cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Effects of a novel, selective, sigma1-ligand, MS-377, on phencyclidine-induced behaviour.

Phencyclidine (PCP)-induced head-weaving is inhibited by a novel selective σ1-ligand, (R)-(+)-1-(4-chlorophenyl)-3-[4-(2-methoxyethyl)piperazin-1-yl]methyl-2-pyrrolidinone L-tartrate (MS-377), but not by dopamine D2 antagonists. In the present study, we examined the effects of two potent and selective σ1-ligands, MS-377 and N,N-dipropyl-2-(4-methoxy-3-(2-phenylethoxy)phenyl)ethylamine (NE-100), on PCP-induced rearing behaviour, hyperlocomotion and ataxia in comparison with the currently available antipsychotic agents with affinity for D2 receptors, haloperidol, sultopride and risperidone. Male Wistar rats or ddY mice were administered MS-377, NE-100, haloperidol, sultopride or risperidone, and PCP was administered 60 min later (in the case of NE-100 10 min later). Rearing behaviour, hyperlocomotion and ataxia were examined 10 min after PCP administration. MS-377, haloperidol, sultopride and risperidone dose-dependently inhibited PCP-induced rearing and hyperlocomotion, but did not antagonize PCP-induced ataxia. In contrast, the other selective σ1-ligand, NE-100, did not affect any of the PCP-induced behaviour patterns in this study. These results suggest that there are at least two types of ligands for σ1-receptors and that some σ1-ligands, including MS-377, have more comprehensive effects against PCP-induced abnormal behaviour than other σ1-ligands or D2 antagonists.
Quantifying foliar uptake of gaseous nitrogen dioxide using enriched foliar δ15N values

Summary • The magnitude and impact of gaseous nitrogen dioxide (NO2) directly entering the leaves were investigated using foliar nitrogen isotopic composition (δ15N) values in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum). • Using a hydroponics–fumigation system, 15NO2 (20 and 40 ppb) was supplied to shoot systems and (50 and 500 µM) was supplied to root systems. Morphological, stable isotope and nitrate reductase activity (NRA) analyses were used to quantify foliar NO2 uptake and to examine whether realistic concentrations of NO2 influenced plant metabolism. • Nicotiana tabacum and L. esculentum incorporated 15 and 11%, respectively, of 15NO2-N into total biomass via foliar uptake under low supply. On a mass basis, N. tabacum and L. esculentum incorporated 3.3 ± 0.9 and 3.1 ± 0.8 mg of 15NO2-N into biomass, respectively, regardless of availability. There were no strong effects on biomass accumulation or allocation, leaf δ13C values, or leaf or root NRA in response to NO2 exposure. • Foliar NO2 uptake may contribute a significant proportion of N to plant metabolism under N-limited conditions, does not strongly influence growth at 40 ppb, and may be traced using foliar δ15N values.
Synergistic Effect of Combination of Phenethyl Isothiocyanate and Sulforaphane or Curcumin and Sulforaphane in the Inhibition of Inflammation

Purpose Accumulating evidence from epidemiologic and clinical studies indicates that chronic inflammatory disorders harbor an increased risk of cancer development. Curcumin (CUR) has been strongly linked to the anti-inflammatory effect. On the other hand, isothiocyanates such as sulforaphane (SFN) and phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC) are strong phase-II detoxifying/antioxidant enzymes inducer. Therefore it is interesting to see if combination of these drugs can inhibit inflammation with higher combined efficacies.
Photoperiodic regulation of behavioral responsiveness to proinflammatory cytokines.

Abstract Symptoms of bacterial infection include decreases in body mass (cachexia), induction of depressive-like hedonic tone (anhedonia), decreases in food intake (anorexia), and increases in body temperature (fever). Recognition of bacteria by the innate immune system triggers the release of proinflammatory cytokines which induce these sickness behaviors via actions at central and peripheral targets. In Siberian hamsters, exposure to short day lengths decreases both the production of proinflammatory cytokines and the magnitude of the symptoms of infection. Short-day attenuation of sickness behaviors may arise solely from decreased production of cytokines; alternatively, substrates responsible for the generation of sickness behaviors may be less responsive to cytokines in short days. To discriminate among these hypotheses, Siberian hamsters were treated with either bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 25 μg) or recombinant mouse IL-1β (rIL-1β; 100 ng) following 11 weeks of exposure to long (15 h light/day) and short (9 h light/day) photoperiods. Replicating earlier work, the magnitude and/or duration of LPS-induced anorexia, anhedonia, cachexia, and fever were greater in long-day relative to short-day hamsters. A comparable short-day attenuation of sickness behaviors and fever was obtained in response to rIL-1β treatment, despite treatment with identical concentrations of cytokine. These data suggest that hamsters subjected to immunoenhancing short days exhibit diminished symptoms of infection not solely because infections elicit lower levels of cytokine production, but also because the substrates upon which cytokines act become relatively refractory.
Some optimum non-adaptive hypergeometric group testing designs for identifying two defectives☆

Abstract A systematic study of non-adaptive hypergeometric group testing designs for identifying two defectives is presented. Bounds are given for the number of items that can be tested in a given number of tests. Constructions of some classes of designs are presented.
Wear of Fluorapatite Single Crystals : VI. Influence of Multiple-Pass Sliding on Surface Failure

The influence of multiple-pass sliding on the surface failure of fluorapatite single crystals was evaluated. The surface and subsurface damage on the basal plane of fluorapatite was accelerative, rather than additive. Damage was more severe for sliding in opposite directions than for two traversals in the same direction.
DIET in the bulk: evidence for hot electron cleavage of SiH bonds in SiO2 films

Abstract The observed increase in leakage current through SiO2 films after hot electron exposure is ascribed to dissociation induced by electronic transitions (“DIET”) of bulk SiH bonds, producing mobile hydrogen. We use ab initio supercell bandstructure calculations at the local density functional level to locate features produced by hydrogen-containing defects in α-SiO2. The edge of the SiH σ∗ resonance is found to be about 2.7 eV above the conduction band rise, in good agreement with the observed threshold for hot electron induced damage in amorphous SiO2 films grown on Si substrates. The OH σ∗ resonance is almost 4 eV higher. Removing H from OH in the supercell does not affect the gap region (O− forms); however, removing H from SiH produces a mid-gap state, suggesting leakage current by hopping conductivity between Si dangling bonds. A Morse potential model is used to explore the dynamics of bond scission by short-lived ( σ∗ capture. Supercell calculations on interstitial atomic hydrogen indicate the energy cost to break an embedded SiH bond is about 0.6 eV less than in the gas phase. The DIET yield is substantially increased by reducing both ground and electron-attached state binding by this amount. While uncertainty over the displaced equilibrium in the electron-attached excited state remains, the computed DIET cross-section for reasonable parameters is ≈10−18 cm2, and is in agreement with the semi-empirically derived value for trap creation. Comparisons are made to surface DIET processes involving SiH bonds.
Bimolecular Electron Transfer in the Marcus Inverted Region

The rates for the photoinduced bimolecular reactions of a homologous series of RuII diimines with cytochrome (cyt) c in its oxidized and reduced forms have been measured. The electronic coupling and reorganization energy of the system have been adjusted such that the inverted region may be accessed at reasonable driving forces. The electron transfer (ET) rate constants for *RuII diimine/FeIIcyt c reaction increase monotonically and approach the diffusion limit of 8.8 × 108 M-1 s-1 at ΔG° = −0.7 V. At a higher driving force, which may be accessed with the powerfully oxidizing *Ru(diCF3-bpy)32+, the rate for ET is observed to drop off. Similarly, the high driving forces achieved with *RuII diimine/FeIIIcyt c (−ΔG ≥ 1.12 V) are manifested in a decrease of the ET rate constant with increasing exergonicity. The observed ET rates for both systems are well described by a bimolecular model for ET occurring over an equilibrium distribution of reactant separation distances, each having a different formation probabi...
Spray drying tenofovir loaded mucoadhesive and pH-sensitive microspheres intended for HIV prevention.

Purpose To develop spray dried mucoadhesive and pH-sensitive microspheres (MS) based on polymethacrylate salt intended for vaginal delivery of tenofovir (a model HIV microbicide) and assess their critical biological responses.
Gradient elution micellar liquid chromatography

Abstract The usefulness of micellar mobile phases for gradient elution reversed-phase chromatography is demonstrated. Adsorption isotherms are shown to prove that no further stationary phase modification occurs above the critical micelle concentration. Micelle concentration gradients are then possible with no column re-equilibration necessary between injections. The strength of common micellar solutions is calculated and compared to methanol. Micellar concentration gradients are also shown to be compatible with electrochemical detection with minimal background current shifts.
Integrating Model-Based Transmission Reduction into a multi-tier architecture

A multi-tier architecture consists of numerous craft as part of the system, orbital, aerial, and surface tiers. Each tier is able to collect progressively greater levels of information. Generally, craft from lower-level tiers are deployed to a target of interest based on its identification by a higher-level craft. While the architecture promotes significant amounts of science being performed in parallel, this may overwhelm the computational and transmission capabilities of higher-tier craft and links (particularly the deep space link back to Earth). Because of this, a new paradigm in in-situ data processing is required.
Kinetics of synthesis and cleavage of encephalomyocarditis virus-specific proteins

Abstract A mathematical model is presented which describes the kinetics of synthesis and cleavage of encephalomyocarditis (EMC) virus-specific proteins as observed in pulse-chase and progressive labeling experiments. Although there is evidence that each ribosome completes translation of the entire protein coding region of the viral RNA, at 4 hr postinfection no polypeptide or nascent chain larger than the 100,000 dalton capsid precursor chain was observed. Hence, little or no “polyprotein” (mass 220,000–260,000 daltons) was produced. Rather, each of the three known primary products (polypeptides A, F, and C) was released upon completion of its synthesis. The precursor of the capsid polypeptides, polypeptide A, was always completed before it was cleaved. This resulted in the initial sequential labeling of the capsid polypeptides following the addition of radioactive amino acids to an infected cell suspension, and provided a means for ordering the capsid polypeptides within A. Chain F was stable, confirming previous reports. Polypeptide C cleaves to form D, which in turn cleaves to form E. However, only 15% of the C chains were released in the intact form. Thirty percent of the time, the nascent C chain had undergone one cleavage thus releasing D as the primary product, and 55% of the time both cleavages had occurred during translation, thus releasing E as a stable primary product. The half-life of the A chain was about 6.7 min, that of the C chain was 10 min, and that of the D chain was 12 min.
Spectral analysis of seizures in humans.

Abstract The electroencephalogram of a patient with intractable epilepsy was recorded with chronically implanted depth electrodes. The activity during a seizure was analyzed by an autoregressive spectral analysis technique that permits the calculation of the power spectra for all channels and the coherence between all possible channel pairings. The partial or residual coherence between a channel pair was calculated after a regression analysis had removed the influence of a third channel. If the coherence between two channels, in a frequency range of high spectral energy, fell to zero after partialing on a third channel, the latter was considered to drive the other two channels. A single site was sought which appeared to drive all other areas by analyzing all possible channel pairings and triplings. The source and spread of the seizure was determined by analyzing sequential data epochs. The analysis revealed the ictal activity arose in a single region, then spread over several pathways. The power spectra of the ictal activity revaled peaks in several frequency regions. Calculation of coherences and partial coherences in each of these frequency regions revealed different driving channels and, with analysis of sequential epochs, different pathways of spread of the ictal activity occurring at these frequencies. The spectral analysis technique provides, therefore, details of the seizure propagation and pacemaker activity not possible with conventional visual analysis of the analog data.
Application of the NASA/JSC Whipple Shield Ballistic Limit Equations to Dual-Wall Targets under Hypervelocity Impact

Abstract All Earth-orbiting spacecraft are susceptible to damage that can be caused by high-speed impacts with pieces of man-made debris or naturally-occurring meteoroids, and spacecraft at locations other than near Earth are subject to similar naturally-occurring hazards. Traditional protective shield design consists of a “bumper” that is placed at a relatively small distance away from the main “inner wall” of the spacecraft component, the performance of which is typically characterized by its ballistic limit equation (BLE). This paper addresses the question of how well the NASA/JSC dual-wall BLE performs when it is used to predict inner wall response in applications other than those used for its development. The major conclusions reached as a result of the analyses performed are that (1) to be truly conservative the critical projectile diameter value as calculated by the NASA/JSC dual-wall BLE needs to be multiplied by 0.75 to accommodate results from other test databases, (2) the NASA/JSC dual-wall BLE is not as conservative for impact obliquities exceeding 60° as it is for obliquities of 45° or less, and (3) the NASA/JSC dual-wall BLE is not as conservative for impact tests with MLI between the bumper and inner wall as it is for tests without the MLI.
Dispersion in coupled transmission lines

Propagation of time harmonic waves in a system of coupled transmission lines with losses is being considered. Such a system is usually dispersive. In a special case, a condition for dispersionless propagation is derived, which is a generalization of the known condition for uncoupled lossy lines.
Topics in dynamic research communities: An exploratory study for the field of information retrieval

Abstract Research topics and research communities are not disconnected from each other: communities and topics are interwoven and co-evolving. Yet, scientometric evaluations of topics and communities have been conducted independently and synchronically, with researchers often relying on homogeneous unit of analysis, such as authors, journals, institutions, or topics. Therefore, new methods are warranted that examine the dynamic relationship between topics and communities. This paper examines how research topics are mixed and matched in evolving research communities by using a hybrid approach which integrates both topic identification and community detection techniques. Using a data set on information retrieval (IR) publications, two layers of enriched information are constructed and contrasted: one is the communities detected through the topology of coauthorship network and the other is the topics of the communities detected through the topic model. We find evidence to support the assumption that IR communities and topics are interwoven and co-evolving, and topics can be used to understand the dynamics of community structures. We recommend the use of the hybrid approach to study the dynamic interactions of topics and communities.
Zwitterionic Chitosan Derivative, a New Biocompatible Pharmaceutical Excipient, Prevents Endotoxin-Mediated Cytokine Release

Chitosan is a cationic polymer of natural origin and has been widely explored as a pharmaceutical excipient for a broad range of biomedical applications. While generally considered safe and biocompatible, chitosan has the ability to induce inflammatory reactions, which varies with the physical and chemical properties. We hypothesized that the previously reported zwitterionic chitosan (ZWC) derivative had relatively low pro-inflammatory potential because of the aqueous solubility and reduced amine content. To test this, we compared various chitosans with different aqueous solubilities or primary amine contents with respect to the intraperitoneal (IP) biocompatibility and the propensity to induce pro-inflammatory cytokine production from macrophages. ZWC was relatively well tolerated in ICR mice after IP administration and had no pro-inflammatory effect on naive macrophages. Comparison with other chitosans indicates that these properties are mainly due to the aqueous solubility at neutral pH and relatively low molecular weight of ZWC. Interestingly, ZWC had a unique ability to suppress cytokine/chemokine production in macrophages challenged with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). This effect is likely due to the strong affinity of ZWC to LPS, which inactivates the pro-inflammatory function of LPS, and appears to be related to the reduced amine content. Our finding warrants further investigation of ZWC as a functional biomaterial.
Updating computed tomography of bladder carcinoma in assessing response to immunotherapy and attenuated irradiation.

Abstract Computed tomography (CT) was utilized as part of the surgical-pathologicradiologic evaluation of 21 patients who were treated for bladder carcinoma with attenuated irradiation and immunotherapy. Fifteen patients had moderately infiltrative (Stage B 2 -C or less) disease, and it was found that a routine high resolution CT technique using a modern fast scanner delineated the tumor in most cases. More accurate assessment of tumor response to therapy and evaluation of tumor progression were facilitated using a gas insufflation technique combined with intravenous contrast infusion. This was followed in selected cases by quantitative measurements of CT attenuation values using a recently introduced CT software program. Using this program, individual pixel values were obtained in selected areas and evaluation of the resulting numerical data and pixel histograms aided in the differentiation of tumor tissue from adjacent bladder wall and mapped out areas of tumor necrosis. Our preliminary observations suggest that quantitative CT studies incorporating assessment of printouts of attenuation values of adjacent pixels within a region of interest will improve the delineation of smaller (B1/B2) lesions and will aid objective characterization of tumor tissue during and following therapy.
Application of mathematical programming in planning of human diets

Mathematical programming models have been developed to find utility maximized nutritious diets. The utility maximized diets have been shown to be more practical, more realistic, and less costly than the non-utility maximized diets. In this study we further increase the desirability of diets by gradually softening those nutrients which have been supplied by the foods in the diet at a cost which is above the market price of the respective nutrient. Marginal analysis is used to find marginal costs of the nutrients. The parametric quadratic programming is used to find the optimum diet where the cost of nutrient is equal to the market price of the nutrient supplement. The resulting diet is more desireable and less costly than the previous diets.
A Quantitative Systems Pharmacology Perspective on Cancer Immunology

The return on investment within the pharmaceutical industry has exhibited an exponential decline over the last several decades. Contemporary analysis suggests that the rate-limiting step associated with the drug discovery and development process is our limited understanding of the disease pathophysiology in humans that is targeted by a drug. Similar to other industries, mechanistic modeling and simulation has been proposed as an enabling quantitative tool to help address this problem. Moreover, immunotherapies are transforming the clinical treatment of cure cancer and are becoming a major segment of the pharmaceutical research and development pipeline. As the clinical benefit of these immunotherapies seems to be limited to subset of the patient population, identifying the specific defect in the complex network of interactions associated with host immunity to a malignancy is a major challenge for expanding the clinical benefit. Understanding the interaction between malignant and immune cells is inherently a systems problem, where an engineering perspective may be helpful. The objective of this manuscript is to summarize this quantitative systems perspective, particularly with respect to developing immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.
Relevance thresholds: a multi-stage predictive model of how users evaluate information

This investigation examines end-user judgment and evaluation behavior during information retrieval (IR) system interactions and extends previous research surrounding relevance as a key construct for representing the value end-users ascribe to items retrieved from IR systems. A self-reporting instrument collected evaluative responses from 32 end-users related to 1432 retrieved items in relation to five characteristics of each item: (1) whether it was on topic, (2) whether it was meaningful to the user, (3) whether it was useful in relation to the problem at hand, (4) whether the IR system returned the information in the right form or format, and (5) whether the information retrieved allowed the user to take further action on it. The manner in which these characteristics of the retrieved items were considered, differentiated and aggregated were examined in relation to the region of relevance attributed to those items by the users.The nominal nature of the data collected led to non-parametric statistical analyses that indicated that end-user evaluation of retrieved items to resolve an information problem at hand is most likely a multi-stage process. While end-users may differ in their judgments and evaluations of retrieved items, they appear to make those decisions by using somewhat consistent heuristic approaches that point to a predictive multi-stage model of relevance thresholds that exist on a continuum from topic to meaning (pertinence) to functionality (use).
Recovery in the Calypso file system

This article presents the deign and implementation of the recovery scheme in Calypso. Calypso is a cluster-optimized, distributed file system for UNIX clusters. As in Sprite and AFS, Calypso servers are stateful and scale well to a large number of clients. The recovery scheme in Calypso is nondisruptive, meaning that open files remain open, client modified data are saved, and in-flight operations are properly handled across server recover. The scheme uses distributed state amount the clients to reconstruct the server state on a backup node if disks are multiported or on the rebooted server node. It guarantees data consistency during recovery and provides congestion control. Measurements show that the state reconstruction can be quite fast: for example, in a 32-node cluster, when an average node contains state for about 420 files, the reconstruction time is about 3.3 seconds. However, the time to update a file system after a failure can be a major factor in the overall recovery time, even when using journaling techniques.
The mechanism of hydrogenolysis and isomerization of oxacycloalkanes on metals: VI. The selectivity-determining step on Pt☆

During studies of the hydrogenolysis and isomerization of the 2-Me-oxacycloalkanes, it was found that the less sterically hindered C-O bond undergoes cleavage on a Pt catalyst. From the observed regioselectivity, it could be concluded that the primary C-O bond is split much more quickly than the secondary C-O bond. To prove this assumption the authors compared the rates of hydrogenolysis and isomerization of 2-Me-oxacycloalkanes and the corresponding cis-diMe-oxacycloalkanes under the same experimental conditions. The experimental results show that the secondary C-O bond is cleaved substantially more quickly than the primary C-O bond. Hence, for the 2-Me derivatives it must be assumed that the selectivity-determining step is not the same as the rate-determining step, but precedes this. Since the rate-determining step is probably the cleavage of the C-O bond, the selectivity-determining step may be the adsorption of the C-O bond. The determining factor, therefore, is the preferred adsorption of the primary carbon atom regardless of whether the mechanism is dissociative or associative. 9 references.
Large neutrino magnetic moments and the existence of singly charged scalar fields.

A certain general mechanism by which the neutrinos can have large magnetic dipole moments ({ital d}{sub {nu}}{similar to}10{sup {minus}11}{mu}{sub {ital B}}) and small masses ({ital m}{sub {nu}}{lt}10{sup {minus}1} eV) is explored. It is found that it is characteristic of this mechanism that there exist singly charged singlet scalars (i.e., scalars in (1,1,+1) of SU(3){times}SU(2){times}U(1)) as in the Zee model of lepton-number violation. It is suggested that, since such scalars arise automatically in low-energy supersymmetry as scalar partners of the right-handed leptons, a large neutrino dipole moment may be a signal of supersymmetry.
Cervical spondylodiscitis, osteomyelitis, and epidural abscess mimicking a vertebral fracture.

Abstract Background: Spinal vertebral fractures are common in elderly patients, especially after a significant fall. Neck tenderness or neurologic deficits after a fall should increase the suspicion of cervical spinal fracture. Case Report: A 75-year-old woman complained of 2 weeks of gradually increasing neck and right shoulder pain after a fall. She had an X-ray study that appeared to show an unstable C6–C7 fracture. A computed tomography scan of the neck revealed no fracture and was consistent with spondylodiscitis and osteomyelitis of C6 and C7, with an adjacent epidural abscess and mild cord compression. Conclusion: It is important to consider this diagnosis in patients with a history of infective endocarditis who develop back pain, to minimize morbidity associated with this disorder.
Body mass index (BMI) as predictor of ALSFRS-R score decline in ALS patients

AbstractRecent studies of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) suggest that body mass index (BMI) predicts patients’ survival in a curvilinear manner. We sought to determine the relationship of initial BMI to decline in the revised Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS-R) score over time. We used data from the high dose Coenzyme-Q10 in ALS (QALS) clinical trial, with in-person ALSFRS-R interviews at baseline and nine months (n = 150). Multiple regression analysis allowed adjustment for a range of predictors. The final analysis, adjusted for age and FVC, indicated a significant, non-linear association of BMI with the change of ALSFRS-R over time (p < 0.01). The smallest decline was at BMI of 30. Among non-obese patients (BMI < 30, n = 126), higher BMI was associated with slower ALSFRS-R decline (p = 0.03). Among obese patients (BMI ≥ 30, n = 24), higher BMI was associated, although not significantly, with faster decline (p = 0.17). In conclusion, for ALS patient with BMI less than 30...
Sparse representation based band selection for hyperspectral images

Hyperspectral images consist of large number of spectral bands but many of which contain redundant information. Therefore, band selection has been a common practice to reduce the dimensionality of the data space for cutting down the computational cost and alleviating from the Hughes phenomenon. This paper presents a new technique for band selection where a sparse representation of the hyperspectral image data is pursued through an existing algorithm, K-SVD, that decomposes the image data into the multiplication of an overcomplete dictionary (or signature matrix) and the coefficient matrix. The coefficient matrix, that possesses the sparsity property, reveals how importantly each band contributes in forming the hyperspectral data. By calculating the histogram of the coefficient matrix, we select the top K bands that appear more frequently than others to serve the need for dimensionality reduction and at the same time preserving the physical meaning of the selected bands. We refer to the proposed band selection algorithm based on sparse representation as SpaBS. Through experimental evaluation, we first use synthetic data to validate the sparsity property of the coefficient matrix. We then apply SpaBS on real hy-perspectral data and use classification accuracy as a metric to evaluate its performance. Compared to other unsupervised band selection algorithms like PCA and ICA, SpaBS presents higher classification accuracy with a stable performance.
Effects of Film Music on Psychological Transportation and Narrative Persuasion

Two experiments examined the effect of film music on the narrative persuasion. In Experiment 1, participants viewed a short film with its original musical soundtrack or with soundtrack muted. In Experiment 2, musical soundtrack was added to a film that was originally produced without music. Findings indicated that participants reported greater transportation into the film and greater agreement with film-relevant beliefs when soundtrack was presented but only when music was congruent with the film's affective tone. In support of the transportation-imagery model (Green & Brock, 2000), the effect of film music on beliefs was mediated by transportation into the film.
Hardness of Metals in Relation to Periodicity

IN Mr. Mallock's letter (NATURE, Feb. 19, page 276) he states that the periodicity of the hardness he determined does not fit Mendeleef's table. It is interesting to note that the hardnesses, and incidentally also the melting-points, fit rather well into the 18-period spectroscopic table which will be found on page v of the appendix of “Astronomy,” by Russell, Dugan, and Stewart. Inspection will show that the hard and soft metals are grouped and differentiated, and sequences with rather well-defined maxima and minima may be observed.
Anisotropy of the normal state properties of the superconducting Co1-xNixZr2 system

Anisotropic behavior of the normal state thermoelectric power, electrical resistivity, and magnetic susceptibility is reported for the superconducting Co1-xNixZr2 system. © 1982 Plenum Publishing Corporation.
Nonlinear network optimization on a massively parallel connection machine

Optimization problems with network constraints arise in several instances in engineering, management, statistical and economic applications. The (usually) large size of such problems motivated research in designing efficient algorithms and software for this problem class. The introduction of parallelism in the design of computer systems adds a new element of complexity to the field. This paper describes the implementation of a distributed relaxation algorithm for strictly convex network problems on a massively parallel computer. A Connection Machine CM-1 configured with 16,384 processing elements serves as the testbed of the implementation. We report computational results with a series of stick percolation and quadratic transportation problems. The algorithm is compared with an implementation of the primal truncated Newton on an IBM 3081-D mainframe, an Alliant FX/8 shared memory vector multiprocessor and the IBM 3090-600 vector supercomputer. One of the larger test problems with approximately 2500 nodes and 8000 arcs requires 1.5 minutes of CPU time on the vector supercomputer. The same problem is solved using relaxation on the CM-1 in less that a second.
Unlearning as a function of the activity between AB and AC acquisition

AB acquisition was followed by either card sorting or another list (CC’r) prior to AC acquisition. Retention loss under both these conditions was equivalent to a group that had contiguous presentation of AB and AC and was significantly greater than a control group that had no unlearning.
Kicking the Malthusian vice: Lessons from the abolition of “welfare” in the late nineteenth century

Abstract Nearly 200 years have passed since Malthus predicted that abolishing “welfare” would uplift the character of the poor. Oddly, the hypothesis has not been tested. The gulf between theory and fact bums now that the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act returned to states the power to abolish tax-financed relief. Abolition was tried a century ago. Some historians speculate that the abolition of welfare was a surgical strike for the war on dependence, and is worthy of emulation. The evidence suggests otherwise: privatizing welfare did not uplift character, not even in the narrow industrial categories of the Victorians, Old and New. The will to self-reliance was ubiquitous despite the relief systems.
How to prevent perioperative myocardial injury: The conundrum continues

Background Perioperative myocardial injury (PMI) remains a major cause of perioperative morbidity and mortality but clinical strategies to prevent PMI are still uncertain. Methods and Results We comprehensively searched PubMed for major research articles concerning clinical strategies to prevent PMI. The key findings are as follows: (1) the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guideline update for perioperative cardiovascular evaluation for noncardiac surgery is very useful to stratify cardiac risk preoperatively; (2) cardiac troponin has emerged as a biomarker to diagnose postoperative PMI and to predict clinical outcomes; (3) coronary revascularization before noncardiac surgery probably would provide cardiac protection in select patients, especially in patients with high-risk coronary artery disease; (4) elective noncardiac surgery should be postponed in patients who received coronary stenting recently because of high incidence of serious cardiac complications (minimum 6-8 weeks for bare metal stents and 6-12 months for drug-eluting stents); and (5) β-blockers and statins are very promising drugs and probably would prevent PMI in a select patient population, especially in patients with intermediate risk and stable coronary artery disease. Conclusions Further studies, especially randomized clinical trials and mechanistic investigation are needed to find the best and effective clinical strategies to prevent/reduce PMI.
Role of reactive oxygen species in angiotensin ii signaling : the plot thickens.

Angiotensin II (Ang II) is the dominant effector of the renin-angiotensin system. In addition to its well-known hemodynamic and endocrine effects, Ang II regulates the cardiovascular remodeling associated with hypertension, atherosclerosis, heart failure, and diabetes mellitus. The importance of Ang II in cardiovascular disease states is highlighted by the prominent role that ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers play in cardiovascular medicine. These drugs reduce clinical events and improve survival in patients with vascular disease or congestive heart failure and are among the most widely used medications in the world.1 2 There is accumulating evidence that Ang II has direct effects on smooth muscle cells (SMCs) that contribute to abnormalities ranging from subtle vascular dysfunction to severe atherosclerosis, ischemia, and necrosis. Ang II stimulates proliferation, hypertrophy, and migration of cultured vascular SMCs (VSMCs) via binding to the angiotensin type 1 (AT1) receptor.3 This receptor is a member of the superfamily of 7 transmembrane–spanning, G protein–coupled cell surface receptors (GPCRs). Traditionally, these receptors were thought to elicit intracellular signaling solely via activation of heterotrimeric G proteins, …
Extinction of premixed methane/air flames in microgravity by diluents: Effects of radiation and Lewis number

Laminar burning velocities and flammability limits of premixed methane/air flames in the presence of various diluents were investigated by combined use of experiments and numerical simulations. The experiments used a 1-m free-fall spherical combustion chamber to eliminate the effect of buoyancy, enabling accurate measurements of near-limit burning velocities and flammability limits. Burning velocities were measured for CH4/air flames with varying concentrations of He, Ar, N2 and CO2 at NTP. The limiting concentration of each diluent was measured by systematically varying the composition and ignition energy and finding the limiting condition through successive experiment trials. The corresponding freelypropagating, planar 1-D flames were simulated using PREMIX. The transient spherically-expanding flames were simulated using the 1-D Spherical Flame & Reactor Module of COSILAB considering detailed radiation models. The results show that helium exhibits more complex limit behavior than the other diluents due to the large Lewis number of helium mixtures. The near-limit helium-diluted flames require much higher ignition energy than the other flames. In addition, for the spherically expanding heliumdiluted flames studied here (Le > 1), stretch suppresses flame propagation and may cause flame extinction. For the CO2-diluted flames, the flame speed predicted by the optically-thick model based on the Discrete Transfer Method (DTW) and a modified wide band model has better agreement with measurements in the near-limit region. A significant amount of heat is absorbed by the dilution gas CO2, resulting in elevation of temperature of the ambient gases. The optically-thick model, however, still overpredicts flame speed, indicating a more sophisticated radiation property model may be needed. Finally, the chemical effect of CO2 on flame suppression was quantified by a numerical analysis. The results show that the chemical effect of CO2 is more important than the other diluents due to its active participation in the reaction CO2 + H = CO + OH, which competes for H radicals with the chain-branching reactions and thus reduces flame speed.
The Deubiquitinating Enzymes

As detailed elsewhere in this volume, modification of proteins by the 76-residue ubiquitin polypeptide is involved in many aspects of protein metabolism. Among the cellular processes affected by ubiquitin-dependent reactions are chromosome structure and segregation, cell-cycle progression, receptor-mediated signal transduction, gene expression, protein localization, organelle biogenesis, antigen presentation, viral pathogenesis, and the stress response (reviewed in Hochstrasser, 1995, 1996a; Rubin and Finley, 1995; Wilkinson, 1995; Ciechanover, 1994; Hershko and Ciechanover, 1992; Finley and Chau, 1991). One type of ubiquitination, attachment of a polyubiquitin chain(s) to a protein, targets the modified protein for proteolysis by the proteasome (see references above). The ubiquitin molecules in these polyubiquitin chains are most often linked to one another by isopeptide bonds between the C-terminus of one ubiquitin and the e-amino group of lysine 48 of the next ubiquitin (Chau et al., 1989; Gregori et al., 1990; Hochstrasser et al., 1991). There is also evidence that polyubiquitin chains can be formed with isopeptide linkages involving lysines 6, 11 (Baboshina and Haas, 1996), 29 (Arnason and Ellison, 1994), or 63 (Arnason and Ellison, 1994; Spence et al., 1995) of ubiquitin. In addition, a variety of ubiquitinlike proteins have been described (Toniolo et al., 1988; Banerji et al., 1990; Meyers et al., 1991; Kumar et al., 1993; Olvera and Wool, 1993; Linnen et al., 1993; Haas et al., 1996; Nakamura et al., 1996; Narasimhan et al., 1996; Biggins et al., 1996; Shen et al., 1996).
THE INHERITANCE OF HUMAN BIRTH WEIGHT

Summary Japanese data on half-sibs, twins, full sibs and consanguineous matings are consistent with the hypothesis that the resemblance in birth weight of sibs is largely attributable to the maternal constitution or environment, not to genetic similarity of sibs. The following intraclass correlations were obtained: paternal half-sibs, 0·102; maternal half-sibs adjacent in birth order. 0·581; like-sexed twins, 0·557; unlike-sexed twins, 0·655; full sibs adjacent in birth order. 0·523; full sibs with one sib intervening, 0·425; full sibs with two sibs intervening. 0·363; full sibs adjacent in birth order, whose parents are first cousins, 0·481. No significant effect of inbreeding was observed on the variance of birth weight or the correlation between sibs, but inbreeding of the foetus did appear to affect mean birth weight, 10% inbreeding being estimated to decrease birth weight by about 4·3 decagrams. Other data on the genetics of mammalian body weight are reviewed.
Visualization Rhetoric: Framing Effects in Narrative Visualization

Narrative visualizations combine conventions of communicative and exploratory information visualization to convey an intended story. We demonstrate visualization rhetoric as an analytical framework for understanding how design techniques that prioritize particular interpretations in visualizations that "tell a story" can significantly affect end-user interpretation. We draw a parallel between narrative visualization interpretation and evidence from framing studies in political messaging, decision-making, and literary studies. Devices for understanding the rhetorical nature of narrative information visualizations are presented, informed by the rigorous application of concepts from critical theory, semiotics, journalism, and political theory. We draw attention to how design tactics represent additions or omissions of information at various levels-the data, visual representation, textual annotations, and interactivity-and how visualizations denote and connote phenomena with reference to unstated viewing conventions and codes. Classes of rhetorical techniques identified via a systematic analysis of recent narrative visualizations are presented, and characterized according to their rhetorical contribution to the visualization. We describe how designers and researchers can benefit from the potentially positive aspects of visualization rhetoric in designing engaging, layered narrative visualizations and how our framework can shed light on how a visualization design prioritizes specific interpretations. We identify areas where future inquiry into visualization rhetoric can improve understanding of visualization interpretation.
Enabling a highly-scalable global address space model for petascale computing

Over the past decade, the trajectory to the petascale has been built on increased complexity and scale of the underlying parallel architectures. Meanwhile, software developers have struggled to provide tools that maintain the productivity of computational science teams using these new systems. In this regard, Global Address Space (GAS) programming models provide a straightforward and easy to use addressing model, which can lead to improved productivity. However, the scalability of GAS depends directly on the design and implementation of the runtime system on the target petascale distributed-memory architecture. In this paper, we describe the design, implementation, and optimization of the Aggregate Remote Memory Copy Interface (ARMCI) runtime library on the Cray XT5 2.3 PetaFLOPs computer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We optimized our implementation with the flow intimation technique that we have introduced in this paper. Our optimized ARMCI implementation improves scalability of both the Global Arrays (GA) programming model and a real-world chemistry application - NWChem - from small jobs up through 180,000 cores.
Amino Acid Transport Regulation and Early Embryo Development

Amino acids are essential components of media utilized to culture fertilized human eggs to the blastocyst stage in vitro. Use of such media has led to a significant increase in the proportion of embryos that implant upon transfer to the uterus and to a decrease in the number that need to be transferred to achieve pregnancy. Little is known about the mechanisms by which amino acids foster development of healthy human blastocysts. Indications are, however, that many of these mechanisms are the same in human and mouse embryos. Both essential and nonessential amino acid transport benefit preimplantation mouse embryo development, albeit at different stages. Nonessential amino acid transport improves development primarily during cleavage, whereas essential amino acid transport supports development of more viable embryos, especially subsequent to the eight-cell stage. This review discusses likely mechanisms for these beneficial effects.
Comprehensive One-Step Molecular Analyses of Mitochondrial Genome by Massively Parallel Sequencing

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial diseases are clinically and genetically heterogeneous, with variable penetrance, expressivity, and differing age of onset. Disease-causing point mutations and large deletions in the mitochondrial genome often exist in a heteroplasmic state. Current molecular analyses require multiple different and complementary methods for the detection and quantification of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations. We developed a novel approach to analyze the mtDNA in 1 step. METHODS: The entire human mitochondrial genome was enriched by a single amplicon long-range PCR followed by massively parallel sequencing to simultaneously detect mtDNA point mutations and large deletions with heteroplasmic levels of the mutations and variants quantified. QC samples were designed and analyzed along with each sample. A total of 45 samples were analyzed for the evaluation of analytic sensitivity and specificity. RESULTS: Our analysis demonstrated 100% diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of base calls compared to the results from Sanger sequencing. The deep coverage allowed the detection and quantification of heteroplasmy at every single nucleotide position of the 16 569-bp mitochondrial genome. Moreover, the method also detected large deletions with the breakpoints mapped. CONCLUSIONS: This “deep” sequencing approach provides a 1-step comprehensive molecular analysis of the whole mitochondrial genome for patients in whom a mitochondrial disease is suspected.