cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Identification and characterization of a novel endoplasmic reticulum (ER) DnaJ homologue, which stimulates ATPase activity of BiP in vitro and is induced by ER stress.

The activity of Hsp70 proteins is regulated by accessory proteins, which include members of the DnaJ-like protein family. Characterized by the presence of a highly conserved 70-amino acid J domain, DnaJ homologues activate the ATPase activity of Hsp70 proteins and stabilize their interaction with unfolded substrates. DnaJ homologues have been identified in most organelles where they are involved in nearly all aspects of protein synthesis and folding. Within the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), DnaJ homologues have also been shown to assist in the translocation, secretion, retro-translocation, and ER-associated degradation (ERAD) of secretory pathway proteins. By using bioinformatic methods, we identified a novel mammalian DnaJ homologue, ERdj4. It is the first ER-localized type II DnaJ homologue to be reported. The signal sequence of ERdj4 remains uncleaved and serves as a membrane anchor, orienting its J domain into the ER lumen. ERdj4 co-localized with GRP94 in the ER and associated with BiPin vivo when they were co-expressed in COS-1 cells.In vitro experiments demonstrated that the J domain of ERdj4 stimulated the ATPase activity of BiP in a concentration-dependent manner. However, mutation of the hallmark tripeptide HPD (His → Gln) in the J domain totally abolished this activation. ERdj4 mRNA expression was detected in all human tissues examined but showed the highest level of the expression in the liver, kidney, and placenta. We found that ERdj4 was highly induced at both the mRNA and protein level in response to ER stress, indicating that this protein might be involved in either protein folding or ER-associated degradation.
Heart Failure With Normal Ejection Fraction, Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction, Diastolic Heart Failure, or Huff-Puff: Time for a New Taxonomy for Hypertensive-Metabolic Heart Failure

The clinical syndrome of heart failure (HF) manifests as fluid retention and symptomatic dyspnea and fatigue, usually resulting in exercise intolerance. This clinical syndrome in the presence of normal ejection fraction (EF) has represented a challenge to diagnosis and management. The terminology regarding this constellation has evolved and varied, including the terms ‘‘diastolic HF,’’ ‘‘HF with normal systolic function,’’ ‘‘HF with preserved EF (HFpEF),’’ and ‘‘HF with normal EF.’’ The latter 2 terms are preferable to the others, because they are purely descriptive, and do not imply a specific functional condition, since the measured EF relates at least as much to the manner in which the left ventricle has remodeled (with or without chamber enlargement) as it does to the systolic or diastolic functional characteristics of the myocardium. Regardless of the terminology, the constellation of clinical HF and preserved EF does not define a specific disease. Rather, there are a variety of diseases with which this constellation of findings may be associated, each with its own etiology, pathology, pathophysiology, hemodynamic characteristics, and prognosis. Among these are restrictiveinfiltrative diseases (eg, amyloidosis), restrictive-fibrotic diseases (eg, scleroderma), constrictive pericardial disease, genetically mediated hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, valvular heart disease, and primary or secondary pulmonary vascular diseases (often with elevated left atrial pressure via ventricular interdependence). The most common disease associated
Inexpensive High Dynamic Range Video for large scale security and surveillance

We describe a new method for High Dynamic Range (HDR) Video using alternating exposures that adds no additional cost or bandwidth requirements to individual IP cameras, making it suitable for large scale security and surveillance systems. Sufficient dynamic range is crucial to the efficacy of a surveillance system, as saturated pixels mean a camera can no longer “see” its surrounding environment. High costs associated with hardware for improved dynamic range make them unsuitable for very large networks with hundreds or even thousands of cameras. We outline a scalable software method that uses post-processing to combine the information in adjacent frames of a video sequence captured with alternating short and long exposures. In particular, we introduce a novel bi-directional motion estimation module that utilizes block-based motion vectors to register frames with large differences in global brightness and fast local motion within saturated regions. An HDR post-processing solution can be deployed at a central location to process individual camera streams on an “as needed” basis, removing additional costs at the device-end. Furthermore, cameras continue to transmit low dynamic range frames, so there is no additional bandwidth requirement. Results show significant gains in video quality for inexpensive cameras when exposed to brightness variations common in security and surveillance.
Combined evolutionary algorithm and minimum classification error training for DHMM-based land mine detection

Minimum classification error (MCE) training is proposed to improve performance of a discrete hidden Markov model (DHMM) based landmine detection system. The system (baseline) was proposed previously for detection of both metal and nonmetal mines from ground penetrating radar signatures collected by moving vehicles. An initial DHMM model is trained by conventional methods of vector quantization and Baum-Welch algorithm. A sequential generalized probabilistic descent (GPD) algorithm that minimizes an empirical loss function is then used to estimate the landmine/background DHMM parameters, and an evolutionary algorithm based on fitness score of classification accuracy is used to generate and select codebooks. The landmine data of one geographical site was used for model training, and those of two different sites were used for evaluation of system performance. Three scenarios were studied: apply MCE/GPD alone to DHMM estimation, apply EA alone to codebook generation, first apply EA to codebook generation and then apply MCE/GPD to DHMM estimation. Overall, the combined EA and MCE/GPD training led to the best performance. At the same level of detection rate as the baseline DHMM system, the proposed training reduced false alarm rate by a factor of two, indicating significant performance improvement.
Electronic Polarizability and the Effective Pair Potentials of Water

Employing the continuum dielectric model for electronic polarizability, we have developed a new consistent procedure for parametrization of the effective nonpolarizable potential of liquid water. The model explains the striking difference between the value of water dipole moment μ ≈ 3D reported in recent ab initio and experimental studies with the value μeff ≈ 2.3D typically used in the empirical potentials, such as TIP3P or SPC/E. It is shown that the consistency of the parametrization scheme can be achieved if the magnitude of the effective dipole of water is understood as a scaled value μeff = μ/√eel, where eel = 1.78 is the electronic (high-frequency) dielectric constant of water, and a new electronic polarization energy term, missing in the previous theories, is included. The new term is evaluated by using Kirkwood−Onsager theory. The new scheme is fully consistent with experimental data on enthalpy of vaporization, density, diffusion coefficient, and static dielectric constant. The new theoretical f...
Activated Oncogenes in B6C3F1 Mouse Liver Tumors: Implications for Risk Assessment

The validity of mouse liver tumor end points in assessing the potential hazards of chemical exposure to humans is a controversial but important issue, since liver neoplasia in mice is the most frequent tumor target tissue end point in 2-year carcinogenicity studies. The ability to distinguish between promotion of background tumors versus a genotoxic mechanism of tumor initiation by chemical treatment would aid in the interpretation of rodent carcinogenesis data. Activated oncogenes in chemically induced and spontaneously occurring mouse liver tumors were examined and compared as one approach to determine the mechanism by which chemical treatment caused an increased incidence of mouse liver tumors. Data suggest that furan and furfural caused an increased incidence in mouse liver tumors at least in part by induction of novel weakly activating point mutations in ras genes even though both chemicals did not induce mutations in Salmonella assays. In addition to ras oncogenes, two activated raf genes and four non-ras transforming genes were detected. The B6C3F1 mouse liver may thus provide a sensitive assay system to detect various classes of proto-oncogenes that are susceptible to activation by carcinogenic insult. As illustrated with mouse liver tumors, analysis of activated oncogenes in spontaneously occurring and chemically induced rodent tumors will provide information at a molecular level to aid in the use of rodent carcinogenesis data for risk assessment.
Preparation of [2H]-paraformaldehyde

Polymeric [2H]-formaldehyde, which is useful for the synthesis of a variety of labelled molecules, is prepared from bromoform in four steps. The isotopic purity of the final product depends on that of the [2H]-bromoform made in the first step, and is measured after conversion of the [2H] formaldehyde to [2-2H]-5,5-dimethyl-1,3-dioxane.
Modeling individual topic-specific behavior and influence backbone networks in social media

Information propagation in social media depends not only on the static follower structure but also on the topic-specific user behavior. Hence, novel models incorporating dynamic user behavior are needed. To this end, we propose a model for individual social media users, termed a genotype. The genotype is a per-topic summary of a user’s interest, activity and susceptibility to adopt new information. We demonstrate that user genotypes remain invariant within a topic by adopting them for classification of new information spread in large-scale real networks. Furthermore, we extract topic-specific influence backbone structures based on content adoption and show that their structure differs significantly from the static follower network. We also find, at the population level using a simple contagion model, that hashtags of a known topic propagate at the greatest rate on backbone networks of the same topic. When employed for influence prediction of new content spread, our genotype model and influence backbones enable more than 20 % improvement, compared to purely structural features. It is also demonstrated that knowledge of user genotypes and influence backbones allows for the design of effective strategies for latency minimization of topic-specific information spread.
Paper Partition Chromatography of the Free Amino Acids in American Cheddar Cheese

Summary Paper partition chromatography was successfully used in the analyses of water-soluble protein decomposition products of a number of commercial cheddar cheeses. These cheeses were found to contain leucines, methionine, valine, alanine, arginine, lysine, threonine, glycine, asparagine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, phenylalanine, proline, tyramine, tyrosine, α-amino- n -butyric acid, serine, cystine and probably histidine and γ-aminobutyric acid. A number of the cheeses studied did not contain all these compounds.
Modeling effort decisions with behavioral decision theory: Toward an individual differences model of expectancy theory

Abstract Using behavioral decision theory, this paper describes four experiments which tested the multiplicative force model from V. H. Vroom's (1964, Work and Motivation, New York: Wiley) Expectancy Theory. In the first two experiments, the academic course effort decisions of 68 graduate students were examined using a decision-making exercise involving 24 hypothetical courses. Each course was described in terms of three instrumentalities and one expectancy (0, .4, or .8 in the first experiment, and 0, .2, or .6 in the second experiment). Using two different decision-making exercises, the last two experiments captured the decisions of 89 high school and undergraduate students concerning the exertion of effort to get 24 hypothetical jobs. For the third experiment, each job was described in terms of three instrumentalities and one expectancy (.05, .50, or .95). For the fourth experiment, each job was described in terms of four instrumentalities and one expectancy (0, .3, or .6). In each of the four experiments, the instrumentalities and expectancies were presented using factorial designs in order to increase the level of experimental control and to provide a sufficient number of decisions for each subject to facilitate individual within-person analyses of the data. Vroom's multiplicative force model was supported by only a minority of the subjects; a majority supported an additive model. It is hypothesized that the two different models are attributable to individual differences in cognitive processing of probabilistic information. This research demonstrates the theoretical, analytic, and psychometric advantages of the behavioral decision theory modeling approach to testing Expectancy Theory.
Serum insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and IGF-binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3) in IVF patients with polycystic ovary syndrome: correlations with outcome

Objective To evaluate serum insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) and IGF-binding proteing 3 (IGFBP-3) levels during stimulation in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and control populations as factors predictive of IVF outcome. Design Observational study. Setting Academic medical center–based IVF practice. Patient(s) Forty-three PCOS and 33 male-factor control patients undergoing IVF from 2002 to 2004. Intervention(s) Treatment with a dual suppression protocol incorporating oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) and GnRH agonist suppression followed by low-dose gonadotropin therapy. Main Outcome Measure(s) The PCOS and control patients' serum IGF-I and IGFBP-3 levels were compared and correlated with IVF outcome. Result(s) PCOS and control patients were comparable in terms of demographics and IVF outcome. In both, mean serum IGF-I levels increased during stimulation. PCOS patients whose IGF-I levels decreased from day 3 to day of hCG had a significantly higher mean number of immature oocytes retrieved (4.8 ± 1.1 vs. 2.4 ± 0.4; P =.02). IGFBP-3 levels increased during stimulation in PCOS patients but tended to decrease in control patients. In PCOS patients, an increase in IGFBP-3 levels during stimulation was associated with a greater likelihood of becoming pregnant ( P =.03) and of ongoing pregnancy ( P =.02). Conclusion(s) The bioavailability of IGF-I appears to play a key role in oocyte maturation in PCOS patients. Alterations in IGFBP-3 concentration during stimulation may be a critical mechanism in modulating IGF-I activity.
Toxicity and Carcinogenicity Studies of Phenylephrine Hydrochloride in F344/N Rats and B6C3F1 Mice

Phenylephrine HCl was incorporated into feed given to male and female F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice in studies of 14 days, 12 weeks, and 2 years duration. In 12-week studies, body weight gains decreased with dose, and deaths of male rats and mice occurred at concentrations of 5,000 ppm and above; however, no organ-specific toxicity was evident. During 2-year studies, body weights of rats receiving diets at 620 and 1,250 ppm and mice at 1,250 and 2,500 ppm ranged up to 16% less than control. Survival of high dose male rats was substantially greater than controls. Survivals of other dose groups of rats and mice were similar to controls. Chronic focal inflammation of the liver, and inflammation of the prostate were increased in dosed rats. No increases in neoplasms were observed in rats or mice consuming diets containing phenylephrine HCl for 2 years. The incidences of mononuclear cell leukemia and pheochromocytomas of the adrenal gland were decreased in dosed male rats. Approximate time weighted average doses ranged up to 54 mg/kg/day for rats and 280 mg/kg/day for mice during the 2-year studies.
Avoiding the struggle: Instruction that supports students' motivation in reading and writing about content material

We conducted a mixed methods study to evaluate motivation among 20 fourth-grade students who struggle with reading and writing prior to and after receiving either self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) instruction for expository reading comprehension or SRSD instruction for expository reading comprehension plus informative writing. We performed qualitative, descriptive, and statistical analysis on 3 data sets to gain insight into student perceptions across a variety of motivational factors and dimensions. Results indicated that students’ efficacy increased after instruction in both interventions; however, efficacy was more varied across interventions for interest, self-regulation (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation), and task perception. Findings indicated that social factors could be better developed in both interventions.
Emulsions under shear—the formation and properties of partially coalesced lipid structures

Partial coalescence in semi-crystalline emulsion droplets is essential to the manufacture and quality of many dairy products including ice cream, whipped cream, and butter. In real food emulsions this process occurs under fluctuating temperatures and shear rates and some of the effects of these factors are considered in this work. Two approaches to the problem are reported. In the first, the freeze-thaw stability and shear modulus of a food oil emulsion during a freeze-thaw cycle is related to the volume fraction of dispersed phase. In the second approach the rate of crystallization of emulsified n-hexadecane in the presence of solid n-hexadecane is shown to be independent of applied shear rate. Some ideas on how these approaches may be combined for a fuller understanding of the partial coalescence process are presented. La coalescence partielle dans les gouttelettes d'emulsion semicristalline est essentielle a la fabrication et a la qualite de nombreux produits laitiers tels que glace, creme fouettee et beurre. Dans des emulsions alimentaires ce processus se produit a des temperatures et a des taux de cisaillement variables et les effets de ces facteurs sont examines dans cette etude.
Dynamic estimation of temperature and concentration profiles in a packed bed reactor

Abstract A two-dimensional nonlinear distributed-parameter optimal state estimation algorithm has been developed and applied to an exothermic packed bed catalytic reactor. Temperature and concentration profiles were estimated from limited temperature and/or concentration measurements. Orthogonal collocation was used to solve the differential sensitivity and filtering equations. Both simulations and on-line experiments with a pilot scale packed bed reactor for the partial oxidation of methanol have been used to study the effects of measurement choice, model parameter errors, and unmeasured process disturbances. Excellent tracking of the reactor profiles was achieved with only one or two properly placed temperature sensors.
CELLULAR INTERPRETATION OF ASPECTS OF THE ACUTE MAMMALIAN RADIATION SYNDROME

Publisher Summary This chapter describes the cellular interpretation of aspects of the acute mammalian radiation syndrome. The dynamics of the radiation syndrome is examined on the basis that the principal action of radiation in the low dose range is to destroy reproduction of somatic cells. The data demonstrate that while individual differences in radiation sensitivity exist between different kinds of mammalian cells, these differences are relatively small and never approach the range required by the theory of differential cell radiosensitivity. The cells whose ability to form colonies has been terminated by the radiation yield no immediate cytological evidence of their injury. Within a period equivalent to three or five normal generation times, many of them become enlarged to form giants as though the cells had continued to grow in size despite their inability to divide.
Chemical reactivities of cysteine substitutions in subunit a of ATP synthase define residues gating H+ transport from each side of the membrane.

Subunit a plays a key role in coupling H+ transport to rotations of the subunit c-ring in F1Fo ATP synthase. In Escherichia coli, H+ binding and release occur at Asp-61 in the middle of the second transmembrane helix (TMH) of Fo subunit c. Based upon the Ag+ sensitivity of Cys substituted into subunit a, H+ are thought to reach Asp-61 via aqueous pathways mapping to surfaces of TMH 2–5. In this study we have extended characterization of the most Ag+-sensitive residues in subunit a with cysteine reactive methanethiosulfonate (MTS) reagents and Cd2+. The effect of these reagents on ATPase-coupled H+ transport was measured using inside-out membrane vesicles. Cd2+ inhibited the activity of all Ag+-sensitive Cys on the cytoplasmic side of the TMHs, and three of these substitutions were also sensitive to inhibition by MTS reagents. On the other hand, Cd2+ did not inhibit the activities of substitutions at residues 119 and 120 on the periplasmic side of TMH2, and residues 214 and 215 in TMH4 and 252 in TMH5 at the center of the membrane. When inside-out membrane vesicles from each of these substitutions were sonicated during Cd2+ treatment to expose the periplasmic surface, the ATPase-coupled H+ transport activity was strongly inhibited. The periplasmic access to N214C and Q252C, and their positioning in the protein at the a-c interface, is consistent with previous proposals that these residues may be involved in gating H+ access from the periplasmic half-channel to Asp-61 during the protonation step.
Indoor wave propagation simulations at HF using rayleigh-gans approximation

Summary form only given. In this paper indoor wave propagation issues at HF band is considered. A salient feature for wave propagation at this band is the fact that the size of objects is smaller or comparable to the wavelength and therefore high frequency methods such as ray-tracing can no longer be applied. On the other hand there are other approximations and simplifying feature exist that can be utilized to achieve accurate models as discussed below. Analysis of wave propagation in a complex indoor environment composed of many dielectric walls is encountered often for many military and civilian applications such as wireless mobile broadband communications, and inter-floor wave propagation. Thus, it is important to understand the complex indoor propagation mechanisms, including attenuation, scattering, the ground effect, etc., to assess the performance of such radios in an urban or indoor setting. The premise of low frequency radios is in low attenuation and low multi-path fading and their major drawback for mobile applications is in the size of the antenna. With the advent of antenna miniaturization methods techniques this limitation is being removed (Oh, J., J. Choi, F. T. Dagefu, and K. Sarabandi, “Extremely Small Two-Element Monopole Antenna for HF band Applications” IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, in press 2013) . Depending on the frequency and the size of the buildings, it is possible to use many full-wave methods such as FDTD at HF bands in order to obtain accurate results. However, these methods quickly lose their advantage for problems with large computational domains and in situations where statistical parameters of wave propagation are to be determined. As mentioned before, high frequency methods are computationally fast, but not appropriate at the desired HF and VHF bands where most interior wall dimensions are small compared to the wavelength. and hence low frequency approximations such as Rayleigh-Gans approximations can be utilized to find the scattered field. In such solutions, the fields inside the walls can easily be calculated using the appropriate polarizability tensor from which the fields in the near-field and far-field regions can easily be computed. Finally, multiple scattering can be analyzed by following an iterative procedure. Initially all the polarization currents for all walls in line-of-sight of the transmitter are computed, then the secondary scattered field is computed for all walls in the line-of-sight of the previous iteration lit walls. This process is continued until a convergence is reached and then fields are computed. In these computations the closed form of the dyadic Green's functions is used to achieve the electric field at desired receiving points.
Apparatus for molding a recorded disc

A center plate for an apparatus for molding recorded discs is disclosed which includes a cylindrical body having an internal recess and a plug secured across the bottom end of the recess. The plug has a pair of passages therethrough opening into the internal recess. An adapter is secured to the plug. The adapter has a pair of ports and a separate universal connection between each of the ports and a separate one of the passages in the plug. This provides for a flow of a heat control medium through the center plate and permits ease of connecting pipes to the ports to provide the flow of the heat control medium.
Effects of chemical and visual exposure to adults on growth, hormones, and behavior of juvenile green Iguanas

For 1 year, groups of juvenile male green iguanas (Iguana iguana) were housed such that one group was visually exposed to an adult female, a second group was both visually and chemically exposed to an adult female, a third group was visually exposed to an adult male, and a fourth group was both visually and chemically exposed to an adult male. Juvenile males exposed to signals from adult males showed signs of chronic stress, including reduced growth rates, lower testosterone levels, higher corticosterone levels, and decreased frequencies of headbob display. Although visual exposure alone was sufficient to suppress growth, testosterone levels, and rates of display, the addition of chemical exposure strengthened some of these effects. Both chemical and visual exposure to an adult male were necessary to produce elevated corticosterone levels. In contrast, juvenile males exposed to visual and chemical signals from an adult female exhibited growth rates, hormone levels, and behavior patterns typical of juvenile males housed in the absence of adults of either sex. These results suggest that visual and chemical signals from dominants may serve to reinforce social relationships among males through their influence on the physiology and behavior of receivers.
Interfractional Target Variations for Partial Breast Irradiation

Purpose In this work, we quantify the interfractional variations in the shape of the clinical target volume (CTV) by analyzing the daily CT data acquired during CT-guided partial breast irradiation (PBI) and compare the effectiveness of various repositioning alignment strategies considered to account for the variations. Methods and Materials The daily CT data for 13 breast cancer patients treated with PBI in either prone (10 patients) or supine (3 patients) with daily kV CT guidance using CT on Rails (CTVision, Siemens, Malvern, PA) were analyzed. For approximately 25 points on the surface of the CTV, deformation vectors were calculated by means of deformable image registration and verified by visual inspection. These were used to calculate the distances along surface normals (DSN), which directly related to the required margin expansions for each point. The DSN values were determined for seven alignment methods based on volumetric imaging and also two-dimensional projections (portal imaging). Results The margin expansion necessary to cover 99% of all points for all days was 2.7 mm when utilizing the alignment method based on deformation field data (the best alignment method). The center-of-mass based alignment yielded slightly worse results (a margin of 4.0 mm), and shifts obtained by operator placement (7.9 mm), two-dimensional-based methods (7.0–10.1 mm), and skin marks (13.9 mm) required even larger margin expansions. Target shrinkage was evident for most days by the negative values of DSN. Even with the best alignment, the range of DSN values could be as high as 7 mm, resulting in a large amount of normal tissue irradiation, unless adaptive replanning is employed. Conclusion The appropriate alignment method is important to minimize the margin requirement to cover the significant interfractional target deformations observed during PBI. The amount of normal tissue unnecessarily irradiated is still not insignificant, and can be minimized if adaptive radiotherapy is applied.
Rapid shear wave measurement for SDUV with broadband excitation pulses and non-uniform sampling

We propose a method using broadband tone burst excitation pulses with non-uniform sampling for Shearwave Dispersion Ultrasound Vibrometry (SDUV). The method allows long excitation pulses with a high PRF of detection pulses to induce a strong tissue motion and obtain strong detection signal. The method also simultaneously estimates all harmonics of tissue motion induced by the broadband excitation pulses so that the shear wave can be rapidly estimated with minimized bias and distortion.
Acquisitions and the Information Environment of Firms

This paper investigates how acquisitions affect analyst following of firms. Analyst following increases as a result of a merger. However, all of that increase can be attributed to the changes in firm-specific characteristics resulting from the merger. Changes in analyst following around mergers are positively related to changes in firm size, expenditures on R&D, and the ratio of book to the market value of equity. Finally, the relatedness of merger appears to be an important determinant of analyst following of firms engaged in acquisitions.
Analyzing conversations of Web services

A composite Web service consists of a set of individual services (or peers), which interact with each other via messages. A conversation is a global sequence of messages exchanged among peers participating in a composite Web service. Interestingly, conversation behavior differs significantly for synchronous and asynchronous communication, even if peers' local behaviors remain the same. The authors use synchronizability and realizability analysis techniques to analyze conversations in the presence of asynchronous communication. With these analyses, they can use model checking to automatically verify conversation behavior for bottom-up and top-down Web service specifications.
Tidal exhaled nitric oxide in healthy, unsedated newborn infants with prenatal tobacco exposure.

Tidal fractional exhaled nitric oxide (Fe NO) changes were investigated in healthy, unsedated infants with or without prenatal tobacco exposure. Tidal flow (V˙), Fe NO, and CO2were measured in 20 healthy, unsedated infants [age: 25–58 days, length: 56.5 ± 2.5 (SE) cm]. NO output (V˙no) was calculated (V˙no = Fe NO × V˙). Two approaches were used to investigate within-breath changes of Fe NOand V˙no. First, we identified phases II and III from the expiratory capnogram. Second, we divided expiration into time-based quartiles. Tidal Fe NO (range: 14.5 ± 1.6 to 17.6 ± 2.1 parts/billion: quartile 4 and phase II, respectively) was not different between portions and exhibited significant negative V˙ dependence. V˙no was significantly dependent on the expiratory portion, with quartile 4 being significantly lower than the remaining expiratory portions. Infants exposed to prenatal cigarette smoke (n = 7) exhibited significantly lower Fe NO and V˙no compared with nonexposed (n = 13) infants. We conclude that tidal F...
Capacity in Wireless Systems with Random Access and Delay Constraints

It can be desirable in some wireless systems, including mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), to use a random access multiple access scheme. In this case, the uncoordinated arrival of packets at a node that receives transmissions from two or more other nodes results in contention. This contention is particularly high at a node that aggregates traffic transmitted from a number of nodes. When delay sensitive information is carried, the physical layer packet loss probability must be low; this requirement, in conjunction with the multiple access contention, severely limits the receive capacity of a node that aggregates traffic from multiple transmitting nodes. Design tradeoffs to increase the capacity are explored, which are applicable to a broad class of packet arrival processes and are applied to a wide range of the number of transmitting nodes.
Molecular Aggregation And Chromonic Liquid Crystals

Almost 30 years ago, when the study of chromonic liquid crystals was in its infancy, Alfred Saupe and L.J. Yu investigated disodium cromoglycate using deuteron magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Among their findings were that the quadrupolar splitting of the D2O spectrum increased with decreasing temperature and that the addition of salt to the solution increased the temperature stability of the nematic phase. A good deal of research on chromonic liquid crystals has been reported since that time, and therefore a lot more is known. However, it is also interesting that some of the questions from that time remain unanswered.
LABYRINTH AND EQUILIBRIUM : I. A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECT OF REMOVAL OF THE OTOLITH ORGANS AND OF THE SEMICIRCULAR CANALS.

1. A dogfish from which all six ampullae have been removed maintains its equilibrium; the righting reactions occur promptly; compensatory movements of the eyes occur in response to rotations in all planes except the horizontal; the compensatory position of the eyes is retained if the animal is held in an abnormal position. Both the static and dynamic functions of equilibrium continue, therefore, after complete removal of all the semicircular canals and all the ampullae. 2. After complete removal of the otoliths from the vestibules without injury to the ampullae the animal maintains its equilibrium in the water, rights itself promptly, and makes compensatory motions to rotations in all planes. If held in an abnormal position the compensatory position of the eyes is maintained. Both static and dynamic functions of equilibrium continue. 3. Destruction of both the semicircular canals and the otolith organs completely abolishes all compensatory movements and equilibrium reactions of labyrinthine origin. 4. It is pointed out that these observations do not justify the theory of Mach and Breuer that the ampullae and semicircular canals are the organs for the dynamic functions of equilibrium, and that the otoliths are the organs for the static functions of equilibrium. 5. The new experiments recorded in this paper show that the ampullae alone (without the otoliths) suffice for all the dynamic and all the static functions of equilibrium of the ear; and that the otolith organs (without the ampullae) suffice for all the static and for all the dynamic functions of equilibrium of the ear with the exception of the response to a rotation of the animal in a horizontal plane.
Open source assessment of academic library patron satisfaction

Purpose – While academic libraries have often purchased proprietary software to assess patron satisfaction, the open source movement has generated high-quality software available free of charge. These tools are useful alternatives in an era marked by tremendous budget cuts familiar to many academic libraries. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ability of open source software to effectively and affordably measure the quality of service at academic libraries. Design/methodology/approach – The author's experience with using the open source tool LimeSurvey to administer a library survey over a three-year period serves as a case study for other institutions. A literature review contextualizes the history of patron satisfaction surveys within academic libraries and questions the lack of an open source presence. Popular proprietary survey software is reported as a viable but expensive option, leading to a detailed case study of Sarah Lawrence College's successful addition of open source software to ...
Functional Restoration: From Concept to Practice

A forward-looking approach to forest restoration is advocated with the emphasis on restoring ecosystem health. This approach, called functional restoration, uses indicators of ecosystem health such as mortality, regeneration, reproduction, and productivity, as well as surrogates such as structural diversity, age class distribution, and species diversity, to characterize ecosystem health. Although restoring ecosystem health is the primary emphasis, manipulating species composition and forest structure are the means for accomplishing functional restoration. Managers have experience in measuring most indicators of ecosystem health and, for the most part, cost effective methods for measuring them exist. Instead of using the composition and structure from the historic record as the benchmark, ecosystem health as measured from the time of treatment—i.e., the initial conditions, and changes in these conditions with time—becomes the measure of success. By applying this approach, restoration becomes an investment ...
Core Curriculum for Professional Education in Pain, Third Edition

IASP Press Seattle, WA, USA 2005 J. Edmond Charlton (ed.) Pages: 240 Price: US $20. The content is now available free online at http://www.iasp-pain.org (click the publications link) ISBN: 0-931092-65-5 Core Curriculum for Professional Education in Pain , edited by J. Edmond Charlton and published by the International Association for the Study of Pain Press, offers a framework for curriculum planning and independent study in Pain Medicine . The recently released third edition notably expands and updates the core curriculum with contributions from 87 authors, a nearly 40% increase in the international panel of contributors—representing fields of nursing, addiction recovery, pain research, anatomy and developmental biology, palliative care, epidemiology, pharmacology, rheumatology, neurology, urology, public health service, among others. To parallel the increase in number of contributing authors, new topics are now included in the Core Curriculum. Those that stand out include cultural aspects of pain, sex and gender issues of pain, work rehabilitation and complementary therapies, pain relief in substance abusers, children, and individuals with limited ability to communicate. This edition offers an organized grouping of the 45 topics into four parts: the first part contains general topics …
Kismet: parallel speedup estimates for serial programs

Software engineers now face the difficult task of refactoring serial programs for parallel execution on multicore processors. Currently, they are offered little guidance as to how much benefit may come from this task, or how close they are to the best possible parallelization. This paper presents Kismet, a tool that creates parallel speedup estimates for unparallelized serial programs. Kismet differs from previous approaches in that it does not require any manual analysis or modification of the program. This difference allows quick analysis of many programs, avoiding wasted engineering effort on those that are fundamentally limited. To accomplish this task, Kismet builds upon the hierarchical critical path analysis (HCPA) technique, a recently developed dynamic analysis that localizes parallelism to each of the potentially nested regions in the target program. It then uses a parallel execution time model to compute an approximate upper bound for performance, modeling constraints that stem from both hardware parameters and internal program structure.Our evaluation applies Kismet to eight high-parallelism NAS Parallel Benchmarks running on a 32-core AMD multicore system, five low-parallelism SpecInt benchmarks, and six medium-parallelism benchmarks running on the finegrained MIT Raw processor. The results are compelling. Kismet is able to significantly improve the accuracy of parallel speedup estimates relative to prior work based on critical path analysis.
The Clinical Problem of Symptomatic Alzheimer Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Alzheimer disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly. Clinicopathological studies support the presence of a long preclinical phase of the disease, with the initial deposition of AD pathology estimated to begin approximately 10-15 years prior to the onset of clinical symptoms. The hallmark clinical phenotype of AD is a gradual and progressive decline in two or more cognitive domains, most commonly involving episodic memory and executive functions, that is sufficient to cause social or occupational impairment. Current diagnostic criteria can accurately identify AD in the majority of cases. As disease-modifying therapies are being developed, there is growing interest in the identification of individuals in the earliest symptomatic, as well as presymptomatic, stages of disease, because it is in this population that such therapies may have the greatest chance of success. The use of informant-based methods to establish cognitive and functional decline of an individual from previously attained levels of performance best allows for the identification of individuals in the very mildest stages of cognitive impairment.
Subicular Dendritic Arborization in Alzheimer's Disease Correlates with Neurofibrillary Tangle Density

Intracellular accumulation of PHFtau in Alzheimer's disease (AD) disrupts the neuronal cytoskeleton and other neuronal machinery and contributes to axonal and dendritic degeneration, and neuronal death. Furthermore, amyloid-beta (Abeta) has been reported to be toxic to neurons and neurites. While loss of presynaptic elements is an established feature of AD, the nature and extent of dendritic degeneration has been infrequently studied. We investigated MAP2-immunoreactive dendrites using a novel method of high-throughput quantification and also measured cortical thickness and the densities of NeuN-immunoreactive neurons, PHFtau neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), and Abeta plaque burden in the subiculum in AD and elderly controls. Corrected for atrophy, the "dendritic arborization index" was significantly reduced by up to 66% in all three layers of the subiculum. Laminar thickness was reduced by an average 33% and there was a marked reduction in neuron density of approximately 50%. As expected, NFTs and Abeta plaques were significantly increased in AD. Dendritic arborization indices negatively correlated with NFT densities while no significant correlations were found with Abeta plaque densities. The pattern of dendritic loss in the subiculum and the correlations with NFT densities respectively suggest that deafferentation and intrinsic neurofibrillary degeneration both may contribute to dendritic loss in AD.
Growth, Developmental, and Longevity Rhythms in Campanularia flexuosa

synopsis. Endogenous circannual rhythms in growth, development, and longevity of the marine coelenterate Campanularia flexuosa have persisted for over 3 years in the ab? sence of periodic signals from the environment. The periods for the cycles at three constant ambient temperatures, 10, 17 and 24 C, approximated 1 year, but were always more than 365 days. Although uncertainty exists, temperature was implicated as a Zeitgeber. The endogenous circannual rhythms were marked by seasons of luxuriant colony growth that alternated with more sparse growth. During luxuriant growth, de? velopment of individual hydranths was initiated regularly in new positions and as replacements at regression sites on uprights. Nearly all hydranth development was normal and adult life spans were long. The profuse growth was interrupted by seasons of sparse growth each summer and punctuated by recurrent, short periods of sharply curtailed growth in mid-winter. During curtailed growth, the rate of hydranth initia? tion at all sites was depressed, and abnormal development aborted many individuals. Most strikingly, hydranth life spans fell to about half those observed during seasons of luxuriant growth. With the spontaneous return to the luxuriant growth habit, hy? dranth life spans rose, nearly doubling. The delineation of these endogenous rhythms in C. flexuosa longevity challenges the generally accepted concept of specific age, an age at death which is characteristic of the species. Yearly, endogenous rhythms in growth, development, and longevity are evident in the marine coelenterate Campanularia flexuosa. These yearly cycles are called circannual rhythms and may be analogous to circadian rhythms, except that the pe? riod of the cycle approximates 1 year rather than 24 hr. Like circadian rhythms, the endogenous cycles are relatively tem? perature independent and persist in the absence of periodic signals from the en? vironment. Although yearly changes in the behavior and physiology of many ani? mals in nature long have been observed, the careful delineation of endogenous circannual rhythms is recent. They have been documented very elegantly for some
Mechanisms of Spreading Depression and Hypoxic Spreading Depression-Like Depolarization

Spreading depression (SD) and the related hypoxic SD-like depolarization (HSD) are characterized by rapid and nearly complete depolarization of a sizable population of brain cells with massive redi...
1988 Ewing Medal to Wolfgang H. Berger

From simple suggestions sometimes spring great accomplishments. For Wolfgang Berger the beginning was a suggestion from his doctoral advisor, Fred Phleger, who said, in response to a question about what Wolf might pursue for a dissertation, “study planktonic foraminifera.” At the time the suggestion probably would not have been of interest to a geophysics or geochemistry student, but luckily for all of us, Wolfs early training was in paleontology and stratigraphy, and he took Fred's suggestion. The result has been a rich flow of ideas about the formation and preservation of biogenic sediments in the deep-sea carbonate dissolution, climatic change, global ocean productivity, and the Cenozoic ocean.
The Caenorhabditis elegans unc-64 locus encodes a syntaxin that interacts genetically with synaptobrevin.

We describe the molecular cloning and characterization of the unc-64 locus of Caenorhabditis elegans. unc-64 expresses three transcripts, each encoding a molecule with 63‐ 64% identity to human syntaxin 1A, a membrane- anchored protein involved in synaptic vesicle fusion. Interestingly, the alternative forms of syntaxin differ only in their Cterminal hydrophobic membrane anchors. The forms are differentially expressed in neuronal and secretory tissues; genetic evidence suggests that these forms are not functionally equivalent. A complete loss-of-function mutation in unc-64 results in a worm that completes embryogenesis, but arrests development shortly thereafter as a paralyzed L1 larva, presumably as a consequence of neuronal dysfunction. The severity of the neuronal phenotypes of C. elegans syntaxin mutants appears comparable to those of Drosophila syntaxin mutants. However, nematode syntaxin appears not to be required for embryonic development, for secretion of cuticle from the hypodermis, or for the function of muscle, in contrast to Drosophila syntaxin, which appears to be required in all cells. Less severe viable unc-64 mutants exhibit a variety of behavioral defects and show strong resistance to the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor aldicarb. Extracellular physiological recordings from pharyngeal muscle of hypomorphic mutants show alterations in the kinetics of transmitter release. The lesions in the hypomorphic alleles map to the hydrophobic face of the H3 coiled-coil domain of syntaxin, a domain that in vitro mediates physical interactions with similar coiled-coil domains in SNAP-25 and synaptobrevin. Furthermore, the unc-64 syntaxin mutants exhibit allele-specific genetic interactions with mutants carrying lesions in the coiled-coil domain of synaptobrevin, providing in vivo evidence for the significance of these domains in regulating synaptic vesicle fusion.