investigated. Cocaine (2 mg/kg, i.v.) reduced by 35% the duration of loss of righting reflex produced by a 25 mg/kg dose of pentobarbital. This shortening of narcosis time was blocked by pretreating the animals with the D1 antagonist, SCH 23390 (0.1 mg/kg) but not with the D2 antagonist raclopride (1–2 mg/kg). Cocaine (5 mg/kg, i.v.) also produced a short burst of increased hippocampal theta activity in urethane rabbits, which was also blocked by SCH 23390 but not by raclopride. An unexpected finding was that raclopride itself, at 2 mg/kg (i.v.), produced a marked activation of theta activity that lasted for 15–20 min. When cocaine was administered after this time it produced a potentiated theta response, both in duration and in magnitude. These results suggest that in the rabbit, cocaine exerts a cholinergically-mediated behavioral and EEG arousal through a D1 dopamine mechanism. The role of the D2 system is less clear but appears to be antagonistic to the D1-mediated response.
Localization of an 125 I-labeled rat transplantation antibody in tumors carrying the corresponding antigen.

SummaryA method was developed for preparing antibody to Fischer-344 rat transplantation antigen, using as an antibody source serum from Buffalo rats immunized by repeated transplants of a carcinogen-induced Fischer tumor. Immune y-globulin was labeled with 125I and radioactive antibody isolated by twice repeated adsorption onto Fischer red blood cells and elution from stroma prepared from these cells. In vitro such antibody bound specifically to Fischer red blood cells. In vivo this antibody localized preferentially in the Fischer tumor grown in immunologically suppressed Buffalo rats.
Optoacoustic pulses in a flame

Pulsed pressure waves are produced by energy transfer from electronically excited Na or Li atoms seeded in an acetylene-air flame; the excitation is provided by a resonantly tuned, pulsed laser. Temperature increases of approximately 1 degree within the flame produce signals easily detected by a microphone. A description of the phenomenon is given, and preliminary results are presented for two possible applications: localized speed-of-sound measurements and quenching rate determinations.
Transient platelet accumulation in the rat brain after common carotid artery thrombosis. An 111In-labeled platelet study.

Thromboembolic events are a major cause of ischemic stroke. To obtain evidence for platelet embolization after cerebrovascular injury, the accumulation of indium-labeled platelets was documented after photothrombosis of the rat common carotid artery.Heterologous blood was collected from donor rats, and the isolated platelets were labeled with 111In-tropolone. Labeled platelets were then infused into Wistar rats 30 minutes before right carotid artery thrombosis. Nonocclusive common carotid artery thrombosis was induced by a laser-driven rose bengal-mediated photochemical insult to the vascular endothelium, and the rats were killed 15 minutes or 3 hours later. Carotid arteries and brains were immediately removed and dissected for regional radioactivity assessment or sectioned for the autoradiographic visualization of platelet emboli.At 15 minutes after thrombosis, the ratio of right-to-left common carotid artery radioactivity was significantly elevated compared with control (33 +/- 12 [mean +/- SEM] versus ...
Zero-error stationary coding over stationary channels

For a type of stationary ergodic discrete-time finite-alphabet channel more general than the stationary totally ergodic ¯d-continuous channel of Gray, Ornstein and Dobrushin, it is shown that a stationary, ergodic source with entropy less than capacity can be transmitted over the channel with zero probability of error using stationary codes for encoding and decoding. This result generalizes the result of Gray et al. [3] that Bernoulli sources can be transmitted with zero error at rates below capacity over a totally ergodic ¯d-continuous channel.
Aigialus gen.nov. (Ascomycetes) with two new marine species from mangroves

The new genus Aigialus (Melanommatales) is described with A. grandis and A. parvus from submerged roots and branches of Rhizophora mangle in the Caribbean Sea. The first species occurs in Belize and Trinidad, the second in Florida. Collections of a related fungus from Australia (Queensland) on Avicennia sp. may belong to a third species.
Superdeformed bands in Nd nuclei

Abstract Superdeformed bands were found in 134, 136 Nd. Their dynamic moments of inertia are about as large as those of the known superdeformed bands in 135 Nd and 132 Ce, corresponding to β ≈ 0.5. A high probability for staying in band is measured for the discrete superdeformed bands in 134, 136 Nd, in contrast to the unresolved superdeformed ridges.
A cluster analysis of wild and domesticated soybean phenotypes.

Cluster analysis techniques were used to examine phenotypic variation within the USDA Soybean Germplasm Collection. This study included ten Plant Introductions each of the domesticated soybean, Glycine max (L). Merr., the ‘wild’ soybean, G. soja Sieb. & Zucc., and a disputed species, G. gracilis Skvortz. G. max and G. soja were found to be morphologically distinct entities and G. gracilis was found to be conspecific with G. max. Because G. gracilis probably represents weedy races associated with the cultivated soybean and because ‘gracilis’ phenotypes can be distinguished from G. max, the designation, G. max forma gracilis, is recommended.
Orienting task and study time in facial recognition

In two experiments, subjects were required to make various decisions about photographs of faces and were then given an unannounced recognition test. The deep processing decision involved a personality trait (e.g., generosity), another task involved an attribute solely deter- mined by some physical feature of the face (e.g., height of forehead), while the third type of judgment involved a physical attribute of the body rather than the face alone (e.g., weight). In Experiment 1, subjects who had 15 sec per face during study performed better on the recognition test than subjects who had 5 sec, but there was no Rate by Task interaction. In both experiments, the Face condition showed fewer hits and lower d’ than the Body and Deep groups, but there was no significant advantage for the Deep group over the Body group.
A tight lower bound for the train reversal problem

Abstract In a 1987 Scientific American Computer Recreations article, A.K. Dewdney posed the problem of reversing an n-car train on a track with a one-car spur using the minimum amount of work. In that article, Dewdney indicated an algorithm for reversing the train that uses O(n3) work. Shortly thereafter, Amato, Blum, Irani and Rubinfeld (Reversing Trains: A Turn of the Century Sorting Problem, J. Algorithms, Vol. 10, 1989, pp. 413-428) discovered a simple recursive algorithm that requires O(n2logn) work to reverse a train. In this paper, we prove that Amato et al.'s algorithm is optimal up to a constant factor, i.e., we prove that any algorithm for reversing an n-car train in the Dewdney model requires Ω(n 2 log n) work.
Extended Transcervical Thymectomy in the Treatment of Myasthenia Gravis

The ideal operative technique for thymectomy in myasthenia gravis remains controversial. Most surgeons perform thymectomy via median sternotomy, some supplementing this with an even more extensive mediastinal and cervical dissection designed to remove all areas of possible ectopic thymic tissue. We and others have advocated a transcervical approach that is less morbid and costly than sternotomy approaches. The transcervical approach allows a complete extracapsular thymic resection, but it does not address all areas of potential ectopic thymic tissue. We have published our experience with 151 extended transcervical thymectomies (TCT). At mean follow-up of 53 months (complete follow-up in 97%), Kaplan-Meier estimates of complete stable remission were 33% and 35% at 3 and 6 years. If one includes patients who became asymptomatic but remained on low dose, single-drug immunosuppression as complete remissions (CRs), then the CR rates were 43% and 45% at 3 and 6 years. Longer term (mean 83 months) follow-up of the earliest 84 patients in the series showed preserved CR rates. On multivariate analysis, only preoperative Osserman Class (group mean 2.3) was significantly associated with improved CR rate. These results were obtained with a major operative complication rate of 0.7% and minor complication rate of 6.6%, and nearly every operation was performed without the need for overnight hospital admission. We believe that these response rates following TCT are sufficiently similar to those following transsternal techniques of thymectomy to allow us to recommend this less morbid and less costly operation as an eminently reasonable choice in the surgical treatment of myasthenia gravis.
Multi-state component criticality analysis for reliability improvement in multi-state systems

This paper evaluates and implements composite importance measures (CIM) for multi-state systems with multi-state components (MSMC). Importance measures are frequently used as a means to evaluate and rank the impact and criticality of individual components within a system yet they are less often used as a guide to prioritize system reliability improvements. For multi-state systems, previously developed measures sometimes are not appropriate and they do not meet all user needs. This study has two inter-related goals: first, to distinguish between two types of importance measures that can be used for evaluating the criticality of components in MSMC with respect to multi-state system reliability, and second, based on the CIM, to develop a component allocation heuristic to maximize system reliability improvements. The heuristic uses Monte-Carlo simulation together with the max-flow min-cut algorithm as a means to compute component CIM. These measures are then transformed into a cost-based composite metric that guides the allocation of redundant elements into the existing system. Experimental results for different system complexities show that these new CIM can effectively estimate the criticality of components with respect to multi-state system reliability. Similarly, these results show that the CIM-based heuristic can be used as a fast and effective technique to guide system reliability improvements.
Thiol–disulphide interchange in tubulin: kinetics and the effect on polymerization

All 20 cysteine residues are accessible to disulphide reagents in the tubulin dimer, whereas only four are accessible in taxol-stabilized microtubules. Reaction rates with disulphide reagents are a function of the reagent, are decreased by G nucleotides, and increased with increase in pH and urea. With transient (stop-flow) kinetics, DTNB [5,5′-dithiobis-(2-nitrobenzoic acid)] and 2,2′-dithiodipyridine progress curves cannot be fitted by the sum of exponential terms based only on classes of cysteines. The mixed disulphide products react further to form both intra- and intermonomer disulphide bonds that can be reversed by reducing agents. With MMTS (methyl methanethiosulphonate) or ODNB (n-octyl-dithio-2-nitrobenzoate), virtually no protein–protein disulphide bonds are formed and the ODNB reaction can be given as the sum of three exponential terms with pseudo-first-order rate constants of 0.206, 0.069 and 0.010 s−1 at pH 6.5, suggesting three classes of thiol reactivities. Limited cysteine substitution leads to only small changes in tryptophan or CD spectra, whereas complete substitution leads to loss of the helix content. MMTS-induced loss of SH groups leads to progressive increases in the critical concentration and loss of polymerization competence that can be reversed by assembly promoters such as higher protein concentration, taxol or high ionic strength. Under such conditions, the substituted tubulin forms protofilament-based structures such as microtubules, open tubules, sheets and/or bundles.
Electron microscopic distribution of axoplasmic transport.

Light and electron microscopic radioautography have been used to localize the rapid and slow components of axoplasmic flow within the monkey lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). Three days after an intravitreal injection of H3 leucine, 53% of the silver grains found in the LGN were localized to retinal synaptic terminals and 27% were over retinal axons. By 30 days post-injection, 66% of the grains were localized to retinal axons while retinal synaptic terminals now contained 21% of the grains. At both 3 and 30 days LGN neurons postsynaptic to the radioactive retinal axons showed higher levels of labeling than LGN neurons in the layers not receiving afferents from the injected eye. These data indicate that the rapid phase is mainly confined to the synaptic terminal while the slow phase is mainly localized in the axon. This differing distribution of radioactivity may now be utilized as the basis of a neuroanatomical tracing method.
Frequency of Occurrence and the Likeableness of Trait Names.

The report examines the relationship between the likeableness (L) scale values of adjectives, as obtained by Anderson, and the frequencies of occurrence of the adjectives. Also presented is the distribution of the frequencies of occurrence of the adjectives. The distribution is skewed, with a median at approximately 5.7 words-per-million (wpm) and a range from 4 words per 18 million through 100+ wpm. A large number of frequency points show a very low word density. There is a low, significant correlation (.299) between frequency and L. The methodological implications of the findings are examined.
Dependencies of discourse structure on the modality of communication: Oregon State University

With the genesis of speech understanding systems, computational linguistics research is becoming less wedded to teletype-based interaction. It would therefore be wise to look for systematic ways in which the discourse structure of voice interaction differs from teletype interaction. Such discoveries could lead to substantially different discourse components for speech understanding systems.Rubin (1980) points out that language experiences should not simply be characterized as oral or written. Rather, there is a set of dimensions along which language experiences such as having a conversation and writing/reading a letter might differ, including: the ability to interact, the sharing of space and time between speaker and hearer, the concreteness of referents, and the use of voice or print.Following Rubin's taxonomy, and influenced by Chapanis et al.'s [1977] communication mode study and Grosz' [1977] task-oriented dialogue work, we conducted a study to explore how the structure of an instruction-giving discourse depends on the communication situation in which it takes place. Twenty-five subjects were videotaped as they instructed twenty-five others in assembling a toy water pump. Five "dialogues" each took place face-to-face, via telephone, teletype, audiotape, and written text. We chose to analyze telephone and teletype dialogues first since results would have direct implications for the design of speech understanding and production systems.Preliminary results indicate that the structure of telephone dialogues is markedly different from that of teletype dialogues. In telephone mode, speakers frequently, explicitly, and often indirectly, request hearers to identify the referents of noun phrases. For example, utterances used indirectly to perform such requests include "there is a NP" and "the NP?". In contrast, teletype "speakers" rarely accomplish the goal of referring in a separate step. Instead, the goals of referring and requesting an assembly action are achieved with one utterance, usually an imperative such as "Insert the green plunger into the large tube with threads on one end".As for computational implications, we are led to conclude that, within the framework of a plan-based theory of speech acts (Perrault and Allen [1980]), referent identification should be treated as a planned action by language production and comprehension systems. That is, by planning to facilitate the healer's plan, producers should design their noun phrases so that hearers can identify the referents. Conversely, comprehenders should reason about what the producer intended to be done with the uttered NP -- find its referent, supply a co-referring NP. etc. Our goal, then is to develop production and comprehension systems capable of reasoning about reference.
Infectious diarrhea: Pathogenesis and risk factors

Our understanding of the pathogenesis of infectious, especially bacterial, diarrhea has increased dramatically. New etiologic agents, mechanisms, and diseases have become known. For example, Escherichia coli serogroup O157 is now known to cause acute hemorrhagic colitis. Also, E. coli serogroups that produce Shiga toxin are recognized as etiologic agents in the hemolytic-uremic syndrome. The production of bacterial diarrhea has two major facets, bacterial-mucosal interaction and the induction of intestinal fluid loss by enterotoxins. Bacterial-mucosal interaction can be described in stages: (1) adherence to epithelial cell microvilli, which is often promoted by or associated with pili; (2) close adherence (enteroadherence), usually by classic enteropathogenic E. coli, to mucosal epithelial cells lacking microvilli; and (3) mucosal invasion, as with Shigella and Salmonella infections. Further large strides in understanding infectious diarrhea are likely with the cloning of virulence genes if additional host-specific animal pathogens become available for study.
Adiposity in childhood predicts obesity and insulin resistance in young adulthood

Abstract Objective: To determine whether adiposity in children predicts adiposity, insulin resistance, and abnormal lipid levels in young adults. Study design: Children (n = 31) were recruited into an epidemiologic study at age 13.3 ± 0.3 years and had blood pressure, weight, and height measured. They were reevaluated at age 21.8 ± 0.3 years at which time the measurements were repeated, a euglycemic insulin clamp was performed, and fasting lipid levels were measured. All values are expressed as mean ± SEM. Data were analyzed by analysis of variance and linear regression analysis. Results: Body mass index (BMI) in childhood (22.6 ± 0.6) was highly correlated with BMI in young adulthood (26.9 ± 0.9). Childhood BMI was also inversely correlated with young adult glucose utilization (r = –0.5, P = .006) and positively correlated with total cholesterol (r = 0.37, P = .05), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (r = 0.48, P = .01). Conclusions: These data confirm that adiposity in childhood is a strong predictor of young adult adiposity. In addition, these results demonstrate that cardiovascular risk in young adulthood is highly related to the degree of adiposity as early as age 13. (J Pediatr 2001;138:469-73)
Digital biosensors with built-in logic for biomedical applications—biosensors based on a biocomputing concept

This article reviews biomolecular logic systems for bioanalytical applications, specifically concentrating on the prospects and fundamental and practical challenges of designing digitally operating biosensors logically processing multiple biochemical signals. Such digitally processed information produces a final output in the form of a yes/no response through Boolean logic networks composed of biomolecular systems, and hence leads to a high-fidelity biosensing compared with traditional single (or parallel) sensing devices. It also allows direct coupling of the signal processing with chemical actuators to produce integrated "smart" "sense/act" (biosensor-bioactuator) systems. Unlike common biosensing devices based on a single input (analyte), devices based on biochemical logic systems require a fundamentally new approach for the sensor design and operation and careful attention to the interface of biocomputing systems and electronic transducers. As common in conventional biosensors, the success of the enzyme logic biosensor would depend, in part, on the immobilization of the biocomputing reagent layer. Such surface confinement provides a contact between the biocomputing layer and the transducing surface and combines efficiently the individual logic-gate elements. Particular attention should thus be given to the composition, preparation, and immobilization of the biocomputing surface layer, to the role of the system scalability, and to the efficient transduction of the output signals. By processing complex patterns of multiple physiological markers, such multisignal digital biosensors should have a profound impact upon the rapid diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and particularly upon the timely detection and alert of medical emergencies (along with immediate therapeutic intervention). Other fields ranging from biotechnology to homeland security would benefit from these advances in new biocomputing biosensors and the corresponding closed-loop "add/act" operation.
The Abelian Hopf H mod K Theorem

We study the symmetries of periodic solutions obtained from Hopf bifurcation in systems with finite abelian symmetries. The H mod K theorem gives necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic solutions with spatial symmetries K and spatio-temporal symmetries H in systems with finite symmetry group $\Gamma$. Our main result, the abelian Hopf H mod K theorem, gives necessary and sufficient conditions for when these H mod K periodic solutions can occur by Hopf bifurcation when $\Gamma$ is a finite abelian group. We give examples of our results in the case when the symmetry group $\Gamma=\mathbf{Z}_l\times\mathbf{Z}_k$ acts on $\mathbf{R}^l\times\mathbf{R}^k$ by permutation of coordinates. In this case, we classify the H mod K periodic solutions that are obtainable by a generic Hopf bifurcation and show that there exist families of H mod K periodic solutions that cannot be obtained by Hopf bifurcation.
Frobenius sets for conjugate split primes in the Gaussian integers

We solve the Frobenius coin problem in the Gaussian integers when the coin set is comprised of two conjugate primes. We also provide preliminary results toward a general solution for the two-coin problem in the Gaussian integers.
Differential expression of cytokines in response to respiratory syncytial virus infection of calves with high or low circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D3.

Deficiency of serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 has been related to increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections in children. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of low respiratory tract infections in infants and young children. The neonatal calf model of RSV infection shares many features in common with RSV infection in infants and children. In the present study, we hypothesized that calves with low circulating levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) would be more susceptible to RSV infection than calves with high circulating levels of 25(OH)D3. Calves were fed milk replacer diets with different levels of vitamin D for a 10 wk period to establish two treatment groups, one with high (177 ng/ml) and one with low (32.5 ng/ml) circulating 25(OH)D3. Animals were experimentally infected via aerosol challenge with RSV. Data on circulating 25(OH)D3 levels showed that high and low concentrations of 25(OH)D3 were maintained during infection. At necropsy, lung lesions due to RSV were similar in the two vitamin D treatment groups. We show for the first time that RSV infection activates the vitamin D intracrine pathway in the inflamed lung. Importantly, however, we observed that cytokines frequently inhibited by this pathway in vitro are, in fact, either significantly upregulated (IL-12p40) or unaffected (IFN-γ) in the lungs of RSV-infected calves with high circulating levels of 25(OH)D3. Our data indicate that while vitamin D does have an immunomodulatory role during RSV infection, there was no significant impact on pathogenesis during the early phases of RSV infection. Further examination of the potential effects of vitamin D status on RSV disease resolution will require longer-term studies with immunologically sufficient and deficient vitamin D levels.
Routing in ad hoc networks: a theoretical framework with practical implications

In this paper, information theoretic techniques are used to derive analytic expressions for the minimum expected length of control messages exchanged by proactive routing in a two-level hierarchical ad hoc network. Several entropy measures are introduced and used to bound the memory size necessary for the storage of the routing tables. The entropy rates of the topology sequences are used to bound the communication routing overhead-both the interior routing overhead within a cluster and the exterior routing overhead across clusters. A scalability analysis of the routing overheads with regard to the number of nodes and the cluster size is provided under three different network scaling modes. Finally, practical design issues are studied by providing the optimal cluster sizes that asymptotically minimize (i) the memory requirement for each cluster head; (ii) the total control message routing overhead.
X-ray Crystallographic Studies of Eukaryotic Transcription Factors

Our X-ray crystallographic work on eukaryotic transcription factors traverses the entire length of a typical class II nuclear gene promoter, including the TATA-box-binding protein, two b/HLH/Z promoter proximal binding factors (Max and USF), and an enhancer-binding factor (HNF-3 gamma). These high-resolution studies of specific protein/DNA interactions will be extended to include homologous proteins complexed with similar oligonucleotides and a systematic examination of the roles of individual amino acids and bases implicated in specific DNA binding. In the longer term, we will turn our attention to the myriad of protein/protein interactions occurring within TFIID and the PIC, and between the PIC and factors binding to promoter proximal and distal enhancer elements.
Endogenizing geopolitical boundaries with agent-based modeling

Agent-based modeling promises to overcome the reification of actors. Whereas this common, but limiting, assumption makes a lot of sense during periods characterized by stable actor boundaries, other historical junctures, such as the end of the Cold War, exhibit far-reaching and swift transformations of actors' spatial and organizational existence. Moreover, because actors cannot be assumed to remain constant in the long run, analysis of macrohistorical processes virtually always requires "sociational" endogenization. This paper presents a series of computational models, implemented with the software package REPAST, which trace complex macrohistorical transformations of actors be they hierarchically organized as relational networks or as collections of symbolic categories. With respect to the former, dynamic networks featuring emergent compound actors with agent compartments represented in a spatial grid capture organizational domination of the territorial state. In addition, models of "tagged" social processes allows the analyst to show how democratic states predicate their behavior on categorical traits. Finally, categorical schemata that select out politically relevant cultural traits in ethnic landscapes formalize a constructivist notion of national identity in conformance with the qualitative literature on nationalism. This "finite-agent method", representing both states and nations as higher-level structures superimposed on a lower-level grid of primitive agents or cultural traits, avoids reification of agency. Furthermore, it opens the door to explicit analysis of entity processes, such as the integration and disintegration of actors as well as boundary transformations.
Secure short-cut routing for mobile IP

This paper describes the architecture and implementation of a mobile IP system. It allows mobile hosts to roam between cells implemented with 2-Mbps radio base stations, while maintaining Internet connectivity. The system is being developed as part of a course on wireless networks at Harvard and has been operational since March 1994. The architecture scales well, both geographically and in the number of mobile hosts supported. It supports secure short-cut routing to mobile hosts using the existing Internet routing system without change. The implementation demonstrates a robust, low complexity realization of the architecture, and provides trade-off opportunities between efficiency and cost. Measured performance of the mobile system is generally excellent. The system can handle a high rate of location updates, and routes packets almost as efficiently for mobile hosts as the Internet does for stationary hosts. We observe reasonable TCP behavior during hand-offs.
Four New Genera and Five New Species of Lecanicephalideans (Cestoda: Lecanicephalidea) From Elasmobranchs in the Gulf of California, Mexico

A total of 53 spiral intestines from 3 species of rays collected in the Gulf of California, Baja, Mexico, was examined for cestodes of the order Lecanicephalidea. Four new genera and 5 new species were discovered as a result of this study. These are Aberrapex senticosus n. gen., n. sp., from Myliobatis californica, Paraberrapex manifestus n. gen., n. sp., from Squatina californica and Healyum harenamica n. gen., n. sp., Healyum pulvis n. sp. and Quadcuspibothrium francisi n. gen., n. sp., from Mobula japanica. Aberrapex n. gen. and Paraberrapex n. gen. can be distinguished from all other lecanicephalidean genera based on the lack of an apical structure (pars apicalis) on their scolex. Aberrapex n. gen. can be distinguished from Paraberrapex n. gen. based on the presence of an external seminal vesicle, a vagina positioned lateral rather than medial in the proglottid, and an ovary that is tetralobed rather than bilobed in cross section. Healyum n. gen. and Quadcuspibothrium n. gen. are unique among lecanice...
“The Psychological Marshall Plan”: Displacement, Gender, and Human Rights after World War II

1940, Howard Kershner, director of European relief for the American Friends Service Committee, was stationed in Vichy France, where Quakers were organizing relief for refugees. He had witnessed any number of wartime atrocities in his years of service during the Spanish Civil War, including violence directed at civilians, bombings, starvation, and disease. Now he added a new item to the litany of wartime suffering: "One of the greatest tragedies of all times is the separation of families in Europe today: wives in one country, husbands in another, with no possibility of reunion and often no means of communication; babies who have never seen their fathers; scattered fragments of families not knowing if their loved ones are living or dead, and often without hope of ever seeing them again. There are multitudes of wretched souls for whom it seems the sun of hope has set."1 The notion that the separation of families represented a wartime tragedy, an abrogation of human rights, and for children, an irreparable form of trauma, attained the aura of transhistorical truth in the second half of the twentieth
Stimulation of endothelin-1 gene expression by insulin in endothelial cells.

Abstract The present study characterized the regulation of the genetic expression of the vasoactive peptide endothelin-1 (ET-1) by insulin in bovine aortic endothelial cells. By RNA blot analysis, insulin (1.67 x 10(-8) M) increased ET-1 mRNA levels by 2.3-fold over the basal within 10 min and attained a maximum (5.3-fold increase) in 2 h. Dose-response studies showed that a maximum effect of insulin was reached at 1.67 x 10(-8) M although a significant increase can be observed at 1.66 x 10(-9) M. Radioligand receptor studies indicated that the affinity constant for insulin receptors on endothelial cells correlated closely with the dose response observed for ET-1 mRNA. The ET-1 mRNA half-life was estimated with actinomycin D studies to be 20 min in control cells and was not affected by insulin treatment. Moreover, the effects of phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) and insulin were additive in the induction of ET-1 gene expression. When protein kinase C in the bovine aortic endothelial cells was down-regulated by preincubation with 8 x 10(-7) M PMA for 24 or 48 h, insulin was still able to increase ET-1 mRNA levels whereas PMA was ineffective. Using a chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) fusion plasmid containing the CAT gene and the 5'-flanking region of the ET-1 gene (Lee, M. E., Bloch, K. D., Clifford, J. A., and Quertermous, T. (1990) J. Biol. Chem. 265, 10446-10450), we observed that 1.67 x 10(-8) M insulin increased CAT enzyme activity and mRNA levels. The insulin dose-response curve observed for CAT activity correlated with that observed for ET-1 mRNA levels. These results suggest that insulin stimulates expression of the ET-1 gene at the transcriptional level via its own receptors. This effect is mediated mostly through a protein kinase C-independent pathway, suggesting the existence of an insulin-responsive element in the ET-1 gene 5'-flanking sequence.
Why Take an HIV Test? Concerns, Benefits, and Strategies to Promote HIV Testing Among Low-Income Heterosexual African American Young Adults

A qualitative study examined perceptions of HIV testing and strategies to enhance HIV testing among HIV-negative African American heterosexual young adults (ages 18-25 years). Twenty-six focus groups (13 male groups, 13 female groups) were conducted in two low-income communities (urban and rural). All sessions were audio-recorded and transcribed. Data analysis was completed using AnSWR software. Many participants expressed that learning one’s HIV status, regardless of the result, was a benefit of taking an HIV test because this was perceived to produce emotional relief. Additional benefits included the avoidance of unknowingly spreading the virus, being offered treatment access if HIV-positive, and taking time to assess and modify risky sexual behaviors if HIV-negative. If diagnosed HIV-positive, HIV testing concerns included the recognition of one’s mortality, the experience of social stigma, and concerns about accessing affordable treatment. Recommended promotion strategies included the use of HIV-posit...
With new prenatal testing, will babies with Down syndrome slowly disappear?

An expansive menu of prenatal tests for Down syndrome (DS) is already available to pregnant women around the globe, but new tests are likely to become the most popular entrees. Presently, pregnant women can choose among the many prenatal screening tests – triple screen, quadruple screen, first-trimester combined screen, stepwise sequential screens, and fully integrative screens – to receive statistical chances that their fetuses have DS, to varying degrees of detection (table 1).1 For a definitive prenatal diagnosis of DS, however, women currently have just two options, both of which are invasive: chorionic villus sampling (CVS), generally performed between 9 and 12 weeks of gestation, and amniocentesis, traditionally offered between 15 and 20 weeks of gestation. By nature of being invasive, both of these diagnostic tests carry small, albeit real, risks of spontaneous abortions.2 3 4 5 6 7 View this table: Table 1 Down syndrome detection rates with screening tests (using 5% false positive rate) Professional organisations in the USA – such as the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and the American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) – and many similar organisations around the world such as the Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme in the UK now recommend that all pregnant women, regardless of age, be offered a selection of these available tests.8 9 10 11 Most pregnant women seeking prenatal confirmation of DS start with a prenatal screen, learn the statistical chances that their fetus has DS, and then decide whether to proceed with CVS or amniocentesis. Pregnant women in the UK seeking prenatal confirmation of DS typically start with one of these recommended screens, receive a result that is pre-interpreted as “high risk” or “low risk”, and are then offered CVS or amniocentesis only if they fall in the “high risk” category. A forthcoming option, to be …
Infant directed speech and the development of speech perception: Enhancing development or an unintended consequence?

Infant directed speech (IDS) is a speech register characterized by simpler sentences, a slower rate, and more variable prosody. Recent work has implicated it in more subtle aspects of language development. Kuhl et al. (1997) demonstrated that segmental cues for vowels are affected by IDS in a way that may enhance development: the average locations of the extreme "point" vowels (/a/, /i/ and /u/) are further apart in acoustic space. If infants learn speech categories, in part, from the statistical distributions of such cues, these changes may specifically enhance speech category learning. We revisited this by asking (1) if these findings extend to a new cue (Voice Onset Time, a cue for voicing); (2) whether they extend to the interior vowels which are much harder to learn and/or discriminate; and (3) whether these changes may be an unintended phonetic consequence of factors like speaking rate or prosodic changes associated with IDS. Eighteen caregivers were recorded reading a picture book including minimal pairs for voicing (e.g., beach/peach) and a variety of vowels to either an adult or their infant. Acoustic measurements suggested that VOT was different in IDS, but not in a way that necessarily supports better development, and that these changes are almost entirely due to slower rate of speech of IDS. Measurements of the vowel suggested that in addition to changes in the mean, there was also an increase in variance, and statistical modeling suggests that this may counteract the benefit of any expansion of the vowel space. As a whole this suggests that changes in segmental cues associated with IDS may be an unintended by-product of the slower rate of speech and different prosodic structure, and do not necessarily derive from a motivation to enhance development.
Computing Shapes from Point Cloud Data

The problem of modeling a shape from point cloud data arises in many areas of science and engineering. Recent advances in scanning technology and scientific simulations can generate sample points from a geometric domain with ease. Perhaps the most usual sampled domain is the boundary of a 3D object, which is a surface in 3D. Consequently, the problem of surface reconstruction has been a topic of intense research in recent years. In this talk we will present a surface reconstruction algorithm popularly known as Cocone that simplified and improved its predecessor called Crust. We will discuss its mathematically provable guarantees and issues related to its successful implementation.The concepts used in Cocone have been further extended to other problems in sample based modeling. We show how these concepts can be used to decimate a point cloud dataset while preserving the shape features. We extend the Cocone theory and methods to detect the dimension of a manifold from its point samples, where the manifold is embedded in an Euclidean space. In a recent work we used the Cocone concepts to approximate the medial axis of a smooth surface from the Voronoi diagram of its point samples. We will discuss these extensions and present our theoretical and experimental results.
Personality characteristics of the parents of autistic individuals

Personality characteristics of 87 parents of autistic probands and 38 parents of Down's syndrome probands were examined using a standardized personality interview. Using best-estimate ratings derived from subject and informant interviews, parents of autistic individuals were rated significantly higher than controls on three characteristics: aloof, untactful and undemonstrative. When ratings were based on interviews with subjects only, parents of autistic probands were rated as significantly more aloof, untactful and unresponsive. There were no significant differences between parent groups on ratings based on informant interviews only. The implications of these findings for future family studies of autism are discussed.
Communication Partner Instruction in AAC: Present Practices and Future Directions

The success of communicative interaction is dependent on the communication skills of each individual participating in the exchange. Accordingly, in the case of an interaction involving an individua...