cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Priorities in Prenatal Education

In the provision of prenatal care it is essential that information be shared with pregnant women in an appropriate and effective fashion. Nurse-practitioners and nurse-midwives providing care to women in clinics or offices are concerned with providing relevant instruction in the context of a busy practice or crowded clinic. A priority of information-sharing is proposed in order that the practitioner might capitalize on short encounters with prenatal patients. With the knowledge of what information might be appropriate for a woman at a certain point during her pregnancy, the nurse can plan to incorporate specific instructions as she assesses the woman's needs during a prenatal visit and reflect on the priority of information needed along with the realities of time available.
Energy and Water Conservation Strategies in Irrigated Agriculture

: Growers in California used several energy and water conservation strategies in response to the drought conditions of 1976 and 1977. The strategies included an increased use of ground water, in creased irrigation efficiencies, and shifts in cropping patterns. Drought-related losses to irrigated agriculture were minimized as a result of these modifications. Some future problems may have been created, however, by obtaining the needed water supplies for 1976–77. These problems include the effects of extensive water pumping on ground water reservoirs and ground subsidence. In addition, reduced water application by less frequent irrigation and changes in irrigation methods may affect the total salt balance for future years. Several conservation strategies that have some potential application in California were identified as: maintaining and augmenting surface water supply, increasing power use efficiencies, and improving irrigation efficiencies. Electricity savings associated with water conservation have been estimated as high as 25 percent. Specific near term actions suggested for facilitating conservation included: an expanded irrigation management system, efficient water deliveries, and a continued effort on the part of the individual growers to use resources during periods of normal rainfall as they were used under drought conditions.
High-Level Design Tools for Floating Point FPGAs

This tutorial describes tools for efficiently implementing floating point applications on FPGAs. We present both the SDK for OpenCL and DSP Builder Advanced Blockset and show that they can be effectively used to implement many floating point applications. The methods for optimizing application performance are also described. In this tutorial we focus on a few applications, including Fast Fourier transform, matrix multiplication, finite impulse response filter and a Cholesky decomposition. In all cases we show what the tools are capable of achieving, and more importantly how a user can take advantage of the various floating-point centric features that are made available. We also discuss how these tools can automatically use FPGA architectural features such as hardened floating-point DSP available on Altera Arria 10 family.
A design framework for online teacher professional development communities

This paper provides a design framework for building online teacher professional development communities for preservice and inservice teachers. The framework is based on a comprehensive literature review on the latest technology and epistemology of online community and teacher professional development, comprising four major design factors and three contextual factors. The design factors include learning goals, communication tools, participant structures, and member responsibilities; the contextual factors are culture, politics, and economics. Finally, the role of universities and implications of the design framework for teacher professional development in the new culture of learning are discussed.
Single Camera Structure and Motion

A reduced order nonlinear observer is proposed for the problem of “structure and motion (SaM)” estimation of a stationary object observed by a moving calibrated camera. In comparison to existing work which requires some knowledge of the Euclidean geometry of an observed object or full knowledge of the camera motion, the developed reduced order observer only requires one camera linear velocity and corresponding acceleration to asymptotically identify the Euclidean coordinates of the feature points attached to an object (with proper scale reconstruction) and the remaining camera velocities. The unknown linear velocities are assumed to be generated using a model with unknown parameters. The unknown angular velocities are determined from a robust estimator which uses a standard Homography decomposition algorithm applied to tracked feature points. A Lyapunov analysis is provided to prove the observer asymptotically estimates the unknown states under a persistency of excitation condition.
A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITIES

A new and relatively revolutionary approach to logistics has allowed some companies to realise a ‘breakthrough’ change providing them with a competitive advantage. The catalysts in this revolution are the contract distribution firms. Robert L Evans looks into the background of this new idea and its implications.
Alterations in somatosensory evoked potentials associated with inadequate venous return during cardiopulmonary bypass

N EUROLOGIC COMPLICATIONS following cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) have long been recognized and continue to contribute to morbidity following heart surgeryJ Central nervous system compromise might be detected earlier by appropriate neurophysiologic monitoring. Evoked potential monitoring has been successfully used to predict the incidence of and to prevent neurologic deficits after various noncardiac surgical procedures, including scoliosis correction and intracranial procedures) A case is reported of reversible cerebral dysfunction detected by somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) monitoring in a patient undergoing coronary revascularization.
Sungusungu: The Role of Preexisting and Evolving Social Institutions among Tanzanian Vigilante Organizations

The Sungusungu justice system of Tanzania is an informal institution of social control that emerged in response to weak law enforcement by the state. By examining the development of Sungusungu in a Sukuma population that migrated to Rukwa region and its reception among the indigenous population, the authors show how certain communities are more prepared than others to sustain prosocial organizational behavior, thereby demonstrating the constraints that affect the diffusion of social institutions across social groups. The article challenges the assumption that individual agency (self-interest and power) commonly dominates the sometimes conservative nature of institutions. From an applied perspective, this case study illustrates that organizations require cultural rules to define goals and sustain effective actions. These sets of cultural rules are often found among particular populations, and efforts to spread them can be a slow process. An understanding of these conservative cultural processes is importan...
Reclaiming the Maiden: Use of Archetypes in a 6-Week Women's Empowerment Group

The purpose of this article is to describe a 6-week, semi-structured group counseling experience for university women students (undergraduate and graduate) from diverse backgrounds exploring archetypes and using group empowerment skills. Theoretical perspectives on women's empowerment groups and the use of archetypes in counseling are discussed as a foundation for the structure of the group. Group design, marketing, process, and evaluation are described. Practice implications and limitations are discussed.
Computed Tomography of Colonic and Appendiceal Emergencies

The colon and appendix are frequent sites of acute conditions, prompting presentation to the emergency department. Within the colon, these conditions include inflammation and infection, ischemia, obstruction, hemorrhage, and perforation (both traumatic and atraumatic). Although the colon in particular has traditionally been evaluated by fluoroscopy and endoscopy, which offer greater mucosal detail, computed tomography (CT) is now the first, and sometimes only, line of imaging in most emergency departments, warranting knowledge of the appearance of these diseases on cross-sectional imaging. This article then aims to discuss emergent conditions of the colon and appendix and their typical appearance on imaging, chiefly CT.
Novel biobased dual-cure coating system

Abstract Sucrose esters consisting of acetoacetates and fatty acids were invented as novel biobased amine-cured and autoxidation dual-cure coating systems, in the presence of diamine crosslinker and metal salt driers. Acetoacetylated sucrose soyate (ASS) was an intramolecular system containing both acetoacetates and fatty acids in the same molecule. Miscible bicomponent blends, made of ASS and partially enamine alkyl substituted acetoacetylated sucrose (p-EAS), was an intermolecular curing system. Compatibility between the two components was achieved by reacting acetoacetylated sucrose (AS) with alkyl amines, in which the compatibility could be adjusted by either the alkyl chain length or the degree of enamine alkyl substitution, DES. Sucrose esters were characterized by gel permeation chromatography (GPC), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The properties and drying times of coatings cured through autoxidation, amine-acetoacetate reactions, and by dual-curing were studied. It was found that acetoacetate chemistry improved the attributes of sucrose ester of fatty acids in ambient curing conditions, as well as providing dual-cure coatings having a good balance of properties.
Semantic similarity of ontology instances using polarity mining

Semantic similarity is vital to many areas, such as information retrieval. Various methods have been proposed with a focus on comparing unstructured text documents. Several of these have been enhanced with ontology; however, they have not been applied to ontology instances. With the growth in ontology instance data published online through, for example, Linked Open Data, there is an increasing need to apply semantic similarity to ontology instances. Drawing on ontology-supported polarity mining OSPM, we propose an algorithm that enhances the computation of semantic similarity with polarity mining techniques. The algorithm is evaluated with online customer review data. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the baseline algorithm in multiple settings.
The effects of a short-term exercise program on movement, pain, and mood in the elderly. Results of a pilot study.

Therapeutic effects of a short-term Tai Chi exercise program for the elderly were evaluated in a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. This pilot study evaluated changes in flexibility, balance, sway, pain, and mood after a short slow-motion exercise. The program consisted of a series of movements involving turning, shifting weight, bending, and arm movements in combination with diaphragmatic breathing with slow movements. The measured effects included improved balance, sway, range of motion, decreased perceived pain, and lessened trait anxiety. Participants included 11 elderly females. Instruments consisted of standard goniometry, the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List, stopwatch measures of single-leg stance and a tandem walk (sway), and visual analog measurement of pain. Findings included significant improvement (p = .05) in trait anxiety and pain perception. Improvements in mood, flexibility, and balance may have a profound effect on the incidence of falls, injuries, resulting disability, and ...
Children's Emotional Competence and Attentional Competence in Early Elementary School

The current study examined the relations between two aspects of emotional competence—emotion knowledge and emotion expression, and children’s attentional competence during one school year. Participants were 263 first- and second-grade students at two rural elementary schools. A multiple regression analysis showed that emotion knowledge predicted attentional competence while controlling for age, gender, verbal ability, and initial levels of attentional competence. Multiple regression analyses examining predictors of peer nominations of emotion expression showed that attentional competence predicted peer nominations of happiness, sadness, and anger expression, and emotion knowledge predicted peer nominations of anger expression. Potential improvements for prevention programs and the importance of the findings for school personnel are discussed.
Pump up the jam!: tips and tricks to motivate you and your staff

Do you find it difficult to keep your staff motivated, engaged, and communicating with each other? Do you find it difficult to keep yourself pumped up to take on another day?I am fortunate to love my job, but there are still many days when I dread going into the office. The hustle and bustle of daily activities in an IT world can be overwhelming. There is always a customer calling, a new service rolling out, or a request that needs to be handled in a timely manner. The reality is I couldn't get through the day without my staff. Therefore, I invest a lot of my time with my staff.In this session I will share some ideas that others have shared with me and that I have found useful in getting me through the day. I will share the tips and tricks that have helped me communicate with my staff more effectively and efficiently while helping to motivate them and me to give another 10 percent every day. Overall, these ideas have helped me build a highly effective team.This will be a high impact, interactive session filled with the things that have worked for me, and the lessons I have learned in implementing ideas that have failed.
Keldysh approximation in one and three dimensions.

For the Volkov solution in general, and for the Keldysh approximation in particular, it is shown that three-dimensional behavior and one-dimensional behavior are very different.
Hospitals, Market Share, and Consolidation

A large reduction in use of inpatient care combined with the incentives in the Affordable Care Act is leading to significant consolidation in the hospital industry. What was once a set of independent hospitals having arms-length relationships with physicians and clinicians who provide ambulatory care is becoming a small number of locally integrated health systems, generally built around large, prestigious academic medical centers. The typical region in the United States has 3 to 5 consolidated health systems, spanning a wide range of care settings, and a smaller fringe of health care centers outside those systems. Consolidated health systems have advantages and drawbacks. The advantages include the ability to coordinate care across different practitioners and sites of care. Offsetting this is the potential for higher prices resulting from greater market power. Market power increases because it is difficult for insurers to bargain successfully with one of only a few health systems. Antitrust authorities are examining these consolidated systems as they form, but broad conclusions are difficult to draw because typically the creation of a system will generate both benefit and harm and each set of facts will be different. Moreover, the remedies traditionally used (eg, blocking the transaction or requiring that the parties divest assets) by antitrust authorities in cases of net harm are limited. For this reason, local governments may want to introduce new policies that help ensure consumers gain protection in the event of consolidation, such as insurance products that charge consumers more for high-priced clinicians and health care centers, bundling payments to clinicians and health care organizations to eliminate the incentives of big institutions to simply provide more care, and establishing area-specific price or spending targets.
Synthesis and SAR of a novel metabotropic glutamate receptor 4 (mGlu4) antagonist: Unexpected ‘molecular switch’ from a closely related mGlu4 positive allosteric modulator

Herein we report the discovery and SAR of a novel antagonist of metabotropic glutamate receptor 4 (mGlu(4)). The antagonist was discovered via a molecular switch from a closely related mGlu(4) positive allosteric modulator (PAM). This antagonist (VU0448383) displays an IC(50) value of 8.2±0.4 μM and inhibits an EC(80) glutamate response by 63.1±6.6%.
A dispersion engineering enabled broadband optical metamaterial filter

In this paper, we show that the optical metamaterial dispersion can be controllably tailored to produce an ultrathin, broadband filter with a flat transmission band and near-constant in-band group delay in the 3 ~ 3.5 μm midwave infrared window. It is achieved by strategically incorporating deep-subwavelength nano-notches into a fishnet structure. The deep-subwavelength inclusions, which have critical dimensions of less than 1/15 ± 1/100 of the shortest design wavelength, can perturb the mode patterns and strength of the unmodified fishnet nanostructure resonances, thereby shaping the dispersion in the effective medium properties to meet the specific design metrics. The designed free-standing optical metamaterial filter was fabricated and characterized, showing strong agreement between measured and simulated results. This powerful design approach will dramatically expand the opportunities to create new and practical broadband metamaterial-enabled optical devices and components.
Knowledge management framework for cyber security learning

As some new potential cyber attacks come from global and transnational sources, it is necessary to integrate global partnership and global proactive participation to the company-wide cyber security. This research aims to develop a knowledge management conceptual framework for cyber security learning to improve a variety of users' cyber security knowledge bases. Specifically, this framework has cyber security knowledge repository with three layers combined (company-wide, global partnership and global proactive participation) for five levels of users (beginner, novice, master, advanced, master and professionals). This developed framework provides a platform for training a variety of workforces and users to improve their cyber security knowledge bases.
Light-induced increase in discrete waves in the dark in Limulus ventral photoreceptors.

Illumination of a variety of invertebrate photoreceptors with dim light results in a response that is composed of discrete waves (often referred to as 'quantum bumps') 6, t6,17,,~1,24,z6. These discrete waves are believed to result when a single visual pigment molecule is activated by the absorption of a quantum of light 12. Recently, lightinduced discrete fluctuations in membrane current, presumably produced by the absorption of single photons, have also been observed in vertebrate rods zS. Dodge et al. 7 have proposed that the response of Limulus photoreceptors is produced by a summation of these discrete waves, and they have suggested that a change in discrete wave size is the primary mechanism of lightand dark-adaptation. Thus, it seems that the mechanism of discrete wave production is fundamental to the mechanism of phototransduction. In Limulus photoreceptors discrete waves have been found to occur spontaneously in the dark 1,26,27. We report here that, in the dark, following bright illumination, there is a dramatic increase in the membrane noise of kimulus ventral photoreceptors, and that this increase in noise is the result of an increase in the occurrence of discrete waves. The methods of dissecting, viewing, stimulating and recording from the photoreceptor have been described previouslyS,9, it. The intensity of the unattenuated beam of light used as the stimulus was found to be equivalent to 1.5 × 1015 520 nm photons-cm -2 sec I (see ref. 9). Light intensities are given as log10 l/I0, where I0 is the intensity of the unattenuated beam. Fig. 1 is an example of our basic finding, in the dark, preceding stimulation by a bright light, there is a low frequency of discrete waves. The cell responds to the light (log 1 -0.0, 10 sec duration), with a depolarization followed in the dark by an afterhyperpolarization. The afterhyperpolarization appears to be due to an electrogenic sodium pump that is activated by an influx of sodium during the light responseL In the dark, following the exposure to the light, there is a dramatic increase in the membrane noise. As time progresses, following the light exposure, the membrane noise can be
Control of the expression of a herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene incorporated into thymidine kinase-deficient mouse cells.

When thymidine kinase-deficient mouse cells “transformed” by inactivated herpes simplex virus and expressing the viral thymidine kinase (TK) are grown in nonselective medium, there is an exponential decay in the proportion of cells that continue to express the viral enzyme. However, the viral TK can be reactivated at a frequency of approximately 1 cell in 106in every population that has lost TK activity. When cells in which the viral TK has been reactivated are grown in nonselective medium, a decay in the expression of the viral enzyme occurs again at the same rate as in the initial transformed population. Studies on the reactivation of viral TK indicate that reappearance of the enzyme is not induced by the selective medium (HAT) used to detect cells in which the enzyme has reappeared. Furthermore, treatments known to induce latent viruses in other systems—eg, exposure of the cells to mutagens or cell fusion—do not affect the frequency with which viral TK is reactivated.
Dependence, independence, and emergence of word features.

The degree to which a letter is perceived to be an e rather than a c is a function of the central, horizontal bar, which can be made to be more or less present in any given stimulus. By this means, word-form stimuli were produced through the independent, continuous manipulation of e versus c and of r versus h in two word frames (wat-- and --ase) yielding stimuli that ranged between water and watch in the former instance and between erase and chase in the latter. The identification probabilities for these stimuli were well accounted for in each case by a version of a fuzzy propositional model that is based on the assumption of independent features, indicating that the manipulated features within each word frame were not perceptually interdependent. However, the probabilities differed systematically between the two stimulus matrices; this means that there must be some other kind of higher order effect involved in identification. The hypothesis that the interaction was due to an emergent word envelope feature was rejected on the basis of the model analysis. Language: en
Therapeutic targets for treating fibrotic kidney diseases

Renal fibrosis is the hallmark of virtually all progressive kidney diseases and strongly correlates with the deterioration of kidney function. The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockade is central to the current treatment of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) for the renoprotective effects aimed to prevent or slow progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). However, the incidence of CKD is still increasing, and there is a critical need for new therapeutics. Here, we review novel strategies targeting various components implicated in the fibrogenic pathway to inhibit or retard the loss of kidney function. We focus, in particular, on antifibrotic approaches that target transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, a key mediator of kidney fibrosis, and exciting new data on the role of autophagy. Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP)-7 and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) are highlighted as modulators of profibrotic TGF-β activity. BMP-7 has a protective role against TGF-β1 in kidney fibrosis, whereas CTGF enhances TGF-β–mediated fibrosis. We also discuss recent advances in the development of additional strategies for antifibrotic therapy. These include strategies targeting chemokine pathways via CC chemokine receptors 1 and 2 to modulate the inflammatory response, inhibition of phosphodiesterase to restore nitric oxide-cyclic 3′,5′-guanosine monophosphate function, inhibition of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase 1 and 4 to suppress reactive oxygen species production, and inhibition of endothelin 1 or tumor necrosis factor α to ameliorate progressive renal fibrosis. Furthermore, a brief overview of some of the biomarkers of kidney fibrosis is currently being explored that may improve the ability to monitor antifibrotic therapies. It is hoped that evidence based on the preclinical and clinical data discussed in this review leads to novel antifibrotic therapies effective in patients with CKD to prevent or delay progression to ESRD.
Effects of penetration enhancers on in vitro permeability of meloxicam gels.

Abstract Meloxicam (MLX) was formulated as a 0.3% hydroxypropylcellulose (Klucel ® ) gel. The effect of four different combinations of co-solvents (ethanol, glycol-PEG-400, propylene glycol, and water) on MLX permeability was determined in vitro throughout isopropyl myristate (IPM)-saturated cellulose membranes. The gel consisting of 2.5% Klucel, propylene glycol, ethanol, and water (1:1:1) showed superior permeability properties and it was selected as the base-gel to investigate the effect of three levels of the penetration enhancers: dimethylsulfoxide (1, 5, and 10% DMSO), tween20 (1, 2, and 5% TW20), oleic acid (0.4, 1, and 5% OA), and menthol (1, 2.5, and 5% MT). In vitro permeability was determined throughout IPM-saturated cellulose membranes and human cadaver skin. DMSO and TW20 did not improve permeability of MLX compared to the control gel at any of the levels tested. Menthol produced a statistically significant ( P 2 /h). Conversely, addition of OA peaked at 1% but decreased at the higher level (5%). There was no significant difference between the MLX amount recovered in stratum corneum and dermis across the different formulations tested. These findings show that the 0.3% MLX gel formulation containing 5% menthol can possibly deliver therapeutically relevant doses of MLX.
Ex vivo identification of protein-protein interactions involving the dopamine transporter

The dopamine (DA) transporter (DAT) is a key regulator of dopaminergic signaling as it mediates the reuptake of extrasynaptic DA and thereby terminates dopaminergic signaling. Emerging evidence indicates that DAT function is influenced through interactions with other proteins. The current report describes a method to identify such interactions following DAT immunoprecipitation from a rat striatal synaptosomal preparation. This subcellular fraction was selected since DAT function is often determined ex vivo by measuring DA uptake in this preparation and few reports investigating DAT-protein interactions have utilized this preparation. Following SDS-PAGE and colloidal Coomassie staining, selected protein bands from a DAT-immunoprecipitate were excised, digested with trypsin, extracted, and analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). From the analysis of the tryptic peptides, several proteins were identified including DAT, Ca(2+)/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) β, CaMKII δ, protein kinase C (PKC) β, and PKC γ. Co-immunoprecipitation of PKC, CaMKII, and protein interacting with C kinase-1 with DAT was confirmed by Western blotting. Thus, the present study highlights a method to immunoprecipitate DAT and to identify co-immunoprecipitating proteins using LC/MS/MS and Western blotting. This method can be utilized to evaluate DAT protein-protein interactions but also to assess interactions involving other synaptic proteins. Ex vivo identification of protein-protein interactions will provide new insight into the function and regulation of a variety of synaptic, membrane-associated proteins, including DAT.
Deterioration on the blessed test in Alzheimer's disease: Longitudinal data and their implications for clinical trials and identification of subtypes

Abstract One hundred eleven patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) were given the Blessed test (BT) of information, memory, and concentration (scored 0–33) at 6-month intervals over periods of 6–96 months. For each patient, the change in the total BT score between pairs of visits at 6- and 12-month intervals was measured. Mean deterioration scores over 6 and 12 months were 2.2 (SD = 3.2) and 4.1 (SD = 4.1) points, respectively. There was no significant correlation between degree of dementia on the BT and the rate of deterioration. Gender, age of onset, and family history had no significant effect on the rate of deterioration. The implications of the results for treatment trials and investigations of clinical heterogeneity are discussed.
Erythrocyte Transfer RNA: Change during Chick Development

Radioactive aminoacyl transfer RNA's isolated from erythrocytes in the blood of 4-day-old chick embryos and from reticulocytes of adult chickens were analyzed by chromatography on methylated albumin kieselguhr and freon columns. Embryonic and adult methionyl transfer RNA's showed qualitative and quantitative differences in both chromatographic systems. The patterns for arginyl, seryl, and tyrosyl transfer RNA's in the two cell types were similar, while the leucyl transfer RNA patterns suggested a difference.
Biphenyl-indanones: Allosteric potentiators of the metabotropic glutamate subtype 2 receptor

We have identified and synthesized a series of biphenyl-carboxylic acid indanones as allosteric potentiators of the metabotropic glutamate receptor 2. Structure-activity relationship studies directed toward improving the potency and the brain to plasma ratio of the initial lead led to the discovery of 5 and 23 (EC50=111 and 5 nM, respectively).
The spectral overlay on finite elements for problems with high gradients

Abstract A methodology has been developed for enhancing the accuracy of finite element solutions of problems with high gradients. This is accomplished by superimposing the spectral approximation on subdomains which overlay the finite element mesh in regions where high gradients are indicated by the solution. The orientation and shape of these subdomains are quite arbitrary. Results are obtained for a viscoplastic bar which is stretched beyond its bifurcation point. The results show that with a modest increase in the number of spectral unknowns, it is possible to achieve high resolution of the strain field in the shear band.
The Insect Neuropeptide PTTH Activates Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Torso to Initiate Metamorphosis

Holometabolous insects undergo complete metamorphosis to become sexually mature adults. Metamorphosis is initiated by brain-derived prothoracicotropic hormone (PTTH), which stimulates the production of the molting hormone ecdysone via an incompletely defined signaling pathway. Here we demonstrate that Torso, a receptor tyrosine kinase that regulates embryonic terminal cell fate in Drosophila, is the PTTH receptor. Trunk, the embryonic Torso ligand, is related to PTTH, and ectopic expression of PTTH in the embryo partially rescues trunk mutants. In larvae, torso is expressed specifically in the prothoracic gland (PG), and its loss phenocopies the removal of PTTH. The activation of Torso by PTTH stimulates extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation, and the loss of ERK in the PG phenocopies the loss of PTTH and Torso. We conclude that PTTH initiates metamorphosis by activation of the Torso/ERK pathway.
Activation of nuclear factor-kB in the spinal cord of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis

The DNA-binding activity of nuclear factor (NF-kB) was found to be induced in the spinal cord of rats with experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS), from the onset of the disease. This activation of NF-kB persisted throughout the disease period and decreased thereafter in the recovery phase. Supershift analysis of NF-kB DNA-binding activity in nuclear extracts of spinal cords showed that RelA/p65 and p50 subunits but not c-Rel/p75, RelB/p68 and p52 subunits were involved in DNA binding. Pyrrolidine dithiocarbamate (PDTC), an inhibitor of NF-kB activation, markedly inhibited the in vivo activation of NF-kB in the spinal cord of EAE rats and attenuated the clinical symptoms of EAE. These studies suggest that activation of NF-kB plays an important role in the pathogenesis of EAE and inhibitors of NF-kB activation may have therapeutic importance in MS.
Biosensor applications to antitachycardia devices.

Current arrhythmia detection algorithms are unable to adequately distinguish stable from unstable tachycardias; therefore application of a biosensor to antitachycardia devices has been proposed to improve their performance, Right heart pressures and impedance have been investigated for incorporation into these systems. Integration of other parameters (oxygen saturation, preejection period, pH, cardiac output, flow, and temperature) into these devices might also prove useful. The status of these biosensor arrhythmia detection algorithms and their application to antitachycardia devices are described below.
Spontaneous resolution of a large, cavernous hemangioma of the heart

Cavernous hemangiomas of the heart are rare, benign tumors with an unknown natural history. Most are discrete masses, smaller than 3.5 cm in diameter, and are clinically silent.1 In this report we observed, by echocardiography and computer-assisted tomography, spontaneous regression over a 2-year period of cavernous hemangioma diagnosed by surgical exploration.
Operations Research in the Insurance Industry: I. A Survey of Applications

This paper surveys and interprets the applications of operation research in the insurance industry.
THE SCHOLAR'S COURTESY: A SURVEY OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT BEHAVIOUR

Scholars in major us research universities were surveyed to explore the normative bases of acknowledgement behaviour. Measures of agreement and divergence were established in respect of five issue sets pertaining to acknowledgement practice: expectations, etiquette, ethics, equity and evaluation. The results confirm the substantive role played by acknowledgements in the primary communication process. Although few formal rules exist, it is clear that many scholars subscribe to the idea of a governing etiquette. The findings also suggest that acknowledgement data could be mined to lay bare the rules of engagement that define the dynamics of collaboration and inter‐dependence among scholars.
Increased dopamine receptor binding in duodenal mucosa of duodenal ulcer patients.

High-affinity and saturable membrane-bound dopamine binding sites have been characterized in rat and human gastrointestinal tissues. Although their role in experimental ulcerogenesis has been suggested, dopamine receptor activity in peptic ulcer disease has not been investigated. Radioligand binding studies were performed with mucosal tissue homogenates obtained from the antrum and duodenum of six male healthy volunteers and six male duodenal ulcer patients. The binding assay was performed in triplicate with a crude membrane fraction using [3H] dopamine as a ligand at a final concentration of 1 nM at 22 °C in the dark. Nonspecific binding (which usually comprised about 30% of total binding) was determined in the presence of a 100-fold excess of unlabeled dopamine. A significant (P<0.05) increase of [3H]dopamine binding was found in duodenal mucosa of duodenal ulcer patients. [3H]Dopamine binding in stomach (antrum) of normal and duodenal ulcer patients did not differ significantly. These findings provide preliminary evidence for a role of dopamine receptors in duodenal ulcer and suggest that biochemical abnormalities of gut dopamine function may be operative in the pathogenesis of peptic ulcer disease.
Official Dollarization as a Monetary Regime: Its Effects on El Salvador

This paper examines El Salvador’s transition to official dollarization by comparing aspects of this regime to the fixed exchange rate regime prevailing in the 1990s. Commercial bank interest rates are analyzed under an uncovered interest parity framework, and it is found that dollarization lowered rates by 4 to 5 percent by reducing currency risk. This has generated net annual savings averaging ½ percent of GDP for the private sector and ¼ percent of GDP for the public sector (net of the losses from foregone seigniorage). Estimated Taylor rules show a strong positive association between Salvadoran output and U.S. Federal Reserve policy since dollarization, implying that this policy has served to stabilize economic activity more than it did under the peg and more than policy rates in Central American countries with independent monetary policy have done. Dollarization does not appear to have affected the transmission mechanism, as pass-through of monetary policy to commercial interest rates has been similar to pass-through under the peg and in the rest of Central America.
Pupillometric assessment of the readability of two video screen fonts.

Summary.-A passage of text was presented in either a normal type font or one of two unusual type fronts. While each of the 10 subjects was reading this passage, a phrase at a time, his pupil size was determined using a computerbased procedure that generated averaged response waveforms. Pupil size varied as a direct function of the cognitive load imposed by reading unusual type fonts. The average evoked waveforms showed that the pupil was consistently larger during reading in the more cognitively demanding type font. Hess ( 1965) reported that the diameter of the pupil of the eye is directly proportional to the effort involved in cognition, such as in solving mental arithmetic problems. This finding has been corroborated by a large number of investigations ( Hess, 1975 ) . Signal averaging techniques are customarily used to improve the signalto-noise ratio of EEG evoked potential waveforms, such as the P-300 wave during cognitive processing. Beatty and Wagner ( 1978) demonstrated the usefulness of these techniques in the detection of subtle differences in cognitive effort with pupillometrics. The present study demonstrates the usefulness of signal averaging of pupillary responses to index momentary changes in cognitive load using a newly developed system of microcomputer products to generate the stimuli and collect and process the pupillometric data. The task of indexing differences in cognitive effort when reading various video screen fonts was used to test this system.
Magnetization and time dependent effects in ErCo3Ga2

Recently, unusual magnetic properties have been reported on the ErCo3Ga2 compound. In this paper, we report on the measurements of magnetization, ac susceptibility, and the time dependence of magnetization on polycrystalline samples of ErCo3Ga2. The field cooled (FC) samples show negative magnetization with a minimum at 25 K in low magnetic fields. The FC magnetization becomes positive above 150 K. The FC and ZFC magnetizations meet at 150 K as the temperature increases. For magnetic fields above 5000 G, the FC and ZFC magnetizations are the same in the entire temperature range from 5 K to 300 K. The ac susceptibility shows a peak around 20 K. We have found that for T < 150 K, the magnetization in a constant magnetic field at constant temperature increases with time and does not attain a constant value over 64 h. The increase in magnetization is linear on the log(time) scale. The magnetic properties suggest a spin glass-type transition below 150 K and a strong temperature dependent magnetic anisotropy.
Tailoring Tests for Functional Binning of Integrated Circuits

In recent years, a number of high level applications have been reported to be tolerant to errors resulting from a sizable fraction of all single stuck-at faults in hardware. Production testing of devices targeted towards such applications calls for a test vector set that is tailored to maximize the coverage of faults that lead to functionally malignant errors while minimizing the coverage of faults that produce functionally benign errors. Given a partitioning of the fault set as benign and malignant, and a complete test vector set that covers all faults, in this paper, we formulate an integer linear programming (ILP) problem to find an optimal test vector set that ensures 100% coverage of malignant faults and minimizes coverage of benign faults.We also propose a test strategy based on selectively masking appropriate outputs of the circuit to partition the circuits at production test into three bins - malignant, benign, and fault-free. As a case study, we demonstrate the proposed ILP based test optimization and functional binning on three adder circuits: 16-bit ripple carry adder, 16-bit carry lookahead adder, and 16-bit carry select adder. We find that the proposed ILP based optimization gives a reduction of about 90% in fault coverage of benign faults while ensuring 100% coverage of malignant faults. This typically translates to an (early manufacturing) yield improvement of over 20% over what would have been the yield if both malignant and benign faults are targeted without distinction by the test vectorset.
Influence of age and native language on immediate verbal repetition.

Objectives of this quasi-experimental study were to assess whether age of listeners and native language of the speaker affected the accurate repetition of words, sentences, and utterances, including medical vocabulary. Two experiments were conducted. In Exp. 1, 20 young adults and 20 older adults repeated 60 words and 30 sentences produced by native and nonnative English speakers. In Exp. 2, 30 young adults and 30 older adults repeated medically oriented utterances spoken by native and nonnative English speakers. Analysis showed that older adults had significantly lower repetition scores (accuracy) than the young adults on all tasks. Both groups had significantly higher repetition scores on items produced by native English speakers than nonnative English speakers. Investigations should focus on strategies which may aid native English speakers in understanding nonnative English speakers.
Answering why-not queries in software-defined networks with negative provenance

When debugging an SDN, it is sometimes necessary to explain the absence of an event: why a certain rule was not installed, or why a certain packet did not arrive. Existing SDN debuggers offer some support for explaining the presence of events, usually by providing the equivalent of a "backtrace" in conventional debuggers, but they are not very good at answering "Why not?" questions: there is simply no starting point for a possible backtrace.In this paper, we show that the concept of negative provenance can be used to explain the absence of events in SDNs. Negative provenance relies on counterfactual reasoning to identify the conditions under which the missing event could have occurred. We outline a simple technique that can track negative provenance in SDNs, and we present a case study to illustrate how our technique can be used to answer concrete "Why not?" questions. Using our approach, it should be possible to build SDN debuggers that can explain both the presence and the absence of events.
Physical initialization with the Arakawa-Schubert scheme in the Navy's operational global forecast model

The method of physical initialization, in which one attempts to match observed and model-generated diabatic processes prior to commencing a forecast, is applied to a T47 version of the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS). Particular emphasis is devoted to the matching of observed convective rainfall, inferred from the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU), with that produced by NOGAPS' Arakawa-Schubert cumulus parameterization scheme. To accomplish the matching, the model's specific humidity field is adjusted at each time step during a preforecast integration period. This adjustment consists of adding a perturbation in relative humidity, with linear vertical profile, to the model's relative humidity; the amplitude of the perturbation is proportional to the difference between observed and model precipitation rates. Results show significantly improved rainfall accumulations during the period in which the model is forced with the observed precipitation. However, this positive impact largely disappears within 24 hours after the forcing is removed, that is, the model has difficulty in maintaining the assimilated rainfall on its own. Possible explanations for this problem are considered, one of the more likely being the model's low resolution.
Statistical analysis of a lower bound on microwave radiometer brightness temperatures from space

A novel technique has been developed to verify the absolute accuracy and relative stability of a spaceborne microwave radiometer's calibration using a statistical analysis of the measured Earth brightness temperatures (TBs). This procedure relies solely on the final, main beam-referenced TBs and so tests the complete end-to-end system calibration, including instrument temperature and non-linearity corrections, the stability reference TB calibration standards, and far-side lobe antenna pattern corrections. A very stable cold reference TB calibration point results which is known with high absolute accuracy. The data processing steps required to produce the cold reference TB are described. The technique has been tested previously at a nadir viewing angle of incidence. Its application, at oblique angles, to both conical and cross-track scanning imagers is considered.
Acyclic N‐halamine‐based fibrous materials: Preparation, characterization, and biocidal functions

Methacrylamide (MAA) was grafted onto cotton cellulose. The influence of the reaction conditions on the grafting was studied in detail. Upon a chlorine bleach treatment, some of the amide groups in the grafted MAA side chains were transformed into stable acyclic N-halamines; Hoffman-type degradation was not observed. The resultant cotton celluloses provided a total kill of 108–109 CFU/mL for Escherichia coli (Gram-negative bacteria), Staphylococcus aureus (Gram-positive bacteria), and Candida tropicalis (fungi) in 3 min, 106–107 PFU/mL for the MS2 virus in 5 min, and 106–107 spores/mL for Bacillus subtilis in 4 h. The antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and antispore activities were both durable and rechargeable. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 3588–3600, 2006
Progress in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics

Summary form only given, as follows. Direct-drive inertial confinement fusion (ICF) offers the potential for high gain and is a leading candidate for an inertial fusion-energy power plant. Laser and target nonuniformities can seed hydrodynamic instabilities during the implosion that, in turn, can compromise target performance. This is the primary target physics issue for direct-drive ICF. Several methods have been devised to control these seeds and their subsequent growth, including laser beam smoothing, advanced pulse shaping, target design, etc. LLE's baseline direct-drive ignition design for the National Ignition Facility (presently under construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) is composed of a thin plastic shell enclosing a thick deuterium-tritium layer. It provides a gain of 45 in spherically symmetric calculations (30 in two-dimensional simulations which include the effects of laser and target nonuniformities). Recent improvements to the ignition target design include the addition of a picket to the beginning of the laser pulse shape that reduces both the seeds and growth rate of the hydrodynamic instabilities.