cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Light-induced Changes in the Ultrastructure of Pea Chloroplasts in Vivo: Relationship to Development and Photosynthesis.

Light-induced structural changes of chloroplasts and their lamellae were studied in leaves of Pisum sativum L., cv. Blue Bantam, using electron microscopy. Upon illumination of 14-day-old plants with 2000 lux, the chloroplasts decreased in thickness by about 23% with an accompanying increase in electron scattering by the stroma. Concomitantly, the average thickness of granal lamellae (thylakoids) decreased from 195 ± 4 angstroms in the dark to 152 ± 4 angstroms in the light, and this change was half-saturated at only 50 lux. Lamellar flattening at 50 lux and its reversal in the dark both had half-times of a minute or less. The thickness of a partition (a pair of apposed lamellar membranes) was 140 ± 9 angstroms in both the light and the dark, indicating that the observed light-induced change was in the volume enclosed within the thylakoid. The effect of illumination could be inhibited by various uncouplers of photophosphorylation but not by 3-(3, 4-dichlorophenyl)-1, 1-dimethylurea, suggesting that it depended on ATP (or its precursor). In the presence of 0.5 micromolar nigericin, the thickness of the granal lamellae increased in the light to 213 ± 3 angstroms; this may reflect an uptake of K + into an osmotically responding space within the thylakoids. During development, the capacity of the chloroplasts to flatten upon illumination increased in parallel with the amount of chlorophyll per gram of leaf and the number of lamellae per chloroplast. In contrast, the capacity of the leaves to fix CO 2 lagged nearly 2 days behind the development of chlorophyll. CO 2 fixation developed in parallel with the stacking of the lamellae into grana, supporting the contention that such organization is related to the linkage of photosystem II to photosystem I.
The Role of Irinotecan Combined with Cisplatin or Carboplatin in the Treatment of Advanced Non—Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Abstract More than one third of all Non—Small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients present with advanced stage IV disease with metastases or with stage IIIB disease with a malignant pleural or pericardial effusion. The prognosis for these patients remains poor despite some improvement in survival produced by 2-drug chemotherapy combinations. With the best 2-drug combinations, the expected median survival is 8–9 months and > 80% of patients die within 2 years of diagnosis. The overall response rate to the best combination is
Treatment of Mycosis Fungoides with Denileukin Diftitox and Oral Bexarotene

Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas, including mycosis fungoides and Sezary syndrome, are often responsive to treatment, but current therapies have not been shown to increase survival, and in advanced stages, durable remissions are hard to achieve. We present a patient who was initially misdiagnosed with psoriasis and, 16 years later, was diagnosed with mycosis fungoides. Denileukin diftitox was used as a tumor debulking agent to give a partial response that was further improved with a combination of systemic interferon/oral bexarotene and skin-directed psorlen plus UV-A. The purpose of this case report is to show the value of sequential combination therapy for improving overall response.
Challenges and opportunities for analysis based research in big data

One response to the proliferation of massive datasets in many fields has been to develop ingenious ways to throw resources at the problem, for example, using massive fault tolerant storage architectures, supercomputing platforms, and parallel graph computation models. However, not all environments can support this scale of resources, and not all queries need an exact response. Massive and diverse operational datasets have been employed by large Internet Service Providers for a number of years, and mathematical methods have underpinned their response to the challenges of data scale, incompleteness and complexity that are prevalent both in ISP data and in big data more generally. This talk reviews some recent progress in this direction, and surveys some new roles for sampling methods in Big Data.
Evaluation of a hydrogen chloride detector for enviornmental monitoring

The paper describes a hydrogen chloride detector designed to monitor concentrations of hydrogen chloride gas in the ambient environment. The detector was developed for NASA for use in launch vehicle effluent monitoring. The detector operates on chemiluminescence principles with a lower detection limit of less than 5 x 10 to the -3rd ppm (by volume). The hydrogen chloride in the air sample reacts with a bromide-bromate coating in the inlet tube of the instrument producing bromine. Bromine is then quantitated by chemiluminescent oxidation of luminol. The visible light generated in the chemiluminescent reaction is proportional to the hydrogen chloride concentration of the sampled airstream. The detector is most suited to laboratory or field studies where hydrogen chloride is the dominant pollutant, as compared to the interfering species. Interferences include strong acids, acid-forming gases, and halogen gases. Of the interferences investigated the most serious in these groups are hydrochloric and sulfuric acid, sulfur dioxide, and chlorine, respectively. The detector has been in use since 1974 and has been found to be highly portable, rugged, and stable under extreme environmental conditions.
Unusual Right Coronary Artery Anomaly With Major Implication During Cardiac Operations

We report a case in which an unrevealed high origin of the right coronary artery (almost 4 cm above the left coronary sinus) led to major complications during a routine atrial septal defect closure. We stress that, in absence of preoperative coronary angiography, coronary artery anomalies should always be considered and minimal ascending aorta manipulation and antegrade/ retrograde myocardial protection should be recommended.
Weibull Analysis of Mechanical Data for Castings II: Weibull Mixtures and Their Interpretation

The interpretation of Weibull probability plots of mechanical testing data from castings was discussed in Part 1 (M. Tiryakioglu, J. Campbell: Metall. Mater. Trans. A, 41 (2010) 3121-3129). In Part II, details about the mathematical models of Weibull mixtures are introduced. The links between the occurrence of Weibull mixtures and casting process parameters are discussed. Worked examples are introduced in five case studies in which six datasets from the literature were reanalyzed. Results show that tensile and fatigue life data should be interpreted differently. In tensile data, Weibull mixtures are due to two distinct defect distributions, namely “old” and “young” bifilms, which are a result of prior processing and mold filling, respectively. “Old” bifilms are the predominant defect and result in the lower distribution, whereas “young” bifilms results on the upper distribution. In fatigue life data, Weibull mixtures are due to two failure mechanisms being active: failure due to cracks initiating from surface defects and interior defects. Surface defects are predominant and interior defects lead to fatigue failure only when there are no cracks initiated by surface defects. In all cases, only the mutually exclusive Weibull mixture model was found to be applicable.
Agkistrodon acutus snake venom inhibits prothrombinase complex formation

Abstract The purified anticoagulant principle AAV-XaI isolated from the snake venom of Agkistrodon acutus binds to purified bovine Factor Xa in the presence of calcium ions. The complex has amidolytic activity with S-2222. AAV-XaI inhibits the conversion of prothrombin to thrombin by the prothrombinase complex, but has no influence on the amidolytic activity of Factor Xa. AAV-XaI binds to Factor X more effectively than to Factor Xa. The complex of Factor X ·Ca2+· AAV-XaI yields only amidolytic activity after activation with RVV-X. In 25% sodium citrate solution AAV-XaI does not modify the generation of thrombin from prethrombin 1 by Factor Xa. β-Factor Xa-E is a form of Factor Xa with only amidolytic activity and is not inhibited or bound by AAV-XaI. The venom inhibitor covers binding sites on the light chain of Factor Xa that are necessary for phospholipid function.
Dehydration and vernalization treatments identify overlapping molecular networks impacting endodormancy maintenance in leafy spurge crown buds

Leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula L.) is a herbaceous perennial weed that reproduces vegetatively from an abundance of underground adventitious buds (UABs), which undergo well-defined phases of seasonal dormancy (para-, endo-, and ecodormancy). In this study, the effects of dehydration stress on vegetative growth and flowering potential from endodormant UABs of leafy spurge was monitored. Further, microarray analysis was used to identify critical signaling pathways of transcriptome profiles associated with endodormancy maintenance in UABs. Surprisingly, only 3-day of dehydration stress is required to break the endodormant phase in UABs; however, the dehydration-stress treatment did not induce flowering. Previous studies have shown that prolonged cold treatment of UABs breaks endodormancy and induces a vernalization response leading to flowering. Thus, in this study, comparing transcriptome data from UABs exposed to short-term dehydration and vernalization provided a unique approach to identify overlapping molecular mechanisms involved in endodormancy maintenance and floral competence. Analysis of transcriptome data associated with breaking endodormancy by both environmental treatments identified LEC1, PHOTOSYSTEM I RC, and brassinosteroids as common central hubs of upregulated genes, while DREB1A, CBF2, GPA1, MYC2, bHLH, BZIP, and flavonoids were identified as common central hubs of downregulated genes. The majority of over-represented gene sets common to breaking endodormancy by dehydration stress and vernalization were downregulated and included pathways involved in hormone signaling, chromatin modification, and circadian rhythm. Additionally, the over-represented gene sets highlighted pathways involved in starch and sugar degradation and biogenesis of carbon skeletons, suggesting a high metabolic activity is necessary during the endodormant phase. The data presented in this study helped to refine our previous model for dormancy regulation.
High order accurate solutions of viscous problems

We consider a fourth order extension to MacCormack's scheme. The original extension was fourth order only for the inviscid terms but was second order for the viscous terms. We show how to modify the viscous terms so that the scheme is uniformly fourth order in the spatial derivatives. Applications are given to some boundary layer flows. In addition, for applications to shear flows the effect of the outflow boundary conditions are very important. We compare the accuracy of several of these different boundary conditions for both boundary layer and shear flows. Stretching at the outflow usually increases the oscillations in the numerical solution but the addition of a filtered sponge layer (with or without stretching) reduces such oscillations. The oscillations are generated by insufficient resolution of the shear layer. When the shear layer is sufficiently resolved then oscillations are not generated and there is less of a need for a nonreflecting boundary condition.
Coronary vascular and myocardial effects of substance P in hypercholesterolemic rabbits

Age-matched male New Zealand white rabbits (n = 16) were allocated to two groups: group 1 (n = 8) received a standard rabbit diet; group 2 (n = 8) received a 2% cholesterol-enriched diet. After 8 weeks of prescribed diet, hearts were excised and placed on a constant perfusion pressure Langendorff-type apparatus. Coronary flow, left ventricular pressure, and isovolumic dPdt were continuously measured. Baseline recordings were made and then a single 5 nmol bolus dose of substance P was delivered into the coronary perfusate. Mean serum cholesterol levels in group 1 were 53 ± 17 (SEM) mg·dl−1, in group 2 1438 ± 143 mg·dl−1. In group 1, the injection of substance P caused mean coronary flow to increase 39 ± 6%, mean coronary vascular resistance to decrease 28 ± 3%, and mean dPdt to increase 11 ± 4%. In group 2, coronary flow increased 57 ± 13%, coronary vascular resistance decreased 33 ± 5%, and dPdt increased 17 ± 4%. Within groups, values changed significantly from baseline but these changes were not significantly different between groups. The duration of coronary flow response was 113 ± 20 s in group 1 and 63 ± 8 s in group 2. Substance P is a potent dilator of coronary resistance vessels and has positive inotropic effects in the rabbit. High levels of cholesterol exposure do not alter the magnitude of substance P-induced vasodilation, but the duration of the response is shortened.
Characterizing and evaluating voltage noise in multi-core near-threshold processors

Lowering the supply voltage to improve energy efficiency leads to higher load current and elevated supply sensitivity. In this paper, we provide the first quantitative analysis of voltage noise in multi-core near-threshold processors in a future 10nm technology across SPEC CPU2006 benchmarks. Our results reveal larger guardband requirement and significant energy efficiency loss due to power delivery nonidealities at near threshold, and highlight the importance of accurate voltage noise characterization for design exploration of energy-centric computing systems using near-threshold cores.
Preschoolers' emotion knowledge and the differential effects of harsh punishment.

This study examined the influence of caregiver-reported harsh physical and verbal punishment on children’s behavioral and self-system adjustment. Children’s emotion knowledge was evaluated as a heretofore unrecognized moderator of these relations. We assessed 250 preschool-aged children (50% female; Mage 49.06 months) from diverse backgrounds (50% Hispanic, 18% African American, 10.4% Caucasian, 21.6% multiracial/other) using various instruments through teacher, caregiver, self, and observer report in the domains of harsh punishment, conduct problems, self-concept, and emotion knowledge. Emotion knowledge moderated the relation between harsh punishment and child adjustment. Harsh physical punishment was associated with conduct problems for children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for boys. Harsh verbal punishment was associated with self-concept deficits among children with higher emotion knowledge, especially for girls. These relations were also specifically applicable to non-Hispanic children. These results highlight the importance of investigating hypothesis-driven interactive effects and the specificity of experience to understand the psychosocial sequelae of parenting practices broadly, and to clarify the mixed evidence in the punishment literature specifically. Clinical implications point to the salience of emotion processes in parent–child disciplinary interventions for understanding the prevalence and pattern of child behavioral adjustment and selfconcept, as well as more broadly to the role of individual differences in children’s responses to adversity and subsequent therapeutic needs.
Variable Markov Oracle: A Novel Sequential Data Points Clustering Algorithm with Application to 3D Gesture Query-Matching

In this paper a new method, Variable Markov Oracle, for clustering time series data points is proposed. Variable Markov Oracle is based on previous results of Audio Oracle, a method of fast indexing repeating sub-clips in an audio stream. The proposed method is capable of discovering natural clusters with temporal relations without specifying the number of clusters. The discovery of inherent clusters in time series data points allows the devising of an efficient algorithm for time series query-matching. The ability of discovering clusters is demonstrated with a synthetic audio example, and an application of querying 3D skeletal gesture using the query-matching algorithm based on the proposed method is experimented with comparable result to state of the art.
Parlous Questions In "Postmodern" Adult Education: A Response To Zacharakis-Jutz

This paper responds to an article by Zacharakis-Jutz (Post-Freirean Education: A Question of Empowerment and Power, Adult Education Quarterly, 39, 4147). A portion of his article was devoted to a discussion of an article I had previously published (Unrestraining Liberty: Adult Education and the Empowerment of Persons, Adult Education Quarterly 36, 123-129). In this response I argue that the great strength of his discussion lies not in his criticism of my position. I try to show, in fact, that he has misunderstood my position and its claims in rather fundamental terms by evidently reading so selectively what I wrote as to fail to "hear" the text of my discourse itself.
Computation of generalized eigenvectors

Abstract A method is suggested for computing the eigenvectors and generalized eigenvectors of a matrix, given that the eigenvalues are already known. The algorithm is straightforward, and can be implemented in code by a computer programmer of average ability.
Alkyl- and acyl-substituted vinylstannanes: Synthesis and reactivity in electrophilic substitution reactions

Six substituted vinylstannanes have been prepared. (E)- and (Z)-2-trimethylstannyl-2-butene, (1) and (2), respectively, 2-methyl-1-(trimethylstannyl) propene, (3), and 3-methyl-2-trimethylstannyl-2...
ISOLATION OP POTENTIALLY PATHOGENIC ORGANISMS PROM THE VAGINA OF GIRLS UNDER 16 YEARS OF AGE

We have examined vaginal cultures from 100 girls, two months to 15 years of age, who presented as outpatients to Boston City Hospital. Significant organisms are listed below: N. qonorrhoeae was isolated from a 4 year old with purulent vaginitis. T. vaginalis was recovered from two 13 year olds, both of whom had an abnormal vaginal discharge. Of note was the isolation of C. tropicalis as the predominant candidal species among the girls under 2 years of age and its absence among older girls. Also of interest was the relatively low rate of colonization with C. vaginale and Candida species among 3 to 10 year old girls, suggesting that the pre-pubertal vaginal may not provide a favorable environment for microorganisms which are frequently present in the adult vagina.
Promoting Children's Mental Health in Family Supportive Housing: A Community-University Partnership for Formerly Homeless Children and Families

Emerging research indicates that significant numbers of formerly homeless families residing in permanent supportive housing have caregivers with substance use and mental health disorders, and children with histories of exposure to violence, abuse, and out-of-home placement. These factors place children at risk for adverse psychosocial outcomes, including later homelessness, providing a strong rationale for embedding child-focused prevention and intervention services in supportive housing contexts. This article describes a developing community–university partnership whose goal is to advance practice and research in the adaptation and dissemination of mental health prevention and early intervention for children in supportive housing.
Assessment of turtle grass (Thalassia testudinum ex Banks Konig) community structure in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve

Tropical turtle grass beds (Thalassia testudinum) were investigated in an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in St. Johns Island, United States Virgin Islands. Four coastal bays were studied to assess floral characteristics, benthic invertebrate density and secondary production. These bays varied with respect to oceanic exposure and anthropogenic stresses. Results indicate that Coral Bay Harbor, the most anthropogenetically impacted site, had the highest T. testudinum biomass, but the lowest floral diversity. Its faunal community was dominated by small polychaetes with significantly lower secondary production. The most protected site (Hurricane Hole) maintained the highest floral and faunal species richness, faunal density, faunal diversity, and secondary production. The other two bays, Great Lameshur and Little Lameshur, demonstrated intermediate plant biomass and species richness, faunal density and secondary production. Each of these bays, however, had high oceanic exposure due to their orientation which also demonstrated a sediment size shift to larger particles compared to the other sites. One unique finding was a significant increase in the shoot:root ratio in Little Lameshur where green turtle (Chelonia mydas) grazing was frequently observed, suggesting a potential top-down structuring force in this bay.
Adhesion and Interfaces Involving Polymers, Studied by Electrical Resistance Measurement

The adhesion and interfaces involving polymers were studied by electrical resistance measurement. Adhesive bonding and bond degradation were monitored by measuring the resistance in real time during temperature or stress variation. The resistance measured was either the contact resistance of the joint interface or the apparent volume resistance of one of the two adjoining components in a direction in the plane of the joint interface. The polymers were in the form continuous carbon fiber thermoplastic-matrix composites, due to the importance of these composites for lightweight structures and due to the conductivity of carbon fibers and the necessity of conductivity for electrical resistance measurement. The technique was used for the case of both of the adjoining components being such composites, and for the case of one component being such a composite and the other component being concrete. The concrete case is relevant to the use of the composite to retrofit concrete structures.
The impact of trust, risk and optimism bias on E-file adoption

One of congress' goals for 2007 was for 80% of all tax and informational returns to be filed electronically. However, to date that lofty goal has fallen well short. This research proposes a model of e-filing adoption. To test the model a survey is administered to 260 participants. The instrument assesses citizen perceptions of trust, risk and optimism bias. Structural equation modeling is used to evaluate the relationships between these three concepts and intention to use. The results indicate that trust of the Internet, trust of the e-filer, perceived risk and optimism bias all have an impact on intention to use e-filing. Implications for practice and research are discussed.
Improved phase modulation for an en-face scanning three-dimensional optical coherence microscope

We have previously described an inexpensive method for modulating the interferometer of an en-face scanning, focus-tracking, three-dimensional optical coherence microscope (OCM). In this OCM design, a reference mirror is mounted on a piezoelectric stack driven at a resonance frequency of about 100 kHz. We perform a partial discrete Fourier transform of the digitally sampled output fringe signal. In the original design, we obtained the amplitude of the backscattered light by summing the powers in the fundamental (1ω) and first harmonic (2ω) of the modulation frequency. We used the particular piezoamplitude that eliminates the effects of interferometer phase drift. However, as the reference mirror was stepped to scan at different sample depths, variations in the back-coupled reference power added noise to the fringe signal at the fundamental piezodriving frequency. We report here a technique to eliminate the effects of this piezowobble by using instead the sum of the 2ω and 3ω powers as a measure of the bac...
Neutron-rich rare isotope production and studies of the N/Z degree of freedom in binary collisions at Fermi energies

The production of neutron-rich projectile residues in deep-inelastic collisions at Fermi energies and the scaling of their yields are investigated in this work. A large enhancement in the production of neutron-rich fragments was observed in the reactions of a 25 MeV/nucleon 86Kr beam with the neutron rich 64Ni and 124Sn targets. Simulations using a deep-inelastic transfer (DIT) code indicate that the neutron skins of the neutron-rich targets play an important role. From a practical viewpoint, such reactions may offer a novel way to access very neutron-rich rare isotopes. In parallel to the production studies, the scaling properties of the residue yields are investigated. An approach to study the process of N/Z equilibration has been developed based on residue yield ratios. This approach may provide a valuable tool of isospin studies with radioactive beams.
Learning Features of Simple and Complex Cells: A Generative Approach via Multiplicative Interactions

We develop a hierarchical generative model to learn features of simple and complex cells in the primary visual cortex via multiplicative interactions and address the problem of learning invariant visual representation from natural image sequences. Generally, the overall objective of a generative sparse coding model (Olshausen and Field, Nature, 1996) is to reconstruct the input *x* via a linear combination of feature bases *A = [A~1~,A~2~,...,A~M~]*, such that *x = As*, where s is the latent representation with a sparse constraint.In the proposed model, we added another hidden layer with complex cells to modulate the latent representation *s*, such that *s* is generated via an element-wise product of bottom-up representation *y = A^T^x* and top-down representation *z = Bc*, i.e., *s = y.*z* . Here *c* represents the top layer with complex cells, and *B* is the feature matrix connecting from the simple cell layer to the complex cell layer. Similar to the well known bilinear models (Tenenbaum and Freeman, Neural Computation, 2000) for invariant representation, the complex cell layer here represents the content variables and the simple cell layer represents the style variables. However, instead of using three-order tensor weight parameters as in the bilinear models, our model provides a factorized approach by the product of two two-order tensor weight parameters *A* and *B*, and thus makes learning simpler and more efficient. Moreover, while bilinear models dealt with two latent variables, our model contains only one latent variable *c* for invariant representation.The penalties of sparseness and slowness priors are integrated into this model as well. In addition, non-negativity constraints of the latent variable c and weight matrices *A* and *B* are enforced to fit the known neurophysiology better. We utilize the gradient descent algorithm to train our model from natural image sequences. A dictionary of Gabor-like orientation selective features is developed in the simple cell layer, where topography of receptive fields is automatically generated. In this way, similar simple cell receptive fields are pooled together to produce locally-invariant representation in complex cells.
A Search for an Electrostatic Analog to the Gravitational Red Shift

The possibility of an effect of electrostatic difference of potential upon the frequency of light, analogous to the gravitational red shift, has been investigated. Light of wave-length $\ensuremath{\lambda}5461\mathrm{A}$ was made to pass from a region of alternately zero, 300 kilovolts positive, and 300 kilovolts negative potential, established by means of a Van de Graaff generator, to a sensitive interferometer in vacuum at zero potential, where a frequency shift was sought. The results indicate a shift of about 0.9\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.0 part in ${10}^{15}$ per volt, which is interpreted as a definite null result.
Extracting the wavefunction of the LSP at the LHC

Abstract We consider associated production of squarks and gluinos with the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), or states nearly degenerate in mass with it. Though sub-dominant to pair production of color S U ( 3 ) -charged superpartners, these processes are directly sensitive to the wavefunction composition of the lightest neutralinos. Exploiting event-shape variables – including some introduced here for the first time – we are able to identify the composition of the LSP by selecting events involving a single high- p T jet recoiling against missing transverse energy. We illustrate the proposed technique on a set of benchmark cases and propose methods for applying these results in more realistic experimental environments.
Interaction of Surfactant Protein A with Lipopolysaccharide and Regulation of Inflammatory Cytokines in the THP-1 Monocytic Cell Line

Pulmonary surfactant protein A (SP-A) is involved in innate immunity in the lung. In this study we investigated the interaction of SP-A with different serotypes of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) on the regulation of inflammatory cytokines in vitro. In the human monocytic cell line, THP-1, combining SP-A with lipid A or rough LPS further enhanced lipid A- or rough LPS-stimulated tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) mRNA levels, while SP-A-elicited increases in TNF-α mRNA levels were partially neutralized. In contrast, the combination of smooth LPS and SP-A resulted in additive effects on TNF-α mRNA levels. We also demonstrated that there was cross-tolerance between SP-A and LPS in THP-1 cells. Pretreatment of THP-1 cells with LPS modestly inhibited the response of these cells to subsequent challenge with SP-A, with regard to the production of TNF-α, whereas there was no or little effect on the production of interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-8. Conversely, pretreatment of THP-1 cells with SP-A markedly increased the response to subsequent challenge with LPS with regard to the production of IL-1β and IL-8, although the production of TNF-α was modestly decreased. However, a synergistic stimulatory effect was observed when the two agents were added simultaneously to the cells. NF-κB formation was downregulated in SP-A- but not in LPS-induced tolerant cells. These results suggested that SP-A exhibits different interactions with distinct serotypes of LPS. In addition, SP-A is different from LPS with regard to the induction of cross-tolerance, and these actions may be mediated, at least in part, through different mechanisms.
Optimalization of Southwestern Technique for Detection of Binding of Epstein-Barr Virus Nuclear Antigen 1 to Origin of Replication

Abstract An optimized protocol of Southwestern analysis for detection of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen 1 (EBNA-1) binding to the origin of viral replication ( oriP ) was described. The unique feature of this optimized protocol includes the restoration of the denatured proteins to native conformation after SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and blocking of nonspecific and low-affinity binding sites prior to DNA binding. The parameters and conditions that may affect the specific interaction of EBNA-l to oriP DNA were then determined. The specific binding was affected by divalent cations (MgCl2) and ionic strength; the optimal concentrations of MgCl2 and NaC1 were observed at 10 and 300 mM, respectively. The various buffer systems and pH values tested had no apparent effect on EBNA-l binding. Under the optimal conditions, a single protein of 68 Kd was detected and the bindings of other nonspecific, low-affinity DNA-binding proteins were abolished. The authenticity and specificity of 68 Kd protein as EBNA-1 were determined by reaction with antibody specific for EBNA-1 and competition assay with specific DNA sequence. After optimization this technique can be a powerful and yet simple means of studying protein-DNA interactions and their roles in gene expression.
Tropospheric hydroxyl and atomic chlorine concentrations, and mixing timescales determined from hydrocarbon and halocarbon measurements made over the Southern Ocean

Author(s): Wingenter, OW; Blake, DR; Blake, NJ; Sive, BC; Rowland, FS; Atlas, E; Flocke, F | Abstract: During the First Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE 1) field campaign, 1419 whole air samples were collected over the Southern Ocean, of which approximately 700 samples were collected in the marine boundary layer (MBL), 300 samples were taken in the free troposphere (FT), and the remainder were collected in the buffer layer (BuL), the layer between the MBL and FT. Concentrations of tetrachloroethene, ethane, ethyne, and propane decayed over the 24 day duration of the intensive portion of the field campaign, which began November 18, 1995. This decline was consistent with what is known about seasonal increase of HO and the seasonal decrease in biomass burning. Using a simple empirical model, the best fit to the observations was obtained when the average [HO] was 6.1 ± 0.3 × 105 HO cm-3, and an average [Cl] of 720 ± 100 Cl cm-3. The corresponding exchange times were 14 ± 2 days between the MBL and FT, and 49 +40/-13 days between the MBL in the intensive campaign region and the MBL region to the north (nMBL). Copyright 1999 by the American Geophysical Union.
A NMR method to probe the nature of liquid clathrates

The liquid clathrate formed from [N(CH3)4][Al2(CH3)6I] and benzene has been studied using 200 MHz1H FT-NMR. Two resonances, corresponding to the free and guest benzene are observed. The1H spin lattice relaxation times,T 1, for these molecules were measured and found to be distinctly different. The guest benzene protons relax nearly four times faster than the free molecules which is consistent with a more ordered structure of the benzene molecules within the clathrate.
Population genomics and the causes of local differentiation.

Exactly 50 years ago, a revolution in empirical population genetics began with the introduction of methods for detecting allelic variation using protein electrophoresis (Throckmorton 1962; Hubby 1963; Lewontin & Hubby 1966). These pioneering scientists showed that populations are chock-full of genetic variation. This variation was a surprise that required a re-thinking of evolutionary genetic heuristics. Understanding the causes for the maintenance of this variation became and remains a major area of research. In the process of addressing the causes, this same group of scientists documented geographical genetic structure (Prakash et al. 1969), spawning the continued accumulation of what is now a huge case study catalogue of geographical differentiation (e.g. Loveless & Hamrick 1984; Linhart & Grant 1996). Geographical differentiation is clearly quite common. Yet, a truly general understanding of the patterns in and causes of spatial genetic structure across the genome remains elusive. To what extent is spatial structure driven by drift and phylogeography vs. geographical differences in environmental sources of selection? What proportion of the genome participates? A general understanding requires range-wide data on spatial patterning of variation across the entire genome. In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Lasky et al. (2012) make important strides towards addressing these issues, taking advantage of three contemporary revolutions in evolutionary biology. Two are technological: high-throughput sequencing and burgeoning computational power. One is cultural: open access to data from the community of scientists and especially data sets that result from large collaborative efforts. Together, these developments may at last put answers within reach.
Climatic and landscape influences on soil moisture are primary determinants of soil carbon fluxes in seasonally snow-covered forest ecosystems

A changing climate has the potential to mobilize soil carbon, shifting seasonally snow-covered, forested ecosystems from carbon sinks to sources. To determine the sensitivity of soil carbon fluxes to changes in temperature and moisture, we quantified seasonal and spatial variability of soil carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes (N = 746) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in leachate (N = 260) in high-elevation, mixed conifer forests in Arizona and New Mexico. All sites have cold winters, warm summers, and bimodal soil moisture patterns associated with snowmelt and summer monsoon rainfall. We employed a state factor approach, quantifying how distal controls (parent material, regional climate, topography) interacted with proximal variability in soil temperature (−3 to 26 °C) and moisture (2–76 %) to influence carbon effluxes. Carbon loss was dominated by CO2 flux (250–1220 g C m−2 year−1) rather than leached DOC (7.0–9.4 g C m−2 year−1). Significant differences in mean growing season CO2 flux were associated with parent material and aspect; differences appear to be mediated by how these distal controls influence primarily moisture and secondarily temperature. Across all sites, a multiple linear regression model (MLR) relying on moisture and temperature best described growing season CO2 fluxes (r2 = 0.63, p < 0.001). During winter, the MLR describing soil CO2 flux (r2 = 0.98, p < 0.001) relied on distal factors including snow cover, clay content, and bulk carbon, all factors that influence liquid water content. Our findings highlight the importance of state factors in controlling soil respiration primarily through influencing spatial and temporal heterogeneity in soil moisture.
Impact of A/B-type granule ratio on reactivity, swelling, gelatinization, and pasting properties of modified wheat starch. Part I: Hydroxypropylation

The impact of granule type (A/B-type granule ratio) on the reactivity and physical properties of chemically-modified wheat starch was investigated. Waxy and normal wheat starches were fractionated into highly-purified A- and B-type granule fractions, and reconstituted into fractions possessing pre-defined A/B-type granule ratios (weight basis). Starch granule fractions were derivatized with either propylene oxide (PO) or PO analog (POA), and assessed with respect to molar substitution (MS), swelling, gelatinization, and pasting properties. For POA (MS < 0.025) and PO (MS ≈ 0.1) starch derivatives, no differences in the relative reactivities of A-type and B-type granules or among the reconstituted wheat starches of varied A/B-type granule contents were observed within a genotype. Despite the similar reactivities of reconstituted wheat starch fractions possessing varied A/B-type granule contents, variations in swelling, gelatinization, and pasting properties were observed across the modified reconstituted starch granule fractions. Thus, substitution did not completely eradicate inherent property differences observed between unmodified reconstituted wheat starch granule fractions (based on differing A/B-type granule contents).
Novel tetrahydrofurobenzofuranoxanthones from psorospermum febrifugum

Abstract Two novel tetrahydrofurobenzofuranoxanthones, 1 and 2 , were isolated from Psorospermum febrifugum . The structures and relative configurations were determined by MS, 1 H NMR, 13 C NMR spectroscopy and NOE experiments.
Operant conditioning of spoken phonemes S and Z and awareness.

to /s/ plurals at a statistically significant level. A comparison of conditioning scores for those who were aware of the reinforcement "good and also those who were not aware of any reinforcement was made with those who were aware of a correlated or correct reinforcement response contingency. Greater awareness produced significantly greater conditioning, indicating that conditioning effecrs are related to a post-conditioning interview even in a reinforcement response contingency which is not easi:y discriminable. The question of whether verbal behavior may be changed through operant conditioning techniques is associated with questions concerning the cognitive nature of these changes and the nature of the response class modified. Thorndike (12) regarded changes in verbal behavior to be automatic without any reference to cognitive control. Skinner (7) considered changes in human verbal behavior to be under the control of reinforcers, which influenced the use of response classes such as mands and tacts. Reinforcement increased the probability of emission of a response class; awareness of reinforcement might occur concomitantly or afterwards but was not necessarily related to change in verbal behavior. The automatic nature of verbal conditioning was supported by Greenspoon (4) in the verbal operant conditioning of plural nouns. A post-conditioning interview was used to assess awareness of reinforcement-response contigencies (RRC). Those Ss who were aware of the correct or correlated RRC were discarded and an analysis of those remaining showed significant conditioning effects. Dulany (2) and Spielberger (8), using the Taffel (11) procedure, have obtained results which support a cognitive interpretation of changes in verbal behavior brought about by operant conditioning technique. Their procedure in general has been to condition S to emit sentences beginning with "I" or "we" when presented with a card showing the personal pronouns in random order. After the conditioning trials, a post-conditioning interview of five or more questions was then administered to assess awareness of a correct or correlated RRC.
Epitaxial Growth of Horizontally Aligned Zinc Oxide Nanonecklace Arrays on r-Plane Sapphire

We report the synthesis of faceted single crystalline ZnO nanonecklace (ZnO NN) arrays horizontally aligned on r-plane sapphire using Au nanoparticles catalyzed chemical vapor deposition. High resolution TEM data show that ZnO NNs, without any grain boundary observed, grow along the ZnO [0001] direction horizontally on r-plane sapphire and also reveal the epitaxial relationships between the ZnO NN and r-plane sapphire with ZnO [0001] ∥ sapphire [1011] and ZnO (1210) ∥ sapphire (0112). It was found that the Au nanoparticles with diameter of ∼5 nm and lower particle density are critical for the formation of horizontally aligned ZnO NN arrays, while the larger size or the higher density of Au nanoparticles results in other types of ZnO nanostructures, such as vertical ZnO nanoblades and nanowires. Thermodynamic analysis indicates that faster increase of strain energy compared to slower increase of surface free energy and interfacial energy with size increase of one-dimensional ZnO nanostructures might be...
Effects of envelope bandwidth on the intelligibility of sine- and noise-vocoded speech

The choice of processing parameters for vocoded signals may have an important effect on the availability of various auditory features. Experiment 1 varied envelope cutoff frequency (30 and 300 Hz), carrier type (sine and noise), and number of bands (2–5) for vocoded speech presented to normal-hearing listeners. Performance was better with a high cutoff for sine-vocoding, with no effect of cutoff for noise-vocoding. With a low cutoff, performance was better for noise-vocoding than for sine-vocoding. With a high cutoff, performance was better for sine-vocoding. Experiment 2 measured perceptibility of cues to voice pitch variations. A noise carrier combined with a high cutoff allowed intonation to be perceived to some degree but performance was best in high-cutoff sine conditions. A low cutoff led to poorest performance, regardless of carrier. Experiment 3 tested the relative contributions of comodulation across bands and spectral density to improved performance with a sine carrier and high cutoff. Comodulation across bands had no effect so it appears that sidebands providing a denser spectrum improved performance. These results indicate that carrier type in combination with envelope cutoff can alter the available cues in vocoded speech, factors which must be considered in interpreting results with vocoded signals.
Insulin Production Hampered by Intermittent Hypoxia via Impaired Zinc Homeostasis

Without zinc, pancreatic beta cells cannot either assemble insulin molecules or precipitate insulin crystals; thus, a lack of zinc concentration in the beta cells would result in a decreased insulin production. ZIP8 is one of the zinc uptake transporters involved in zinc influx into the cytosol of beta cells. Thus, if ZIP8 is down-regulated, a decreased insulin production would result. We assumed that intermittent hypoxic exposure to the beta cells may result in a decreased production of insulin due to a lack of zinc. To test this hypothesis we harvested pancreatic islets from the rats conditioned under intermittent hypoxia (IH) (fluctuating between 20.5% and 10% every 4 min for 1 h) and compared the results with those from control animals and islets. We also compared their insulin and glucose homeostasis using glucose tolerance tests (GTT) after 3 weeks. GTT results show a significant delay (P<0.05) in recovery of the blood glucose level in IH treated pups. ZIP8 expression in the beta cell membrane was down-regulated. The zinc concentration in the cell as well as insulin production was significantly decreased in the islets harvested from IH animals. However, mRNA for insulin and C-peptide/insulin protein levels in the total cell lysates remained the same as those of controls. When we treated the beta cells using siRNA mediated ZIP8, we observed the commensurate results from the IH-treated islets. We conclude that a transient IH exposure could knockdown ZIP8 transporters at mRNA as well as protein levels in the beta cells, which would decrease the level of blood insulin. However, the transcriptional activity of insulin remains the same. We conclude that the precipitation process of insulin crystal may be disturbed by a lack of zinc in the cytosol that is modulated by mainly ZIP8 after IH exposure.
The Benefits of Respite Time-Use: A Comparison of Employed and Nonemployed Caregivers

This study uses data from semistructured interviews and time-log diaries to explore both desired and actual time-use among employed (n = 26) and nonemployed caregivers (n = 22). We found that employed caregivers were generally more satisfied with respite time-use than nonemployed caregivers. Employed caregivers were also more likely to do activities they had desired to do, suggesting they may have clearer expectations about what they could accomplish during respite. Although most employed caregivers considered employment to be a valuable and desired form of respite, lack of free time outside of work and caregiving was stressful. Similarly, nonemployed caregivers expressed a desire to do activities they wanted to do, rather than only those related to caregiving and household maintenance. These results suggest that both employed and nonemployed caregivers might benefit from better respite time-use. Practice and policy suggestions that might enhance caregivers’ use of respite time are provided.
PANGOLA STUNT VIRUS STUDIED IN PANGOLAGRASS AND DIGITARIA HYBRIDS

Two Digitaria hybrids were compared with pangolagrass, Digitaria decumbens Stent., using both the light and electron microscope. The purpose of the study was to develop a diagnostic method of screening breeding lines for resistance or tolerance to pangola stunt virus (PSV). Pangolagrass from Surinam and Guyana, naturally infected with PSV, was found to have occassional bundle sheath cells with very thick cell walls. One of the two hybrids, which appeared to be highly susceptible to PSV, also showed similar thick cell walls. It had spherical particles 70 nm in diameter, resembling PSV, maize rough dwarf virus (MRDV) and rice dwarf virus (RDV). Sieve element cells of the phloem were the primary site of particles and the probable site of virus replication. The second hybrid, an apparently resistant line, was found to be completely free of thick-walled bundle sheath cells, and no viruslike particles were found in the bundle sheath or phloem cells. The presence of thick-walled bundle sheath cells appears to offer an excellent diagnostic test for PSV.