cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Induction of dark keratinocytes by 12-O-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13-acetate and mezerein as an indicator of tumor-promoting efficiency

12-O-Tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) and mezerein (MZ) are diterpene esters of similar structure and approximately equipotent on a molar basis as far as their hyperplasiogenic, inflammatogenic, and induction of ornithine decarboxylase activity effects in mouse skin are concerned. On the other hand, TPA is much more effective than MZ as a tumor promoter. The percentage of dark basal keratinocytes was determined in the interfollicular epidermis (IFE) of mice topically treated with 1, 2, or 4 ..mu..g of either TPA or MZ in a single application and studied at 12, 24, 48, 96, and 144 h thereafter. The results showed that TPA induced 2 to 3 times more dark cells than MZ in the IFE as well as in the infundibular portion of the hair follicle. The latter epithelium presented a larger number of dark keratinocytes than the IFE in all experimental and control situations, and the differences between the effects of TPA and MZ were even greater in the infundibular epidermis than in the IFE. TPA induced an increase of 5 to 11 times over the control number of dark cells (approx. 2% in IFE), reaching maximum values of 21% in the basal layer 24 h after topical application of 4 ..mu..gmore » of TPA. MZ only produced a 3- to 6-fold increment. The labeling indices of the basal layer and of the dark basal cells were markedly and similarly increased with both compounds. The different dark-cell inducing characteristics seem to be the only detectable difference in early effects produced by TPA and MZ and would point to the importance of the production of the dedifferentiated dark cells during early stages of tumor promotion.« less
Comparative Analysis of Spatial Covariance Matrix Estimation Methods in OFDM Communication Systems

The performance of the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) communication systems may be significantly improved by use of the multiple antenna techniques. One of the multiple antenna techniques applications is the co-channel interference mitigation by exploiting the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) signal detection algorithm. The realization of the algorithm requires knowledge of interference plus additive noise spatial covariance matrix (SCM) estimate for every subcarrier of the OFDM symbol. In this paper the independent SCM estimation for every subcarrier of OFDM symbol is considered first and then the algorithm is proposed for the enhancement of such estimate by taking into account the frequency correlation of the propagation channel and additional knowledge of OFDM symbol structure. As a result, it is shown that exploiting of the a priori information about the channel impulse response delay spread and symbol structure may lead to the significant improvement of the estimation accuracy.
Trabecular structure: preliminary application of MR interferometry

A new approach to probe the structure of trabecular bone in the vertebral bodies in humans was evaluated, and preliminary data are presented. The proposed method is based on the hypothesis that the presence of two physical phases--bone and bone marrow--causes a magnetic field distribution across the imaging voxel. The resulting spread in resonance frequency produces line broadening, which is measured as the decay rate of the region of interest signal intensity that has the properties of an interferogram. The interferogram is the result of two principal chemically shifted components of bone marrow--fat and water--getting in and out of phase with one another while being attenuated by T2* processes from the magnetic field distribution within the measuring volume. The time constant for the decay (T2*) can then be obtained by means of curve-fitting techniques. T2* in healthy persons is found to increase slightly with age. However, patients with osteoporosis (low bone mineral density and/or spine compression fractures) have significantly prolonged T2* values, which are interpreted as arising from an increase in the intertrabecular space.
The Sodium Pump and Cardiotonic Steroids-induced Signal Transduction Protein Kinases and Calcium-signaling Microdomain in Regulation of Transporter Trafficking

The Na/K-ATPase was discovered as an energy transducing ion pump. A major difference between the Na/K-ATPase and other P-type ATPases is its ability to bind a group of chemicals called cardiotonic steroids (CTS). The plant-derived CTS such as digoxin are valuable drugs for the management of cardiac diseases, whereas ouabain and marinobufagenin (MBG) have been identified as a new class of endogenous hormones. Recent studies have demonstrated that the endogenous CTS are important regulators of renal Na(+) excretion and blood pressure. The Na/K-ATPase is not only an ion pump, but also an important receptor that can transduce the ligand-like effect of CTS on intracellular protein kinases and Ca(2+) signaling. Significantly, these CTS-provoked signaling events are capable of reducing the surface expression of apical NHE3 (Na/H exchanger isoform 3) and basolateral Na/K-ATPase in renal proximal tubular cells. These findings suggest that endogenous CTS may play an important role in regulation of tubular Na(+) excretion under physiological conditions; conversely, a defect at either the receptor level (Na/K-ATPase) or receptor-effector coupling would reduce the ability of renal proximal tubular cells to excrete Na(+), thus culminating/resulting in salt-sensitive hypertension.
Crowd-based recognition of web interaction patterns

Web automation often involves users describing complex tasks to a system, with directives generally limited to low-level constituent actions like "click the search button." This level of description is unnatural and makes it difficult to generalize the task across websites. In this paper, we propose a system for automatically recognizing higher-level interaction patterns from user's completion of tasks, such as "searching for cat videos" or "replying to a post". We present PatFinder, a system that identifies these patterns using the input of crowd workers. We validate the system by generating data for 10 tasks, having 62 crowd workers label them, and automatically extracting 14 interaction patterns. Our results show that the number of patterns grows sublinearly with the number of tasks, suggesting that a small finite set of patterns may suffice to describe the vast majority of tasks on the web.
An Improved Trace Analysis for N-Nitrosoureas from Biological Media

Bis(2-chloroethyl)-l-nltrosourea, BCNU, a widely used anticancer agent for a variety o! neoplasms, can be rapidly, conveniently, and inexpensively determined at trace levels of clinical Importance, trom a variety ot biological media, using HPLC-UV approaches. Limits of detection for BCNU from patient and control samples have been compared tor HPLC-UV, HPLC-EC, and the Grless Test. The distribution and disappear- ance of BCNU from blood samples can be quickly and easily determined using the methods described. Individual blood samples are completely analyzed In less than 30 mins, from the time of sampling to quallta- tire and quantitative results.
Real-Time Automated SHM for Systems in Interplanetary Subsurface Exploration

This paper presents a real-time automated structural health monitoring system (SHM) for a drill system. The drill system is for obtaining subsurface samples during interplanetary exploration. Such an SHM has stringent specifications including a fast-response of the health of the system before the faults or defects have the potential to stop the drilling operation, use of drill motor as the internal actuator, a need for non-contact sensors, automation of the complete SHM system, real-time capability and a reliability of monitored health of the structure. The paper presents the formulation, development and validation of such an SHM through a combination of analysis, laboratory tests and field tests on a selected test vehicle.
Barber's Typological Analysis of Political Leaders

James Barber's predictive theory of presidential behavior has evoked varied reactions, which have ranged from praise for its sensitization of readers to the fact that personality affects presidential performance, to criticisms for the emphasis that the theory places on personality, to questions about the validity of the theory. This article addresses itself to the criticisms and the questions.Concerning the questions, it shows, first, that in analyzing presidents, Barber assumes the validity of “character”–the core construct of the theory. It shows, second, that Barber's earlier research on Connecticut legislators, from which “character” derives, does not empirically establish the construct.Concerning the criticisms, the article isolates a possible origin of the psychological reductionism evident in Barber's explanations of presidential performance. The article identifies a similar reductionism in Barber's legislative research and attributes this reductionism to a fallacious extra-empirical argument.
An Investigation of the effect of Freestream Turbulence on the Laminar Separation Bubble on an SD7003 Airfoil

Measurements and computations of the separation and reattachment locations are reported for the SD7003 airfoil with the chord Reynolds number in the range 2 – 4 ×10. Measurements are based on multi-line Molecular Tagging Velocimetry. Comparisons of experimental results with current computations and previous experiments point to challenges involved in the experimental determination of separation bubble characteristics. Results also bring into focus the facility dependent issues, specifically freestream turbulence, that impacts the experimental data. Preliminary results indicate a downstream/upstream movement of separation/reattachment, respectively, with added freestream turbulence. This observation may explain some of the discrepancies among the various experimental and computational results.
Local Governmental Expenditures and Political Attitudes A Look at Nine Major U.S. Cities

This project is a correlational analysis of the relationship between government expendi tures and citizens' political orientations at the local level. It is based on the Urban Observatory data collected in the summer of 1970, and expenditure figures reported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Three general political attitudes (efficacy, trust, and satisfaction) are correlated with total per capita expenditures in nine large U.S. cities. Highly significant correlations are found for two of the attitudes, trust and satisfaction, with efficacy being more directly related to a citizen's socioeconomic status. The most interesting aspect of the relationships uncovered is their negative direction, a finding which is certainly consistent with the current public demands for fiscal conservatism at all levels of government.
3D capture for computer graphics

We examine the use of 3D scanned objects in computer graphics applications. We consider the requirements for the types and resolution of data required. We also identify some outstanding research issues in this area.
Fundamentals of Life-Cycle Cost Analysis

Benefit-cost analysis (BCA) is a framework for evaluating the desirability of transportation capital and maintenance investments. Life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) has been used for similar purposes, so it may be helpful to compare these two methods for scope and consistency. It is concluded that LCCA is a restricted form of BCA that can be applied in situations where benefits are assumed to be equal for all alternatives. Under these conditions, the project alternative with the lowest discounted cost is preferred. User costs may be included if relevant to the evaluation.
Combinatorial regulation of phospholipid biosynthetic gene expression by the UME6, SIN3 and RPD3 genes.

The Ume6p–Sin3p–Rpd3p complex negatively regulates expression of genes containing a Ume6p binding site. However, these regulatory proteins also function independently to regulate gene expression both negatively and positively. The model system for this combinatorial regulation is the yeast phospholipid biosynthetic pathway. Sin3p negatively regulates the INO1, CHO1, CHO2 and OPI3 genes while Ume6p negatively regulates the INO1 gene and positively regulates the other genes. We have suggested that the positive regulation results from indirect effects on expression of the INO2 transcriptional activator gene. Here, we demonstrate that the effect of Ume6p on INO2 gene expression is also indirect. We also show that Rpd3p is a negative regulator of phospholipid biosynthetic gene expression. The ability of Ume6p, Sin3p and Rpd3p to differentially regulate expression of the phospholipid biosynthetic genes affects phospholipid composition. A sin3 mutant strain lacks detectable levels of phosphatidylethanolamine and elevated levels of phosphatidylcholine (PC) and a rpd3 mutant strain has reduced levels of PC. These alterations in membrane composition suggest that there may exist additional differences in regulation of phospholipid biosynthetic gene expression and that membrane compositions may be coordinated with other biological processes regulated by Ume6p, Sin3p and Rpd3p.
pDCS: Security and Privacy Support for Data-Centric Sensor Networks

The demand for efficient data dissemination/access techniques to find relevant data from within a sensor network has led to the development of data-centric sensor (DCS) networks, where the sensor data instead of sensor nodes are named based on attributes such as event type or geographic location. However, saving data inside a network also creates security problems due to the lack of tamper resistance of the sensor nodes and the unattended nature of the sensor network. For example, an attacker may simply locate and compromise the node storing the event of his interest. To address these security problems, we present pDCS, a privacy-enhanced DCS network which offers different levels of data privacy based on different cryptographic keys. pDCS also includes an efficient key management scheme to facilitate the management of multiple types of keys used in the system. In addition, we propose several query optimization techniques based on Euclidean Steiner tree and keyed bloom filter (KBF) to minimize the query overhead while preserving query privacy. Finally, detailed analysis and simulations show that the KBF scheme can significantly reduce the message overhead with the same level of query delay and maintain a very high level of query privacy.
Angiotensin receptors alter myocardial infarction-induced remodeling of the guinea pig cardiac plexus

Neurohumoral remodeling is fundamental to the evolution of heart disease. This study examined the effects of chronic treatment with an ACE inhibitor (captopril, 3 mg·kg−1·day−1), AT1 receptor antagonist (losartan, 3 mg·kg−1·day−1), or AT2 receptor agonist (CGP42112A, 0.14 mg·kg−1·day−1) on remodeling of the guinea pig intrinsic cardiac plexus following chronic myocardial infarction (MI). MI was surgically induced and animals recovered for 6 or 7 wk, with or without drug treatment. Intracellular voltage recordings from whole mounts of the cardiac plexus were used to monitor changes in neuronal responses to norepinephrine (NE), muscarinic agonists (bethanechol), or ANG II. MI produced an increase in neuronal excitability with NE and a loss of sensitivity to ANG II. MI animals treated with captopril exhibited increased neuronal excitability with NE application, while MI animals treated with CGP42112A did not. Losartan treatment of MI animals did not alter excitability with NE compared with untreated MIs, but these animals did show an enhanced synaptic efficacy. This effect on synaptic function was likely due to presynaptic AT1 receptors, since ANG II was able to reduce output to nerve fiber stimulation in control animals, and this effect was prevented by inclusion of losartan in the bath solution. Analysis of AT receptor expression by Western blot showed a decrease in both AT1 and AT2 receptors with MI that was reversed by all three drug treatments. These data indicate that neuronal remodeling of the guinea pig cardiac plexus following MI is mediated, in part, by activation of both AT1 and AT2 receptors.
Mexican-American Studies in Tucson, Arizona and the Acosta v. Huppenthal Decision

This note examines the political context surrounding the banning of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson, Arizona and the Acosta v. Huppenthal decision, which leaves the ban largely intact. The convergence of economic crisis and partisan politics contributed to the rise in anxiety over the demographic shifts of the state of Arizona, for which Mexican American Studies became a symbolic target for Republicans. Mexican American Studies was declared in violation of a new law passed by the Republican dominated legislature, A.R.S. § 15-112, by Arizona Superintendent John Huppenthal, despite the conclusion by an independent audit he ordered which concluded otherwise. This left leaders within the Mexican American community and civil rights organizations with the conclusion that the ban on Mexican American Studies was politically motivated. This note explores the motivations by individual political actors, such as the current Attorney General of Arizona Tom Horne, and how he rose to power on a platform centered on the ban against Mexican American Studies.
VII: Skelton's Speak, Parrot

For in this processe Parrot nothing hath surmysed, No matter pretendyd, nor nothyng enterprysed, But that metaphora, allegoria with all, Shall be his protectyon, his pauys, and his wall. (ll. 205–208) THE wall of metaphor and allegory that Skelton built around his Parrot perhaps served to keep off the pursuivants of his archenemy, Cardinal Wolsey; certainly it has proved a formidable obstacle to the comprehension of the reader of today. The Reverend Alexander Dyce, to whom we are indebted for what is still the only edition of Skelton's poems deriving directly from the sources, provides illuminating notes to scattered passages in Speak, Parrot, but admits his inability to make the whole intelligible. Friedrich Brie, whose learned Skelton Studien has contributed much to our knowledge of the poet, omits the troublesome Parrot altogether from his consideration except for a short note on the question of date. Koelbing essays merely to sketch its general structure with but occasional specific reference. The only reasoned attempt at clearing the confusion of the satire is that of Professor Berdan in Speke, Parrot, An Interpretation of Skelton's Satire.
Trajectory synthesis via parameter optimal control for automated air traffic control

This paper reformulates the trajectory synthesis problem for air traffic control management as a parameter optimal control problem. In aircraft flight management systems and the Center-TRACON Automation System designed for automated air traffic control, an aircraft trajectory is divided into a series of flight segments to emulate standard pilot procedures. The trajectory is numerically integrated segment by segment for a given speed profile. A specified time of arrival may be achieved by varying the speed profile. The location at the beginning or end of each flight segment is found by capturing a specific monotonically changing variable. Iterations are used to capture the variable precisely. In this paper, the independent variable of integration is changed from time to altitude if the segment includes an altitude change and to path distance if there is no altitude change. The values of the independent variables at the segment junctions are selected as control parameters. These parameters are optimized to meet the boundary conditions of altitude, speed, and time, subject to the aircraft equations of motion. The specified path distance is naturally met in the problem formulation. The resulting parameter optimal control problem can be solved with a gradient scheme. The proposed method removes the need to iterate to a capture at all locations and thus saves computation time. It solves the open-time trajectory integrations and meet-time iterations in one algorithm. Furthermore, the method will automatically produce a sensible approximate solution if the exact solution fails. A numerical example is presented demonstrating the method. * Research Scientist, Member AIAA t Assistant Professor, Dept. of Aerospace Eng. and Mechanics, Member AIAA Copyright © 1996 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. No copyright is asserted in the United States under Title 17, U.S. Code. The U.S. Government has a royalty-free license to exercise all rights under the copyright claimed herein for government purposes. All other rights are reserved by the copyright owner.
New Screening Method for Reservoir by Natural Gas-Injection Miscible Flooding Process

Natural gas injection miscible flooding is one of means for EOR. This paper presents the factors that affect gas injection results based on the analysis of lean-gas and rich-gas injection miscible flooding mechanisms and gas injection performance analysis, by which the related assessment index systems are established. Combining with reservoir physics and reservoir engineering evaluation methods, the related indices are quantified. The modern decision analysis method and optimal scheme index assignment method are used to synthetically screen and assess the candidate reservoir. The result shows that this method could reflect the influences of various factors on gas injection, and will be applied on pilot test.
Time course of reversibility of accelerated fibrinogen disappearance in diabetes mellitus: association with intravascular volume shifts

Accelerated fibrinogen disappearance in diabetic patients is reversible with normalization of blood glucose. To define the time course of this reversal, we measured 125I-fibrinogen disappearance in 19 diabetic patients experiencing acute changes in blood glucose, as monitored and controlled by a microprocessor-controlled closed loop insulin infusion system (artificial beta cell). The data were corrected for blood volume dilutional changes and fit to a model describing two sequential exponential functions and a single exponential function. The sequential model provided the best fit for all but one patient. This indicates that there were two distinct rates of fibrinogen disappearance and suggests that the time course of reversal of accelerated fibrinogen disappearance in diabetic patients is very rapid, if not immediate. Rapid fibrinogen turnover during hyperglycemia was temporally associated with vascular volume changes, reflected as dilutional changes of 51Cr-RBC concentrations. These findings were also associated with an increase in pulse pressure during hyperglycemia, suggesting blood volume expansion due to an osmotic mechanism. The results of this study suggest a picture of vascular volume expansion and contraction, perhaps secondary to the osmotic effects of hyperglycemia. Accelerated fibrinogen turnover associated with these events may be related to increased vascular permeability and/or increased fibrin formation. These events, in concert, may contribute to the initiation and/or propagation of diabetic vascular sequelae.
Should all patients with significant proteinuria take a renin-angiotensin inhibitor?

Most of them should, with exceptions due to adverse effects such as angioedema, cough, and hyperkalemia.
Sublime perversions: Capturing the uncanny affects of queer temporalities in Mississippian ruins

During the 19th century, sublime depictions of North American mounds captivated Euro-American colonists and Romantic travelers. Settlers frequently embedded farms and homesteads into the material f...
Structures with Plate Components

In the previous lectures the macrodiscrete field method was introduced and applied to a variety of continuous beam problems. Mathematical solutions for continuous beams are not very exicting to the designer interested in the innovative application of complex structural system sand repeated use of such simple structures for illustrative purposes may fail to motivate the student for continued study of the subject. This would be unfortunate. Such simple illustrative problems were selected because their solutions by other techniques are well known to the audience. It was hoped this would facilitate assimilation of the new methods through their application to familiar systems. It will be the purpose of this lecture to demonstrate the ease with which the new methods can be used to solve more complex systems many of which are intractable by classical methods. The problems will be selected with a view toward the relative elegance of the solution and the heuristic value of the structural system rather than attempting to provide the most general possible set of design formulas.
Photosynthetic Pathways and Climate

This chapter explores how atmosphere and thermal environment influence the type of photosynthetic system that predominates within a terrestrial ecosystem. It is found that current distribution of C 3 and C 4 photosynthetic pathways in today's ecosystems is a strong function of temperature. Changing atmospheric CO 2 levels modify this geographical distribution. The global emergence of C 4 -dominated ecosystems in the late Miocene suggests that atmospheric CO 2 levels decreased across a threshold of ∼500 ppmV favoring C 4 photosynthesis over C 3 photosynthesis in warm ecosystems. More recently during glacial periods when atmospheric CO 2 levels decreased to 180 ppmV, C 4 taxa were apparently more abundant than they are today. These changes in C 3 /C 4 abundances have had enormous impacts on both evolution and distribution of mammalian grazers. The mechanistic basis for this impact on mammal herbivory may be feeding preferences associated with differential digestibility of C 3 versus C 4 grasses.
Statistical Thermodynamics of Equilibrium: STE

Starting from ste a heuristic procedure is used to deepen the theory to ste. The main idea is a sharpening of the Boltzmann—Einstein principle according to which the probability of a fluctuation state is given by the exponential of its entropy cost. The sharpening consists mainly in the more precise calculation of this quantity for fluctuations within a closed system and for fluctuations in an open system through coupling with the environ­ment. The theory is valid for systems of any size, and the continuity of the thermodynamic formalism in the space of intensive variables is shown to be consistent with the molecular and quantal discontinuities in ordinary space.
Micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cell stacks

Abstract Similar to the original direct flame fuel cell the flame-assisted fuel cell, which has a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) operating in combustion exhaust, can potentially simplify the fuel cell system and has applications in micro-Combined Heat and Power. Development and testing of a 9 micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cell stack is demonstrated in this work. Two different systems are investigated having 1) fixed fuel flow rate and varying air flow rate and 2) fixed total flow rate of air and fuel for the micro-Combined Heat and Power burners. The micro-tubular flame-assisted fuel cell stack achieves a significant performance of 237 mW cm −2 in model methane combustion exhaust at 0.5 V and 790 °C with a lanthanum strontium manganite based cathode. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy reveals that the fuel cell ohmic losses are unaltered by variations in the exhaust species concentrations while the polarization losses increase with decreasing first-stage combustion fuel-air equivalence ratio. Variations in the combustion exhaust temperature effects both the ohmic and polarization losses.
Anaerobic identification systems.

Commercially produced prepackaged “kit” microsystems were evaluated for the identification of anaerobes. The API 20A and Minitek Anaerobe II systems by themselves were inadequate; even with the use of supplemental tests, agreement of identifications with a conventional method was only fair. Anldent is a new and radically different system that provides accurate identifications after only 4 hours’ incubation in room air without the need for a significant number of supplemental tests.
Elements of Information and Numerical Complexity of Polynomial Extremal Problems

After the famous works of Church, Godel and Turing (see [Ta 51], [AHU 76]) in 1930-th one can clearly define what the notion of potential solvability of some class of problems means. They established the existense of non-solvable (non-resolvable) problems that arise in logic and in the theory of computation in a natural way. Problem is considered algorithmicaly solvable if it can be solved by appropriate Turing machine. But the partition of all problems in two classes (solvable or nonsolvable) is a very rough classification. Further more detailed separation of solvable problems into subclasses can be done by establishing of upper bounds on computational resources necessary for obtaining their solution. Two main resources used by an algorithm is time (the number of elementary steps of the algorithm) and the memory (working memory area). We can obtain the upper bounds for the necessary resources studying an arbitrary algorithm that solves the given problem. But to get an answer for the question of how good a particular algorithm is we must find the lower bounds for computational resources, the limits that cannot be improved by the “best” algorithm among the potentially possible ones. Obtaining the nontrivial lower bounds is a very hard job in many important cases. But even in the case with no chance for lower and upper bounds to be close enough, one has a possibility to make a comparative classification of the problem by associating it with other problems from a wide enough class. So we have two types of estimates of computational complexity: absolute and relative. As we deal with polynomial functions it is natural for us to consider examples linked with the first order theory of solvability for real numbers.
Philologia (Con’t.)

The task of the Christian thinker does not come to an end with reflection on the Word in the Bible. Nature is also a “book” and history as well: these are filled with “ciphers” — “signs with concealed meaning” — which point to this same word contained therein. The Philologian is a hearer and interpreter of this universal and omnipresent Word.
Evidence that polycystins are involved in Hydra cnidocyte discharge

Like other cnidarians, the freshwater organism Hydra is characterized by the possession of cnidocytes (stinging cells). Most cnidocytes are located on hydra tentacles, where they are organized along with sensory cells and ganglion cells into battery complexes. The function of the battery complexes is to integrate multiple types of stimuli for the regulation of cnidocyte discharge. The molecular mechanisms controlling the discharge of cnidocytes are not yet fully understood, but it is known that discharge depends on extracellular Ca2+ and that mechanically induced cnidocyte discharge can be enhanced by the presence of prey extracts and other chemicals. Experiments in this paper show that a PKD2 (polycystin 2) transient receptor potential (TRP) channel is expressed in hydra tentacles and bases. PKD2 (TRPP) channels belong to the TRP channel superfamily and are non-selective Ca2+ channels involved in the transduction of both mechanical and chemical stimuli in other organisms. Non-specific PKD2 channel inhibitors Neo (neomycin) and Gd3+ (gadolinium) inhibit both prey capture and cnidocyte discharge in hydra. The PKD2 activator Trip (triptolide) enhances cnidocyte discharge in both starved and satiated hydra and reduces the inhibition of cnidocyte discharge caused by Neo. PKD1 and 2 proteins are known to act together to transduce mechanical and chemical stimuli; in situ hybridization experiments show that a PKD1 gene is expressed in hydra tentacles and bases, suggesting that polycystins play a direct or indirect role in cnidocyte discharge.
Identification of entomopathogenic fungi

This chapter provides essential assistance for the identification of the most important genera (and main species) of fungal pathogens affecting insects, mites, and spiders. The key allows identifications regardless of which major spore types might be present with the specimen. The phylogenetic affinities, descriptions of principal taxonomic characters, brief characterizations of the most important species, main taxonomic literature for the identification of included species, and short discussions of nearly 30 genera are presented. Major recent taxonomic changes due to phylogenetic reclassifications of several of the most important genera treated here are also discussed. Techniques to prepare and to observe slides, to set microscopes for Kohler illumination (thereby assuring the optimal resolution of images), and how to make semi-permanent slide mounts are also provided.
RETHINKING THE ROLE OF CORONARY ANGIOGRAPHY IN THE EVALUATION OF HEART FAILURE WITH REDUCED EJECTION FRACTION IN YOUNG PATIENTS

Background: American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines recommend coronary angiography (CA) in all newly diagnosed patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) as a screening method for obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). This is a class IIa
Effects of Reduced Oxygen on Embryos and Larvae of the White Sucker, Coho Salmon, Brook Trout, and Walleye

This study was made to determine the effects of continuous-reduced dissolved oxygen concentrations on the development and survival of the white sucker, (Catostomus commersoni (Lacepede)), coho salmon, (Oncorhynchus kisutch (Walbaum)), brook trout, (Salvelinus fontinalis (Mitchell)), and walleye, (Stizostedion vitreum vitreum (Mitchell)), from fertilization until the larvae were feeding. The effects of reduced oxygen concentrations on survival and hatching of embryos have been described for white suckers (Oseid and Smith, 1971b), coho salmon (Shumway et al., 1964; Phillips et al., 1966), brook trout (Garside, 1966), and walleyes (Oseid and Smith, 1971a; Van Horn and Balch, 1956). However, these studies extended only through hatching and give no information on larval development and survival. Mason (1969) subjected coho salmon embryos and larvae to 2 reduced oxygen concentrations, but developmental delay at the reduced oxygen levels was compensated for by adjusted water temperatures.
Computationally guided discovery of thermoelectric materials

The potential for advances in thermoelectric materials, and thus solid-state refrigeration and power generation, is immense. Progress so far has been limited by both the breadth and diversity of the chemical space and the serial nature of experimental work. In this Review, we discuss how recent computational advances are revolutionizing our ability to predict electron and phonon transport and scattering, as well as materials dopability, and we examine efficient approaches to calculating critical transport properties across large chemical spaces. When coupled with experimental feedback, these high-throughput approaches can stimulate the discovery of new classes of thermoelectric materials. Within smaller materials subsets, computations can guide the optimal chemical and structural tailoring to enhance materials performance and provide insight into the underlying transport physics. Beyond perfect materials, computations can be used for the rational design of structural and chemical modifications (such as defects, interfaces, dopants and alloys) to provide additional control on transport properties to optimize performance. Through computational predictions for both materials searches and design, a new paradigm in thermoelectric materials discovery is emerging. The discovery of new thermoelectric materials is challenging owing to the diversity of the chemical space and to the serial nature of experimental work. This Review highlights the recent progress in computationally guided discovery of thermoelectric materials and identifies the key outstanding challenges.
Why So Many Coupons

Coupons—those slivers of papers that offer price breaks on so many of the products we buy—seem ubiquitous. They fall out of Sunday newspapers like confetti. They stare at us on almost every page of magazines we peruse. They cover the wrappings and boxes, inside and outside, of foods and other products we buy. Postal workers stuff our mailboxes with them. And they line the shelves of grocery store aisles. Many families have organized banks of them.
Linked Serial Data: Mapping the CONSER Standard Record to BIBFRAME

The CONSER BIBFRAME mapping project began in December 2015, and completed a mapping between the elements of the CONSER Standard Record and BIBFRAME 1.0. Subsequently, the group has converted that m...
MPI performance engineering with the MPI tool interface: The integration of MVAPICH and TAU

Abstract The desire for high performance on scalable parallel systems is increasing the complexity and tunability of MPI implementations. The MPI Tools Information Interface (MPI_T) introduced as part of the MPI 3.0 standard provides an opportunity for performance tools and external software to introspect and understand MPI runtime behavior at a deeper level to detect scalability issues. The interface also provides a mechanism to fine-tune the performance of the MPI library dynamically at runtime. In this paper, we propose an infrastructure that extends existing components — TAU, MVAPICH2, and BEACON to take advantage of the MPI_T interface and offer runtime introspection, online monitoring, recommendation generation, and autotuning capabilities. We validate our design by developing optimizations for a combination of production and synthetic applications. Using our infrastructure, we implement an autotuning policy for AmberMD (a molecular dynamics package) that monitors and reduces the internal memory footprint of the MVAPICH2 MPI library without affecting performance. For applications such as MiniAMR whose collective communication is latency sensitive, our infrastructure is able to generate recommendations to enable hardware offloading of collectives supported by MVAPICH2. By implementing this recommendation, the MPI time for MiniAMR at 224 processes reduces by 15%.
Lipidated α/α-AA heterogeneous peptides as antimicrobial agents.

Abstract With an increase of resistance in bacteria there is an urgent need for alternative treatment methods that could complement conventional antibiotics. In the past two decades, focus has been drawn to Host Defense Peptides (HDPs) as potential antibiotic agents. Herein we reported our studies on the development of lipidated α/α-AA heterogeneous peptides as a new class of HDP mimetics. These compounds showed potent antimicrobial activity toward both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, and they also displayed excellent selectivity as they only exhibited limited hemolytic activity. The fluorescence microscopy suggested that the mechanism of action of these heterogeneous peptides is bacterial membrane disruption, which is believed to be the major reason why it is difficult for bacteria to develop resistance. The subsequent time kill studies suggested that these compounds could rapidly eradicate bacteria. Moreover, this class of compounds could also effectively clear biofilms formed by both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. These findings suggested that lipidated α/α-AA heterogeneous peptides, as a new class of peptidomimetics, are promising antibiotic agents combating antibiotic resistance.
Persistence and Biodegradation of Herbicides

The destruction of herbicides applied to the environment by man is essential to their sustained use. Without such a mechanism, they would ultimately accumulate to levels that would be phytotoxic to most higher plants. Ideally a given herbicide should persist just long enough to control the target weeds and then be rapidly degraded to its constituent atoms. The accomplishment of this ideal situation can only be a goal; however, it must be approximated for a truly successful practice. If the period of persistence is too short, weed control will be inadequate and other control measures must be utilized. If the period of peristence is too long, injury to susceptible plants subsequently planted or long-term environmental pollution can occur. Based on our present knowledge, the latter situation does not appear to be a problem with the herbicides currently used; however, it must be an area of continuing investigation.
The Perception of Musical Tones

Tones form the building blocks of most music. This chapter reviews how musical tones are perceived when presented alone and in combination with other tones. After a brief review of psychoacoustic methods, the concepts of loudness, pitch, timbre, and their interactions are discussed along with classic findings and recent advances in the field. The final section reviews the perception of tones when they are presented in combination, along with the concepts and recent empirical findings on the perception of consonance and dissonance.
Early Warning of Food Security Crises in Urban Areas: The Case of Harare, Zimbabwe, 2007

In 2007, the citizens of Harare, Zimbabwe began experiencing an intense food security crisis. Due to a complex mix of poor government policies, high inflation rates and production declines due to drought, the crisis produced a massive increase in the number of food-insecure people in the capital city. The international humanitarian aid response to this crisis was largely successful due to early agreement among donors and humanitarian aid officials as to the size and nature of the problem. This paper summarizes an analysis of MODIS NDVI which provided highly accurate estimates of corn production in Zimbabwe in 2007. The estimates enabled an early and decisive movement of resources, supporting the timely delivery of food aid to food insecure residents in Harare. Remote sensing data provided a clear and compelling assessment of significant crop production shortfalls, which gave donors of humanitarian assistance a single number around which they could come to agreement. This use of satellite data typifies how remote sensing may be used in early warning systems to identify food security crises in Africa.
Multi-level load balancing with an integrated runtime approach

The recent trend of increasing numbers of cores per chip has resulted in vast amounts of on-node parallelism. These high core counts result in hardware variability that introduces imbalance. Applications are also becoming more complex, re-sulting in dynamic load imbalance. Load imbalance of any kind can result in loss of performance and system utilization. We address the challenge of handling both transient and persistent load imbalances while maintaining locality with low overhead. In this paper, we propose an integrated runtime system that combines the Charm++ distributed programming model with concurrent tasks to mitigate load imbalances within and across shared memory address spaces. It utilizes a periodic assignment of work to cores based on load measurement, in combination with user created tasks to handle load imbalance. We integrate OpenMP with Charm++ to enable creation of potential tasks via OpenMP's parallel loop construct. This is also available to MPI applications through the Adaptive MPI implementation. We demonstrate the benefits of our work on three applications. We show improvements of Lassen by 29.6% on Cori and 46.5% on Theta. We also demonstrate the benefits on a Charm++ application, ChaNGa by 25.7% on Theta, as well as an MPI proxy application, Kripke, using Adaptive MPI.
Single Neuron Firing Rate Statistics in Motor Cortex During Execution and Observation of Movement

Mirror neurons, which fire during both the execution and observation of movement, are believed to play an important role in motor processing and learning. However, much work still remains to understand the similarities and differences in how these neurons compute in the motor cortex during movement execution and observation. Here, we performed experiments where a monkey both executes and observes a center-out-and-back task within the same experimental session. By recording from putatively the same neural population, we were able to analyze and compare single neuron statistics between movement execution and observation. We found that a majority of neurons in the primary motor cortex (M1) and dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) have statistically different firing rate statistics between movement execution and observation. As a result of this difference, we then wondered if neurons during movement observation exhibited a similar characteristic to those during movement execution: changing of preferred directions as a function of movement speed. Interestingly, we found that while observed movement speed is encoded in the neural population, it only alters a small proportion of the neuron’s firing rate statistics. These results suggest that neural populations in Ml and PMd process information related to movement differently between execution and observation.
EGFR mutations in ovarian cancer correlate with response to gefitinib in a phase II trial of relapsed, persistent ovarian or primary peritoneal carcinoma: A Gynecologic Oncology Group study

5744 Tyrosine kinases (TKs) regulate signaling pathways that control critical cellular activities. When overexpressed or activated by mutations, TKs can contribute to the development of cancers. If tumor cells depend on a mutant TK for survival then the mutated enzyme can fortuitously serve as an Achilles’ heel for cancer therapy. Recent studies have shown that somatic mutations in the tyrosine kinase domain of the EGFR gene are associated with sensitivity of lung cancers to gefitinib (ZD1839, IressaTM), an anilinoquinazoline that reversibly competes with ATP at a critical ATP-binding site (lysine 745) in EGFR. What is not currently known is whether other cancers, including ovarian, possess certain EGFR mutations that contribute to tumorigenesis and can thereby be a target for therapy. Therefore, we examined archived tumor tissue from a phase II trial designed to assess the activity and tolerability of gefitinib in patients with recurrent or persistent ovarian carcinoma or primary peritoneal cancer. Four of the 27 patients on trial had a progression-free survival (PFS) ≥six months including one partial responder. We hypothesized that mutations in EGFR may exist that are associated with response. In this blinded study, we found that the patient who experienced the only objective response on this trial, which lasted 23 months, had a mutation in the catalytic domain of EGFR. By comparison, no mutations were observed in 23 of the cases for which DNA was retrievable and who had no measurable response to gefitinib (P
Contactless Rotor Excitation for Traction Motors

This paper proposes a new rotary transformer topology enabling significant reduction of leakage inductances, improvement of coupling factor and significant improvement of power transfer capability compared to traditional topologies thanks to its interleaved windings and resonant compensation circuits. The proposed rotary transformer features a non-ferrite rotating part made of lightweight strong non-conductive and non-magnetic composite material and a large airgap, allowing safe operation at high rotational speeds. Hence, this novel rotary transformer can enable the adoption of wound rotor synchronous machines for electric or hybrid vehicle traction. The performance of the proposed new topology was evaluated and compared to the conventional one. Significant performance improvement was confirmed.
A MultiChain-Based Homework Submission System

Blockchain technology is becoming widely used in various areas. While we wanted to gain experience with blockchain technology, we felt that the best way to do that would be to redevelop a project that we were familiar with. A project of this nature needed to be something we had developed that would use the interesting capabilities of blockchain technology and yet would be small enough to be accomplished fairly easily. To this end we chose a homework submission system that we routinely use for our classes. While this project was perhaps not the best fit for the blockchain technology, it none-the-less exercised all the capabilities that we found interesting in a way that made sense from a blockchain point of view. Our experiences have expanded the list of potential problems for which blockchain might be appropriate.