cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Molecular quantification of cell cycle‐related gene expression at the protein level

BACKGROUND Immunofluorescence cytometry of antigen and DNA content provides relative measurements of the cell cycle phase distribution of a specific epitope. Measurement of correlated expression of epitopes on signaling and regulatory proteins will be useful in the study of the complex pathways involved in cell cycle regulation and carcinogenesis. However, to formulate regulatory pathway models, measurements of molecules per cell would be more useful than relative measurements of intensity. Here, we report on a system in which the relationship between molecules and fluorescence is determined for a reference set of cell lines that are then used to directly calculate the number of molecules for unknowns. To demonstrate the process, we calculated the cell cycle phase distribution of SV40 large T antigen (Tag) in the reference cells. METHODS A set of cell line clones expressing different levels of Tag were isolated. Quantitative Western blots of these cells and purified, recombinant Tag were performed. Cells from the same sample were stained and analyzed by flow cytometry for Tag and DNA. The relationship between molecules and fluorescence was established and calculations were performed for the phase distributions of Tag. RESULTS The five cell lines had 0.11, 0.27, 1.06, 2.44, and 2.63 × 106 molecules of Tag per cell, determined by Western blot. The average coefficient of variation was 10.6%. The relationship of molecules to fluorescence fit a linear equation (r2 = 0.96) over the range, 0.11 – 2.63 × 106 molecules, however, the same equation did not fit the relationship between 0 molecules, defined by isotype staining controls, and the lowest expressing cell line. To calculate the phase distributions of molecules in the lowest cell line, a second linear equation from 0 to 110,000 molecules was used. CONCLUSIONS This work describes a system where fixed cells expressing various levels of a target antigen quantified by Western blots can be used to standardize flow cytometric measurements of gene expression in absolute terms.Cytometry 39:79–89, 2000 © 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Associations of calf skeletal muscle characteristics and peripheral nerve function with self-perceived physical functioning and walking ability in persons with peripheral artery disease

We determined whether more adverse calf muscle characteristics and poorer peripheral nerve function were associated with impairments in self-perceived physical functioning and walking ability in persons with lower extremity peripheral artery disease (PAD). Participants included 462 persons with PAD; measures included the ankle-brachial index (ABI), medical history, electrophysiologic characteristics of nerves, and computed tomography of calf muscle. Self-perceived physical functioning and walking ability were assessed using the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) and the Walking Impairment Questionnaire (WIQ). Results were adjusted for age, sex, race, ABI, body mass index, comorbidities, and other confounders. Lower calf muscle area was associated with a poorer SF-36 physical function (PF) score (overall p-trend < 0.001, 33.76 PF score for the lowest quartile versus 59.74 for the highest, pairwise p < 0.001) and a poorer WIQ walking distance score (p-trend = 0.001, 29.71 WIQ score for the lowest quartile versus 48.43 for the highest, pairwise p < 0.001). Higher calf muscle percent fat was associated with a poorer SF-36 PF score (p-trend < 0.001, 53.76 PF score for the lowest quartile versus 40.28 for the highest, pairwise p = 0.009). Slower peroneal nerve conduction velocity was associated with a poorer WIQ speed score ( p-trend = 0.023, 30.49 WIQ score for the lowest quartile versus 40.48 for the highest, pairwise p = 0.031). In summary, adverse calf muscle characteristics and poorer peripheral nerve function are associated significantly and independently with impairments in self-perceived physical functioning and walking ability in PAD persons.
Low temperature heat capacities of laves phase lanthanide-aluminum compounds*

Abstract Heat capacity data are presented for the five LnAl 2 compounds, where Ln=La, Ce, Pr, Nd and Gd. The temperature range covered was 8 to 300°K. The data for non-magnetic LaAl 2 were taken to represent the lattice and electronic contribution to the heat capacities of the four remaining compounds. The difference between the heat capacity of the magnetic compounds and LaAl 2 gave the magnetic contribution to the heat capacity from which the magnetic entropy could be derived. Results obtained were in approximate agreement with R In (2 J +1) except for GdAl 2 in which the discrepancy was about 25 per cent. The data for CeAl 2 gave no indication of magnetic ordering; however, an upturn in its C p vs. T curve below 12°K was observed. λ-type thermal anomalies were observed for PrAl 2 and NdAl 2 , peaking at 31·8 and 77·2°K, respectively. These were ascribed to the breakup of the ferromagnetic phase. Curie temperatures inferred from the C p data were in good agreement with those obtained from magnetic studies. No λ-type anomaly was observed for GdAl 2 ; instead its magnetic heat capacity was spread over a very wide range of temperature suggesting that destruction of magnetic order in this case is a weakly cooperative process.
Ngly1, a mouse gene encoding a deglycosylating enzyme implicated in proteasomal degradation: expression, genomic organization, and chromosomal mapping.

Abstract In species as diverse as yeast and mammals, peptide:N-glycanase (PNG1 in yeast; Ngly1 in mouse) is believed to play a key role in the degradation of misfolded glycoproteins by the proteasome. In this study, we report the genomic organization and mRNA distribution of the mouse Ngly1. Mouse Ngly1 spans 61 kb and is composed of 12 exons, the organization of which is conserved throughout vertebrates. Comparison of the mouse and human genomic sequence identifies a conserved gene structure with significant sequence similarity extending into introns. A 2.6 kb Ngly1 message was detected in all mouse tissues examined, with the highest abundance in the testis. In addition, a lower molecular weight transcript of 2.4 kb was detected in the testis. From analysis of dbESTs the alternative transcript of Ngly1 is predicted to be present in the human placenta. Given the key role Ngly1 plays in glycoprotein degradation, we predict that Ngly1 may be a contributing factor in “disease” susceptibility. To begin to address this question, we used radiation hybrid mapping to localize mouse Ngly1 to chromosome 14 and the human orthologue to chromosome 3 with a strong link with known genes.
A Selective History of Management Auditing

A consideration of the history of management auditing suggests that the evolution of non‐financial audit and the rise of the internal auditor can be traced back to audit's earliest origins and that modern financial audit is a special case of more general auditing. Professional audit came about partly through legislation and partly to serve the interests of companies. In the USA, as a narrower purpose of audit took hold, companies and government responded by the development of an internal audit function to fill the gap.
Natural Protective Factors in Bovine Mammary Secretions Following Different Methods of Milk Cessation

Bovine mammary secretions were obtained during late lactation and early involution to determine if different methods of milk cessation influenced milk yield, composition, and in vitro growth of coliform mastitis pathogens. Cows (n = 8/group) producing about 13 kg of milk prior to experimentation were dried off by abrupt or intermittent milk cessation. An additional group was dried off by intermittent milk cessation and fed only hay during the last week of lactation. Cows milked intermittently produced significantly less milk during the last week of lactation than cows dried off by abrupt milk cessation. Mammary secretions from cows milked intermittently and fed only hay contained higher concentrations of somatic cells, lactoferrin, immunoglobulin G, and bovine serum albumin, a lower citrate:lactoferrin molar ratio, and were more inhibitory to in vitro growth of Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae throughout most of the experimental period than mammary secretions from cows dried off by intermittent or abrupt milk cessation. Few differences in mammary secretion composition or in vitro growth of mastitis pathogens were observed between cows dried off by intermittent or abrupt milk cessation. Data suggest that growth of mastitis pathogens in mammary secretions may be related to natural protective factors, which can be manipulated by different methods of milk cessation.
Application of Profit Maximizing Techniques to Commercial Fryer Enterprises

Abstract THE application of profit maximizing techniques to large scale commercial fryer firms may result in greater net returns to producers through a better allocation of productive factors (equipment, buildings, feed, etc.). In this paper, profit maximizing techniques are applied to input-output, cost, and revenue data from three case studies to ascertain the extent of applicability of such techniques in determining the most appropriate time to market fryers. Baum and Walkup (1950), Baum et al. (1953), presented the application of profit maximizing techniques to experimental fryer input-output data. The technical nature of fryer production provides an environment in which profit maximizing techniques are especially applicable. The conditions of decreasing incremental outputs per time unit of input and continuous production permits the determination of cost and revenue curves. The application of economic techniques are further facilitated because fryers are generally sold on an average lot-run basis for which only one market price …
A Potential Enstrophy and Energy Conserving Scheme for the Shallow Water Equations

To improve the simulation of nonlinear aspects of the flow over steep topography, a potential enstrophy and energy conserving scheme for the shallow water equations is derived. It is pointed out that a family of schemes can conserve total energy for general flow and potential enstrophy for flow with no mass flux divergence. The newly derived scheme is a unique member of this family, that conserves both potential enstrophy and energy for general flow. Comparison by means of numerical experiment with a scheme that conserves (potential) enstrophy for purely horizontal nondivergent flow demonstrated the considerable superiority of the newly derived potential enstrophy and energy conserving scheme, not only in suppressing a spurious energy cascade but also in determining the overall flow regime. The potential enstrophy and energy conserving scheme for a spherical grid is also presented.
Recent advances in the treatment of Parkinson's disease: the role of bromocriptine.

We have treated 102 Parkinson patients with bromocriptine for up to 6 years; most of these posed problems of management when referred to us. Forty-two continue to take bromocriptine, at a mean dose of 49 mg daily (range 10–160), in combination with some 50% of their previous optimal dose of levodopa (with or without a decarboxylase inhibitor). We consider the main indications for bromocriptine are severe dyskinesia, early morning dystonia, and “wearing off” reactions. Contraindications include hallucinations, delusions, substantial confusion, acute myocardial infarction, active peptic ulceration, and active pleuropulmonary disease.
The influence of mechanical strain on the optical properties of spherical gold nanoparticles

Abstract We utilize classical Mie scattering theory to investigate the effects of tensile and compressive mechanical strain on both the far field (absorption, scattering and extinction efficiencies) and near field (surface enhanced Raman scattering) optical properties of spherical gold nanoparticles with diameters ranging from 10 to 100 nm. By accounting for the strain effects on both the ionic core (bound) and conduction (free) electrons through appropriate modifications of the bulk dielectric functions, we find that gold nanoparticles are relatively sensitive to the effects of mechanical strain due to the fact that the plasmon resonance wavelength for spherical gold particles, which occurs around λ = 520 nm , is nearly coincident with the interband transitions of the core electrons. Specifically, we find that tensile strain leads to significant enhancements ranging from 60% to 120% in the far field optical efficiencies, while compressive strain leads to similar decreases, and that the plasmon resonance wavelength can be red or blueshifted up to 100 nm due to the applied strain. Finally, we find that tensile strain also strongly enhances the local electric ( E )-field at the surface of the nanoparticles, which is of considerable interest for surface-enhanced Raman scattering applications; 5% tensile strain is found to enhance the | E | 4 intensity by 63%. The present results demonstrate the potential of mechanical strain, and specifically that of tensile mechanical strain in enhancing and tailoring the optical properties of gold nanoparticles.
Cyclins and cdks in development and cancer: a perspective

A fundamental aspect of cancer is dysregulated cell cycle control. Unlike normal cells that only proliferate when compelled to do so by developmental or other mitogenic signals in response to tissue growth needs, the proliferation of cancer cells proceeds essentially unchecked. This does not mean that cancer cell cycles are necessarily different from those found in normal cycling cells, but rather implies that cancer cells proliferate because they are no longer subject to proliferation-inhibitory influences arising from the stroma or from gene expression pattern changes consequent to 'terminal' differentiation, nor do they necessarily require extrinsic growth factors to recruit them into or maintain their proliferative state. Finally, cancer cells have also often avoided normal controls linked to cell cycle progression that halt proliferation in the presence of damaged DNA or other physiological insults. The result of these alterations is the inappropriate proliferation commonly associated with cancerous tumor formation. This review will summarize the current understanding of dysregulation of the G0/G1-to-S-phase transition in cancer cells, with particular emphasis on recent in vivo studies that suggest a need to rethink existing models of cell cycle control in development and tumorigenesis.
Sialidase activity in mouse neuroblastoma cell lines.

Sialidase activity was determined for three different neuroblastoma clonal lines derived from the A/J strain mouse C1300 neuroblastoma line. For each cell line, the endogenous and exogenous activities were less than 1 nmol sialic acid released/mg protein/90 min and 50 min reaction time, respectively. The C1300 tumor had similarly low levels of sialidase activity. The sialidase activity associated with the neuroblastomas is less than that associated with synaptosomes. Each cell line had a distinctly different ganglioside pattern varying in complexity from GM3 to GD1a. Treatment of the cells withVibrio cholerae sialidase under isosmotic conditions showed that cell-surface sialyl residues were susceptible to sialidase activity, with some of the susceptible residues coming from the ganglioside constituents. Of the total number ofV. cholerae sialidase-releasable sialyl residues, 50–60% were released by the neuroblastoma sialidase acting on endogenous substrate.
The trimethylsilylation reactions of hexosamines, and gas-chromatographic separation of the derivatives

Abstract Several methods for trimethylsilylation were applied to the 2-amino-2-deoxy-hexoses, and the resulting derivatives were characterized by gas-liquid chromatography as to retention index, response factor, and degree of substitution on the amino group. Conditions were found for replacing none, one, or both of the amino protons with trimethylsilyl groups. The average response-factor for the trimethylsilyl derivatives was found to be 6.27 g of docosane per mole of hexosamine, or 1.13 mg of docosane per mg of hexosamine. One of the methods investigated was applied to the determination of hexosamines in acid hydrolyzates of glycosaminoglycans. The 2-acetamido-2-deoxy derivatives were also studied, but the several derivatives have not yet been identified.
Anorexia nervosa and personality type: A preliminary report

The study described is an exploratory investigation of personality disorders and level of personality disorganization of a small sample of patients with a diagnosis of anorexia nervosa based on DSM-III criteria. The focus is on the question of homogeneity or heterogeneity of personality among the subjects. The subjects were six female inpatients aged 13-19 in a hospital eating disorders program, chosen sequentially from admissions during a five month period. Measures used were: 1) Psychiatric and Social History forms, 2) Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines, 3) WAIS or WISC-R and 4) Rorschach. Each patient was also given an independent personality diagnosis. All measures were administered when patients were at “target” weight. Psychological test data were scored by two “blind” judges utilizing Johnston and Holzman's Thought Disorder Index. Results indicate that the patients manifest a variety of personality disorders and levels of personality organization. There are some indications that patients with a history of bingeing and vomiting are more likely than the others to meet criteria for borderline personality disorder and borderline level of personality organization.
DETERMINATION OF ESTIVATION-INDUCED CHANGES IN THE AMINO ACID CONTENT OF BIOMPHALARIA GLABRATA SNAILS BY HIGH PERFORMANCE THIN-LAYER CHROMATOGRAPHY-DENSITOMETRY

High performance thin-layer chromatography-densitometry (HPTLC-Dens) was used to determine changes in the amino acid content of the digestive-gland gonad complex (DGG) of Biomphalaria glabrata snails as a function of estivation. Amino acids were extracted in ethanol-water (70:30) from the DGG of B. glabrata snails estivated for 7 days, and determined on silica gel or cellulose layers developed with either 2-butanol-pyridine-glacial acetic acid-deionized water (39:34:10:26) or 2-butanol-pyridine-25% ammonia-deionized water (39:34:10:26). Separated zones were detected by postchromatographic derivitization with ninhydrin and quantified by visible mode slit-scanning densitometry at 610 nm. Alanine, arginine, glycine, leucine/isoleucine, lysine, serine, and valine were unequivocally identified in chromatograms from both estivated and unestivated snails. HPTLC-Dens showed a significant increase in alanine in estivated snails compared to unestivated controls (Student's t-test, P < 0.05). The finding of increased...
Late-emerging strains of HIV induce T-cell homeostasis failure by promoting bystander cell death and immune exhaustion in naïve CD4 and all CD8 T-cells.

Abstract The mechanisms involved in the decline of CD4 and CD8 T-cells that lead to HIV-induced immune dysregulation are not clearly understood. We hypothesize that late-emerging strains of HIV, such as CXCR4-tropic (X4) virions, induce T-cell homeostasis failure by promoting significantly more bystander cell death, and immune exhaustion in naive CD4 and all CD8 T-cells, when compared to strain of HIV, such as CCR5-tropic (R5) virions, found early during the course of infection. In the reported study, inactivated X4 virions induced greater bystander cell death in sort-purified naive CD4 T-cells compared to R5 virions, which was significant ( p =0.013), and in memory CD8 T-cells, though the latter was not significant. A clearer understanding of the mechanisms involved in HIV-induced depletion of T-cell numbers and function could lead to therapies that prevent T-cell death and restore immune function. These therapies could improve current anti-retroviral and cure-related treatments by boosting the immune system's own ability to combat the virus.
Requirements for Fly-The-Mission Control in Aerodynamic Wind Tunnels *

Control and facility response requirements for fly-the-mission testing in aerodynamic wind tunnels are presented. This type of testing requires the control of test cell pressure and Mach number to predetermined contours, even while the test article is in motion, in order to simulate vehicle maneuvers such as climbs and dives. An estimate of the rates at which Mach number, total pressure, and/or Reynolds number must be changed in a facility to simulate the conditions a vehicle would experience during climbs/dives and level accelerations/decelerations is given. The 4-ft Transonic Wind Tunnel, located at Arnold Engineering Development Center, is chosen as an example of an aerodynamic wind tunnel. Its function is described to show that the manner in which cell conditions are set varies with operating regime, necessitating the transition between actuation techniques when maneuvers that span regimes are simulated. Because a fly-the-mission capability would require that a controller respond rapidly when a test article begins or completes a movement, be adaptable to account for differences in test articles, and follow a preselected trajectory within tolerances and with little lag, traditional feedback-based control is deemed to be inadequate. Various types of feed-forward control schemes designed to reduce or eliminate lag, proactively account for movements in the test articles, and allow for rapid and precise control are discussed. This discussion includes traditional feed-forward/feedback techniques, a hybrid control scheme that combines a facility model with a feedback controller, designated predictive error control, and full model-based techniques such as model predictive control.
A unique hyperfine esr spectrum in mouse neoplasms analyzed by computer simulation.

SummaryA unique triplet signal has been found in two mouse neoplasms during ESR studies of various mouse tissues. A virus-induced reticulum cell sarcoma of the spleen and the JAX C 1300 neuroblastoma both manifest this hypernne spectrum. This spectrum has been assigned to a nitrogen containing free radical with the unpaired electron vicinal to a heavy atom. Specifications for this triplet signal are gI = 2.012, gII = 2.095, and AI = 17.3 gauss, AII = 15 gauss. Analysis of the ESR signal was facilitated by the use of a computer simulation of the experimental spectrum.
PEP-19 immunohistochemistry defines the basal ganglia and associated structures in the adult human brain, and is dramatically reduced in Huntington's disease.

Abstract We have investigated the distribution of PEP-19, a neuron-specific protein, in the adult human brain. Immunohistochemistry for PEP-19 appears to define the basal ganglia and related structures. The strongest immunoreactivity is seen in the caudate nucleus and putamen, each of which showed both cell body and neuropil PEP-19 immunoreactivity The substantia nigra and both segments of the globus pallidus showed PEP-19 immunoreactivity only in the neuropil. Cell bodies and dendrites of the thalamic nuclei ventralis lateralis and ventralis anterioralis were less strongly immunoreactive. Cerebellar Purkinje cells and their dendrites were immunoreactive, as were the presubiculum/subiculum regions and dentate gyrus granule cells of the hippocampus. The CA zones of the hippocampus were not immunoreactive. Preliminary data from immunoblotting experiments indicate that PEP-19 immunoreactivity is significantly reduced in cerebellum in Alzheimer's disease. While there were no apparent alterations of immunoreactivity in Down's syndrome or in Parkinson's disease, immunohistochemical analysis showed a massive loss of PEP-19 immunoreactivity in the caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus and substantia nigra in Huntington's disease. These results show that PEP-19, a neuron-specific, calmodulin-binding protein, is distributed in specific areas of the adult human brain. The reduction in PEP-19 immunoreactivity in Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease suggests that PEP-19 may play a role in the pathophysiology of these diseases through a mechanism of calcium/calmodulin disregulation. This may be especially apparent in Huntington's disease where the distribution of the product of the abnormal gene, huntingtin, alone is not sufficient to explain the pattern of pathology. Abnormal huntingtin associates more strongly with calmodulin than does normal huntingtin (Bao et al. , 1996, Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. , 93 , 5037–5042) suggesting a disruption of calmodulin-mediated intracellular mechanism(s), very likely involving PEP-19.
Gender, crime, and punishment

Are men and women who are prosecuted for similar crimes punished differently? If it is true, as is commonly assumed, that women are sentenced more leniently than men, does this tendency vary by class and race? In this book Kathleen Daly explores these issues by analyzing women's and men's cases that are routinely processed in felony courts—cases of homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, larceny, and drug offenses. Daly first presents a statistical analysis of sentencing disparity for a wide sample of cases. Then, from within this sample, she compares forty matched pairs of women and men accused and convicted of statutorily similar offenses, examining in each case the presentence investigation reports and transcripts of the remarks made in court on the day of sentencing. From these documents, Daly constructs a portrait of each defendant and a narrative for each crime, and she identifies the theory of punishment the judge used to justify the sentence imposed. She analyzes whether men and women are pulled into crime in different ways, whether their offenses are comparably serious, and whether court officials use different conceptions of justice in sentencing men and women. By providing both numerical and narrative descriptions of crime and punishment, Daly shows the inadequacies of quantitative analysis: although her statistics, like those of other studies, suggest that women are favored, her close comparison of the matched pairs indicates that gender differences are negligible when the details of the cases are taken into consideration.
Multi-unit recording methods to characterize neural activity in the locust (Schistocerca americana) olfactory circuits.

Detection and interpretation of olfactory cues are critical for the survival of many organisms. Remarkably, species across phyla have strikingly similar olfactory systems suggesting that the biological approach to chemical sensing has been optimized over evolutionary time1. In the insect olfactory system, odorants are transduced by olfactory receptor neurons (ORN) in the antenna, which convert chemical stimuli into trains of action potentials. Sensory input from the ORNs is then relayed to the antennal lobe (AL; a structure analogous to the vertebrate olfactory bulb). In the AL, neural representations for odors take the form of spatiotemporal firing patterns distributed across ensembles of principal neurons (PNs; also referred to as projection neurons)2,3. The AL output is subsequently processed by Kenyon cells (KCs) in the downstream mushroom body (MB), a structure associated with olfactory memory and learning4,5. Here, we present electrophysiological recording techniques to monitor odor-evoked neural responses in these olfactory circuits. First, we present a single sensillum recording method to study odor-evoked responses at the level of populations of ORNs6,7. We discuss the use of saline filled sharpened glass pipettes as electrodes to extracellularly monitor ORN responses. Next, we present a method to extracellularly monitor PN responses using a commercial 16-channel electrode3. A similar approach using a custom-made 8-channel twisted wire tetrode is demonstrated for Kenyon cell recordings8. We provide details of our experimental setup and present representative recording traces for each of these techniques.
Thymus-dependent functions of mouse thymocyte-fibroblast hybrid cells.

THE cells involved in the immune response are of thymus-derived (T) and bone marrow-derived (B) origins1,2. Experiments in vivo and in vitro have established that both T and B cells demonstrate antigenic specificity3,4 and that the antibody-producing cell is of B origin1. The function of single antibody-producing cells has been studied in vitro by sensitive antibody-detecting systems5. The study of the function of single T cells has not been possible as experiments on T cell function usually require large numbers of cells. Attempts to cultivate and clone thymocytes in long term tissue culture have been unsuccessful. When short term thymocyte cultures are obtained, they are comprised of heterogeneous cell populations which preclude the study of single cell function6. Many different methods have been used to decrease the heterogeneity of T cells including cell destruction by specific antisera (θ)7, biological manipulation of the source animal (the induction of specific tolerance), density gradient separation8,9 and specific antigenic reactivity10. None of these methods has achieved a homogeneous T cell population.
A Qualitative Study of Clinicians’ Use of the Cultural Formulation Model in Assessing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder:

The Cultural Formulation (CF) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) provides a potential framework for improving the diagnostic assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in culturally diverse patients. We analyzed data from the Patient-Provider Encounter Study, a multi-site study that examines the process of diagnosis and clinical decision-making during an initial clinical intake session, in order to examine use of CF for PTSD diagnosis. We find that while the CF is generally used inconsistently or underutilized in routine community settings, when employed appropriately it may assist the formulation and interpretation of traumatic experiences. We discuss the implications for improving the assessment of PTSD in the time-limited setting of the clinical intake encounter and across race/ethnicity.
Inhibiting Shear Instability Induced by Large Amplitude Internal Solitary Waves in Two‐Layer Flows with a Free Surface

We consider a strongly nonlinear long wave model for large amplitude internal waves in two-layer flows with the top free surface. It is shown that the model suffers from the Kelvin‐Helmholtz (KH) instability so that any given shear (even if arbitrarily small) between the layers makes short waves unstable. Because a jump in tangential velocity is induced when the interface is deformed, the applicability of the model to describe the dynamics of internal waves is expected to remain rather limited. To overcome this major difficulty, the model is written in terms of the horizontal velocities at the bottom and the interface, instead of the depth-averaged velocities, which makes the system linearly stable for perturbations of arbitrary wavelengths as long as the shear does not exceed a certain critical value.
Effects of Human Cirrhotic Serum on Estradiol and Testosterone Transport into Rat Brain

It is known that sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), which binds both testosterone and estradiol in human serum, is markedly elevated in cirrhosis. In addition, it is known that the net metabolic clearance of testosterone is decreased in cirrhosis, while no change in the metabolic clearance of estradiol is observed. Since net clearance estimates are not direct measures of plasma protein binding effects, the present studies were designed to examine the effects of cirrhotic human serum on the unidirectional clearance of sex steroids using an in vivo rat brain paradigm previously described. Cirrhotic serum was characterized by the following changes from control serum: 2.6-fold increase in SHBG, 40% decrease in albumin, and 30% and 22% decreases in the dialyzable fractions of testosterone and estradiol, respectively. In addition, the non-SHBG-bound fraction of estradiol was decreased 41% in cirrhosis, but no significant change in the brain extraction of estradiol was observed using cirrhotic serum. In contrast, the unidirectional testosterone clearance was decreased 33% by cirrhotic serum. These studies indicate that changes in the net metabolic clearance of sex steroids closely parallel the changes in unidirectional clearance caused by alterations in plasma proteins. The absence of a decrease in estradiol clearance in cirrhosis in association with the substantial decrease in the non-SHBG-bound estradiol fraction is an unexpected finding, since previous studies have shown that a close parallel exists between these two parameters. A possible explanation is that estradiol bound to the SHBG in human cirrhotic serum is partially available for transport into peripheral tissues such as the brain.
Carbon fiber-vinyl ester composite reinforcement of wood using the VARTM/SCRIMP fabrication process

Abstract Recent studies have proven that wood and wood-based materials reinforced with fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are promising materials for construction applications, especially for structural members. However, there are concerns about the long-term performance of carbon FRP–wood hybrid materials, the durability of carbon fiber reinforcement when subjected to environmental conditions and wood preservatives, as well as the carbon FRP–wood interface susceptibility to delamination. The objective of this paper is: (a) to characterize a carbon/vinyl ester composite for reinforcement of wood members based on material and interface performance properties; (b) to assess the suitability of the VARTM/SCRIMP process for wood reinforcement; and (c) to measure property retention after exposure to oil-borne wood preservative treatments. Vinyl ester resin produces a durable composite with properly sized carbon fibers and durable wood adhesive bonds when wood is treated with a hydroxymethyl resorcinol coupling agent. The carbon/vinyl ester–wood interface properties were superior to E-glass/vinyl ester–wood interface properties. The implemented VARTM/SCRIMP technology proved to be a manufacturing process with potential for producing carbon FRP–wood hybrid structural members resulting in a reinforcement with high fiber-to-resin ratio, minimum void content and a durable adhesive bond-to-wood substrates.
Effects of Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor and a Prostaglandin E2 Receptor Subtype 4 Agonist on Osteoblastogenesis and Adipogenesis in Aged Ovariectomized Rats

bFGF stimulates osteo- and adipogenesis concurrently at skeletal sites with red but not with fatty marrow, whereas a PGE2 receptor subtype 4 agonist has bone anabolic effects at both skeletal sites and decreases adipose tissue within red and fatty marrow. Introduction: Basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) stimulates osteogenesis at skeletal sites with hematopoietic but not with fatty marrow. The prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) receptor subtype 4 agonist (EP4A) stimulates osteogenesis at the former skeletal sites, but its effects at fatty marrow sites are unknown. In addition, both bFGF and PGE2 through the EP4 receptor have also been implicated in adipogenesis. However, their specific effects on bone marrow adipogenesis and the inter-relationship with osteogenesis have never been studied in vivo. Materials and Methods: Female Sprague-Dawley rats were ovariectomized (OVX) or sham-operated and maintained for 1 yr after surgery. OVX rats were then injected daily with bFGF or with EP4A SC for 3 wk. The osteo- and adipogenic effects of these agents were assessed by histomorphometry and by determining changes in expression of genes associated with these events by real-time PCR in the lumbar and caudal vertebrae, bones with a predominance of hematopoietic and fatty marrow, respectively. Expression of FGFR1–4 and the EP4 receptor were also evaluated by real-time PCR and immunocytochemistry. Results: bFGF and EP4A stimulated bone formation at skeletal sites with hematopoietic marrow, but only the later anabolic agent is also effective at fatty marrow sites. The diminished bone anabolic effect of bFGF at the fatty marrow site was not caused by a lack of cell surface receptors for the growth factor at this site. Interestingly, whereas EP4A decreased fatty marrow area and the number of adipocytes, bFGF increased osteogenesis and adipogenesis within the bone marrow. Conclusions: bFGF can stimulate osteogenesis and bone marrow adipogenesis concurrently at red marrow sites, but not at fatty marrow sites. In contrast, EP4A stimulates bone formation at skeletal sites with hematopoietic and fatty marrow and simultaneously decreased fatty marrow area and the number of adipocytes in the bone marrow, suggesting that osteogenesis occurs at the expense of adipogenesis.
Population and the energy problem.

When energy is scarce or expensive, people can suffer material deprivation and economic hardship. When it is obtained in ways that fail to minimize environmental and political costs, these too can threaten human wellbeing in fundamental and pervasive ways. The energy problem today combines these syndromes: much of the world's population has too little energy to meet basic human needs; the monetary costs of energy are rising nearly everywhere; the environmental impacts of energy supply are growing and already dominant contributors to local, regional, and global environmental problems (including air pollution, water pollution, ocean pollution, and climate change); and the sociopolitical risks of energy supply (above all the danger of conflict over oil and the links between nuclear energy and nuclear weapons) are growing too. This predicament has many causes, but predominant among them are the nearly 20-fold increase in world energy use since 1850 and the cumulative depletion of the most convenient oil and gas deposits that this growth has entailed, resulting in increasing resort to costlier and/or environmentally more disruptive energy sources. The growth of world population in this period was responsible for 52% of the energy growth, while growth in per capita energy use was responsible for 48% (excluding causal connections between population and energy use per capita). In the United States in the same period, population growth accounted for 66% of the 36-fold increase in energy use. In the late 1980s, population growth was still accounting for a third of energy growth both in the United States and worldwide. Coping with global energy problems will require greatly increased investment in improving the efficiency of energy enduse and in reducing the environmental impacts of contemporary energy technologies, and it will require financing a transition over the next several decades to a set of more sustainable (but probably also more expensive) energy sources. The difficulty of implementing these measures will be greatest by far in the developing countries, not least because of their high rates of population growth and the attendant extra pressures on economic and managerial resources. If efficiency improvements permit delivering the high standard of living to which the world aspires based on a per capita rate of energy use as low as 3 kilowatts—about a quarter of the current U.S. figure—then a world population stabilized at 10 billion people would be using energy at a rate of 30 terawatts, and a population of 14 billion would imply 42 terawatts (compare 13.2 terawatts in 1990). Delivering even the lower figure at tolerable monetary and environmental costs will be difficult; each additional billion people added to the world population will compound these difficulties and increase energy's costs, making everyone poorer.
Twitter communications in mass emergency: contributions to situational awareness

The popular microblogging service Twitter hosts 160 million users who send almost one million 140-character messages (known as tweets) per day. In times of mass emergency, many use Twitter to gather and disperse information. With so many tweets sent at any given time, locating and organizing timely, useful information during these safety-critical situations is a task best suited for automatic methods. However, training machines to correctly identify and subsequently extract tweets that contribute to situational awareness an overall picture of what is going on is a multi-faceted task that involves understanding what types of information people tweet during mass emergencies, how information differs depending on the type of situation, how various types of information are linguistically constructed, and how we can represent this knowledge in a computationally tractable way.
School-Wide Behavior Support: Legal Implications and Requirements

Administrators and teachers have long been challenged by student discipline problems. In the last few years more efforts have been aimed at the prevention of both disruptive and violent behavior th...
Evaluation of effective mass during head impact due to standing falls

The objective of this study is to determine the effective mass of a head impact during a standing fall using a HumaneticsTM HYBRID III 5th percentile female and a 50th percentile male anthropomorphic test dummy (ATD). The ATDs were instrumented with an array of tri-axial accelerometers and dropped from different initial positions onto a force plate. Five scenarios of falls were conducted to study the effect of fall direction/type on the effective mass of the head impact. The effective mass for forward and backward standing falls can be estimated as the mass of the head plus 49% and 47% of the neck mass for the female and male ATDs. The lateral fall showed different response where less of the neck mass is involved resulting in an effective mass, which includes the mass of the head plus 6% and 22% of the neck mass for the female and male ATDs, respectively.
Family psychiatric screening instrument for epidemiologic studies: pilot testing and validation

Family history, a risk factor for psychiatric disorders, is infrequently assessed in epidemiologic studies due to time and cost constraints. We designed a brief computer-scorable instrument, the Family History Screen for Epidemiologic Studies (FHE), which collects a pedigree and screens for 15 DSM-III diagnoses in an informant and in his family members. The FHE was administered to one informant in 77 families in which we had collected pedigrees, interviewed 77 informants and 239 relatives using the Lifetime Anxiety version of the schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia or the Epidemiologic version of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Aged Children, and performed best-estimate diagnoses. We evaluated the accuracy with which the FHE predicted best-estimate diagnoses. For adults reporting on themselves, the FHE demonstrated high levels of sensitivity and specificity for depression (67.4, 75.0) and panic (92.5, 89.2), and low sensitivity and high specificity for substance abuse (33.3, 93.6). For informants reporting on adult relatives, sensitivity was low and specificity was high for depression (35.2, 84.9), panic (20.0, 91.7), and substance abuse (42.1, 93.4). For informants reporting on children, perhaps due to lower prevalence, sensitivity and specificity were poor. The FHE is a good screen for psychiatric disorders in adult informants, but it is not useful for family history. It may be useful in primary care medical settings as a screen for psychiatric history.
Enhancing Informed Consent in Clinical Trials and Exploring Resistances to Disclosing Adverse Clinical Trial Results

The impression one derives from the target article on “The Duty to Disclose Adverse Clinical Trials Results” is that Liao and colleagues (2009) envision a research platform consisting only of a tea...
Role of the VEGFR3/VEGFD receptor axis in TGFβ1 activation of primary prostate cell lines

BACKGROUND Reports indicate that vascular endothelial growth factor receptor type 3 (VEGFR3) regulates cellular functions such as invasion, proliferation, and chemo-resistance. However, the exact function of the VEGFR3 signaling axis in prostate epithelial cells is poorly characterized. METHODS The goal of this study was to evaluate whether TGFβ1 in combination with VEGFD can promote pre-malignant invasive activities of intermediate basal cells (IBC-10a) isolated from human prostate cancer (Gleason score 6). RESULTS hTERT immortalized IBC-10a cells normally grew as confluent “cobblestoned” monolayers, but treatment with TGFβ1 (10 ng/ml for 2–6 hr) dissociated the cell–cell junctions and induced VEGFR3 translocation to the cell surface. This event was not inhibited by 10 µM cycloheximide or puromycin, indicating transcription and protein synthesis were not required. We further discovered that TGFβ1 in combination with VEGFD induced a significant increase in the invasive activity of IBC-10a cells (>26% and 53% after 24 and 48 hr, respectively) in modified Boyden Chamber assays. TGFβRII receptor antibodies specifically blocked TGFβ1 induction of VEGFR3 translocation to the cell surface and blocked VEGFD-induced invasion. Zymograms revealed that TGFβ1 (and not VEGFR3) stimulated the secretion of MMP-2 and MMP-9, presumably to promote cell invasion. The cell invasion assays confirmed that antibodies specific for TGFβII receptor, MMP-2 and MMP-9 and VEGFR3, independently blocked TGFβ1-induced invasion. CONCLUSIONS For the first time, we have demonstrated the mechanism by which TGFβ1 stimulates VEGFD/VEGFR3 receptor axis activation leading to increased cell migration and invasion by primary intermediate basal cell cultures. Prostate 69: 982–990, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Analysis of vegetable oils for flavor quality by direct gas chromatography

Recently, a direct gas Chromatographic method for examining volatiles in vegetable oils was reported [Dupuy et al., JAOCS 50:340 (1973); and Dupuy et al., Ibid. 53:628 (1976)]. The procedure stimulated the development of instrumental techniques for determining odor and flavor characteristics of vegetable oils. This symposium paper describes modifications of the original direct gas Chromatographie procedure that substantially enhance its sensitivity and applicability. Profiles of volatiles for several experimental oils obtained by the modified system are presented, together with mass spectral data characterizing significant flavor-related peaks. Regression analysis of the instrumental data, with oil flavor scores, indicates that reliable flavor characteristics of high- and low-quality vegetable oils may be obtained rapidly and efficiently by instrumentation.
A comment on Niehans' ‘Innovation in monetary policy’

This comment challenges Niehans' contention that in a world of zero asset conversion costs the monetary base would disappear. It argues that a demand for standby liquidity is critical to a private financial system that is exposed to periodic stresses. The comment also takes issue with Niehans' argument that money is non-neutral by asserting the Ricardian view that government bonds are not wealth.