cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Novel method for following lymphocyte traffic in mice using [3H]glycerol labeling

We describe a new method based on radioactive metabolic labeling with [3H]glycerol to study the lymphocyte trafficking in mice. Lymphocyte labeling with [3H]glycerol is time- and dose-dependent. Radioactive leaking is less significant than in 51Cr-labeled cells. Lymphocytes, labeled with [3H]glycerol, with 51Cr, or with both labels together show the same pattern of homing to Peyer's patches (PP), peripheral and mesenteric lymph nodes and spleen and homing shows the expected dependence on pertussis toxin (PTX)-sensitive signaling, suggesting that the labeling procedure with [3H]glycerol does not affect lymphocyte trafficking properties. Tissue accumulation can be readily assessed by scintillation counting of sonicated samples obtained after perfusion of the vasculature with saline to remove blood. Moreover, we show that cell labeling with [3H]glycerol provides improved sensitivity in assessing the accumulation of small numbers of labeled cells in non-lymphoid organs, and permits identification of homed leukocytes in histologic sections.
Campus Racial Climate Perceptions and Overall Sense of Belonging Among Racially Diverse Women in STEM Majors

This study examined the contributions of campus racial climate perceptions and other college environments to overall sense of belonging among racially diverse women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. The sample included 1,722 women from the 2004 National Study of Living-Learning Programs. Using a conceptual framework that integrated Weidman’s (1989) undergraduate socialization model, Astin’s (1991) I-E-O model, and Mertens’ (2005) transformative research perspective, 29% of the variance in overall sense of belonging was explained. Race/ethnicity, perceptions of the campus racial climate and the residence hall climate, and academic self-confidence emerged as significant predictors. Implications for supporting women in STEM are discussed.
Using Petrography and Geochemistry to Determine the Origin and Formation Mechanism of Calcitic Plant Molds; Rhizolith or Tufa?

Rhizoliths, root casts, and rhizocretions are prolific in the geologic record, and their morphology and isotopic signatures can be important indicators of paleoenvironment and paleoclimate. In a semiarid playa in Nevada, the calcite plant encrustations preserved at the playa surface resemble rhizoliths (morphologically) and would seem to indicate pedogenesis and root activity. The features are preserved as short, thin, upright and/or overturned tubes that often exhibit an apron at the base. Branching is rare, and the tubes can be filled with sediment or calcite, or left open. However, detailed macroscopic, microscopic, and geochemical analyses of these features reveal that they are, instead, macrophyte (stem) encrustations that form in standing water. While these features form in a manner similar to paludal tufa, they do not resemble typical tufa deposits (e.g., barrages, mounds, cascades); instead, they mimic rhizoliths. This study describes the macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of these features and distinguishes them from rhizoliths so that they can be accurately identified in the geologic record. Furthermore, this study identifies a more appropriate method of interpreting the stable-isotope values of these tufa-like plant molds. These types of carbonates are faithful recorders of ambient aquatic conditions (e.g., geochemistry) as well as local hydrologic parameters (e.g., water depth) when the playa surface is flooded, but their geological application is restricted to a partial annual signal (e.g., plant growing season, presence of standing water on the playa). It is important to correctly identify these types of plant encrustations in the geologic record, since (1) their presence indicates a shallow standing body of water (rather than a paleosol) and (2) their isotopic composition records not only an ambient, aquatic signal but an extremely restricted climatic signal that should not be interpreted with models for pedogenic carbonates.
Options for Centralized Management of Swine Waste

Management of swine waste generated in North Carolina and other states is a challenging problem facing engineers, farmers, scientists, regulators, and policy makers. Technologies for processing and storing swine waste have not been fully developed and refined in a manner acceptable to the public and environmental regulators. The primary concerns with improperly disposed swine waste are the effects on human and livestock health, surface and groundwater quality, air quality, and conservation of nitrogen fertilizers. Centralized swine waste management facilities, analogous to municipal wastewater treatment plants, provide an alternative to individually managed swine lagoons, which are subject to spills, leaks, and improper management and application of waste. A preliminary analysis for Duplin County, N.C., was performed with one, three, or ten centralized waste treatment systems within Duplin County. Centralized waste treatment facilities have high capital and transportation costs as compared to individual on-site lagoons, but may offer greater treatment efficiency and reduced environmental impact with associated economies of scale.
Out-of-core simplification and crack-free LOD volume rendering for irregular grids

We propose a novel out-of-core simplification and level-of-detail (LOD) volume rendering algorithm for large irregular grids represented as tetrahedral meshes. One important feature of our algorithm is that it creates a space decomposition as required by I/O-efficient simplification and volume rendering, and simplifies both the internal and boundary portions of the sub-volumes progressively by edge collapses using the (extended) quadric error metric, while ensuring any selected LOD mesh to be crack-free (i.e., any neighboring sub-volumes in the LOD have consistent boundaries, and all the cells in the LOD do not have negative volumes), with all computations performed I/O-efficiently. This has been an elusive goal for out-of-core progressive meshes and LOD visualization, and our novel solution achieves this goal with a theoretical guarantee to be crack-free for tetrahedral meshes. As for selecting a desirable LOD mesh for volume rendering, our technique supports selective refinement LODs (where different places can have different error bounds), in addition to the basic uniform LODs (where the error bound is the same in all places). The proposed scalar-value range and view-dependent selection queries for selective refinement are especially effective in producing images of the highest quality with a much faster rendering speed. The experiments demonstrate the efficacy of our new technique.
The synthesis of functional mesoporous materials

Abstract The ability to decorate a silica surface with specific ligand fields and/or metal complexes creates powerful new capabilities for catalysis, chemical separations and sensor development. Integrating this with the ability to control the spacing of these complexes across the surface, as well as the symmetry and size of the pore structure, allows the synthetic chemist to hierarchically tailor these structured nanomaterials to specific needs. The next step up the “scale ladder” is provided by the ability to coat these mesoporous materials onto complex shapes, allowing for the intimate integration of these tailored materials into device interfaces. The ability to tailor the pore structure of these mesoporous supports is derived from the surfactant templated synthesis of mesoporous materials, an area which has seen an explosion of activity over the last decade [J.S. Beck, J.C. Vartuli, W.J. Roth, M.E. Leonowicz, C.T. Kresge, K.D. Scmitt, C.T.W. Chu, D.H. Olson, E.W. Sheppard, S.B. McCullen, J.B. Higgins, J.L. Schlenker, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 114 (1992) 10834–10843; C.T. Kresge, M.E. Leonowicz, W.J. Roth, J.C. Vartuli, J.S. Beck, Nature 359 (1992) 710–712]. The ability to decorate the surface with the desired functionality requires chemical modification of the oxide interface, most commonly achieved using organosilane self-assembly [ S.R. Wasserman, Y.T. Tao, G.M. Whitesides, Langmuir 5 (1989) 1074–1087 ; S.R. Wasserman, G.M. Whitesides, I.M. Tidswell, M. Ocko, P.S. Pershan, J.D. Axe, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 111 (1989) 5852–5861; A. Ulman, Adv. Mater. 2 (1990) 573–582 ; A. Ulman, An Introduction to Ultra-thin Organic Films: From Langmuir–Blodgett to Self-Assembly, Academic Press, San Diego, 1991 ]. This manuscript describes recent results from the confluence of these two research areas, with a focus on synthetic manipulation of the morphology and chemistry of the interface, with the ultimate goal of binding metal centers in a chemically useful manner.
A Gift of the Spirit: Reading The Souls of Black Folk

A Gift of the Spirit: Reading The Souls of Black Folk . By Eugene Victor Wolfenstein. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007. 192p. $49.95 cloth, $17.95 paper. It has been a long time coming, but political theorists (at least a few) are finally paying attention to The Souls of Black Folk, described by Eugene Victor Wolfenstein as “one of the masterworks in the African-American/American literary canon” (p. 1). Published in 1903, Souls includes nine previously published articles among its 14 chapters. This accounts for the prevailing tendency to view the text as a compilation or collection of discrete pieces, and the related inclination to focus on specific parts and themes rather than the whole. Hence, W. E. B. Du Bois is widely credited (rightly) for the concept of double-consciousness, but such appropriation tends to pluck the singular treasure from its setting. And this constitutive setting, the text conceived as “an intricate and coherent narrative, indeed as an organic whole and even at times as a living presence” (p. 2), is what Wolfenstein proposes to reconstruct.
The Generational Effects on Collective Memories in the Context of International Migration: The Collective Memories of Koreans in South Korea and the U.S.

This article examines generational effects on collective memories of Korean history, while taking into account international migration. We asked 216 subjects in South Korea and the United States to name three important events in Korean history and to provide reasons for their selections. We found generational effects in both countries in a similar pattern. This is a remarkable social achievement of the U.S. emigrant subjects. The current study adds a cross-cultural perspective to the literature on collective memories, which has focused predominantly on U.S. and Western case studies. By comparing memories of people who share a national origin but live in different cultural contexts, the current study also intersects collective memories studies in other fields such as transnationalism and diaspora. Our findings suggest that future studies can benefit from a transnational approach to collective memories, which may or may not circulate across borders.
The adsorption of H2, D2 and Ar on graphite: New theoretical results

Abstract We have calculated the interaction potentials of H 2 , D 2 and Ar with the basal plane of graphite. The repulsive part of the potential is constructed using the “effective medium theory” (EMT), while the attraction consists of anisotropic damped dipole and quadrupole terms. The diffusion coefficient for single H 2 and D 2 molecules adsorbed on graphite has been evaluated. We also present the coefficient for the long range interaction for an atom or molecule with a rare-gas plated graphite surface.
Retropharyngeal abscess: A previously unreported symptom

Four cases of retropharyngeal abscess are presented. All patients were older than the usual age group and all complained of pain in the back of the neck or shoulder precipitated or aggravated by swallowing. All recovered. The clinical features of retropharyngeal abscess are discussed, and the possible importance of this previously underscribed symptom in distinguishing retropharyngeal abscess from other less serious disease entities is proposed.
Neural correlates of metaphor processing: The roles of figurativeness, familiarity and difficulty

There is currently much interest in investigating the neural substrates of metaphor processing. In particular, it has been suggested that the right hemisphere plays a special role in the comprehension of figurative (non-literal) language, and in particular metaphors. However, some studies find no evidence of right hemisphere involvement in metaphor comprehension (e.g. [Lee, S. S., & Dapretto, M. (2006). Metaphorical vs. literal word meanings: fMRI evidence against a selective role of the right hemisphere. NeuroImage, 29, 536-544; Rapp, A. M., Leube, D. T., Erb, M., Grodd, W., & Kircher, T. T. J. (2004). Neural correlates of metaphor processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 20, 395-402]). We suggest that lateralization differences between literal and metaphorical language may be due to factors such as differences in familiarity ([Schmidt, G. L., DeBuse, C. J., & Seger, C. A. (2007). Right hemisphere metaphor processing? Characterizing the lateralization of semantic processes. Brain and Language, 100, 127-141]), or difficulty ([Bookheimer, S. (2002). Functional MRI of language: New approaches to understanding the cortical organization of semantic processing. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 25, 151-188; Rapp, A. M., Leube, D. T., Erb, M., Grodd, W., & Kircher, T. T. J. (2004). Neural correlates of metaphor processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 20, 395-402]) in addition to figurativeness. The purpose of this study was to separate the effects of figurativeness, familiarity, and difficulty on the recruitment of neural systems involved in language, in particular right hemisphere mechanisms. This was achieved by comparing neural activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) between four conditions: literal sentences, familiar and easy to understand metaphors, unfamiliar and easy to understand metaphors, and unfamiliar and difficult to understand metaphors. Metaphors recruited the right insula, left temporal pole and right inferior frontal gyrus in comparison with literal sentences. Familiar metaphors recruited the right middle frontal gyrus when contrasted with unfamiliar metaphors. Easy metaphors showed higher activation in the left middle frontal gyrus as compared to difficult metaphors, while difficult metaphors showed selective activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus as compared to easy metaphors. We conclude that the right hemisphere is involved in metaphor processing and that the factors of figurativeness, familiarity and difficulty are important in determining neural recruitment of semantic processing.
A Motor Speech Assessment for Children With Severe Speech Disorders: Reliability and Validity Evidence

Purpose In this article, the authors report reliability and validity evidence for the Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill (DEMSS), a new test that uses dynamic assessment to aid in the differential diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). Method Participants were 81 children between 36 and 79 months of age who were referred to the Mayo Clinic for diagnosis of speech sound disorders. Children were given the DEMSS and a standard speech and language test battery as part of routine evaluations. Subsequently, intrajudge, interjudge, and test–retest reliability were evaluated for a subset of participants. Construct validity was explored for all 81 participants through the use of agglomerative cluster analysis, sensitivity measures, and likelihood ratios. Results The mean percentage of agreement for 171 judgments was 89% for test–retest reliability, 89% for intrajudge reliability, and 91% for interjudge reliability. Agglomerative hierarchical cluster analysis showed that total DEMSS scores largely di...
Mandatory Influenza Vaccination for Health Care Workers as the New Standard of Care: A Matter of Patient Safety and Nonmaleficent Practice

A growing body of literature defends the efficacy of seasonal influenza vaccination for health care workers in reducing the mortality of hospitalized patients. I review the evidence concerning influenza vaccination, concluding that universal vaccination of health care workers against influenza should be considered standard patient care and that nonvaccination represents maleficent care. I further argue that the ethical responsibility to ensure universal vaccination of staff against seasonal influenza lies not only with individual health care providers but with each individual health care institution.
Human-Robot Percussion Ensemble: Anticipation on the Basis of Visual Cues

Visual cues-based anticipation is a fundamental aspect of human-human interaction, and it plays an important role in the time-demanding medium of group music. In this article, we explore the importance of visual gesture anticipation in music performance involving humans and robots. We study the particular case in which a human percussionist is playing a four-piece percussion set, and a robot musician is playing either the marimba or a three-piece percussion set. We use computer vision to embed anticipation in the robotic response to the human gestures.
SU‐E‐T‐404: Quantification of Proton Dose Enhancement Resulting From Gold Nanoparticles

Purpose: To quantify the proton dose enhancement from different sizes, shapes and distributions of gold nanoparticles (GNP). The high uptake of GNPs in tumors as compared to normal tissue provides the basis for GNP enhanced proton therapy. Method: Monte Carlo (MC) simulations were performed using TOPAS, which is based on Geant4. The Penelope physics package was instantiated for low energy electromagnetic physics. We calculated dose distributions of proton beams of energies ranging from 10–150 MeV incident upon a cube of liquid water containing a single GNP of a particular shape (spherical, cylindrical, cubic) and size (1–100nm). Dose enhancement distributions were analyzed in a scoring grid around the GNPs with a resolution of 10×10×10 nm3. The configuration yielding the highest dose enhancement was then used to study the overall dose enhancement for a variety of GNP concentrations (0–100 mg/ml) for homogeneous and clustered GNP distributions. Results: GNPs increase the dose delivered to a small volume (1×1×1 μm3) by up to 5%. Based on the diminishing return of dose enhancement with size for spherical GNPs we selected GNPs of 50 nm diameter as reference. GNP enhancement is proportional to the concentration in the concentrations investigated, a saturation is expected at very high concentrations. Conclusion: These results show that the use of GNPs is a promising approach to increase the ratio of tumor and normal tissue in proton therapy. Further investigation is required to determine the optimal specifications for GNPs to yield maximum benefit. The absorbed dose increases by 5% using GNPs of 50 nm diameter and is nearly independent of the proton energy. The upper limit of GNP concentration has to be established in future biological studies.
Atlas of thermal data of biomass and other fuels—a report on the forthcoming book

Abstract An Atlas of thermal data of biomass and other fuels is under preparation. It will include TG/DTA data for over 100 fuel samples ranging from various biomass materials to municipal wastes. Information pertaining to fuel pyrolysis, degradation pattern and proximate analysis is provided for each sample. The effects of heating rate, sample size and sample storage period are addressed in detail. The Atlas also includes an overview of thermal analysis, kinetic treatment of TG/DTA data and potential errors encountered during the collection of thermal data.
Identification and Distribution of Botryosphaeria spp. Associated with Grapevine Cankers in California

Urbez-Torres, J. R., Leavitt, G. M., Voegel, T. M., and Gubler, W. D. 2006. Identification and distribution of Botryosphaeria spp. associated with grapevine cankers in California. Plant Dis. 90:1490-1503. Botryosphaeria spp. recently have been identified as important grapevine pathogens worldwide. To date, Botryosphaeria rhodina has been the only species associated with cankers on Vitis vinifera in California. A field survey of 166 vineyards in 21 counties was conducted in order to determine the occurrence of other Botryosphaeria spp. in California. In all, 1,735 samples of cankered trunks, cordons, and spurs were collected. Botryosphaeria spp. were the most common fungi isolated from grapevine cankers in California. Morphological identification along with phylogenetic analysis of the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (rDNA) and a partial sequence of the β-tubulin gene showed that at least seven Botryosphaeria spp. occur on grapevines in California: B. australis, B. dothidea, B. lutea, B. obtusa, B. parva, B. rhodina, and B. stevensii. Botryosphaeria spp. were found in grapevine cankers in all grape-growing regions surveyed in California, whereas incidence and distribution varied with location. Grapevine cankers in California have been associated mainly with Eutypa dieback. However, the frequent recovery of Botryosphaeria spp. from cankers in this study indicates that the role of these fungi in grapevine health needs to be more carefully considered.
Regulation of Yeast Golgi Glycosylation. GUANOSINE DIPHOSPHATASE FUNCTIONS AS A HOMODIMER IN THE MEMBRANE

The Golgi lumenal GDPase plays an important role in the mannosylation of proteins and lipids of Saccharomyces cerevisiae by regulating the amount of GDP-mannose available in the Golgi lumen. The enzyme makes available GMP as an antiporter to be coupled with entry of GDP-mannose into the Golgi lumen from the cytosol. Using radiation inactivation and target analysis, we have now determined the functional molecular mass of the GDPase within the Golgi membrane and whether or not the enzyme has functional associations with other Golgi membrane proteins, including mannosyltransferases and the GDP-mannose transporter. The functional size of the GDPase was found to be approximately twice the estimated structural target size of the protein; this strongly suggests that the GDPase protein in situ functions as homodimer and does not require association with other membrane proteins for its function.
Haptics for and by Hydraulics

The haptic interaction with machines occupies orders of magnitude in size and power. Some of the most powerful machines are hydraulic and can benefit from the natural communication channel of haptics. Hydraulics can also provide interactions on a human scale with fine spatial resolution. In this talk, these extremes are addressed and the challenges and solutions provided by hydraulics and haptics are explored.
Application of electrochemical surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy for characterization of electrochemical DNA sensors.

Abstract We report the use of electrochemical surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy (EC-SPR) in the characterization of electrochemical DNA sensors. Three DNA probes, including a stem-loop probe and two linear probes (LP), were used in this study. Among the three sensors, the 3xLP sensor, a new sensor design with three consecutive target recognition sites, showed the largest change in SPR signal upon hybridization to T-25, a 25-base target with overhang regions that do not bind to the 3xLP probe. A detection limit of 20 nM was determined for T-25 using this sensor. Overall, this work has demonstrated the main advantage of EC-SPR, which is the ability to monitor both optical and electrochemical signals simultaneously, from sensor fabrication to target interrogation and sensor regeneration. It also alludes to the potential use of this hybrid technique to differentiate between non-specific binding and non-specific adsorption of non-complement targets onto the sensor surface.
On mechanical properties of the superconducting niobium

The overall mechanical properties of the high purity niobium (RRR) sheets, which are used in fabrication of the superconducting accelerator cavities, were investigated in this study. High purity niobium has a microstructure that leads to a rough surface on the free surfaces after plastic deformation. High purity niobium is a rate sensitive material and its strength and ductility increases with increasing strain rate. Due to the presence of an unstable texture, the r values in high purity niobium sheets decrease with plastic deformation. From tensile tests in different in-plane directions and bi-axial bulge tests, a new mathematical model was developed to describe the evolving yield function that predicts the variation of the r values with respect to the effective strain and angle to the rolling direction. From this analysis, suggestions for optimal microstructure and texture for fabricating cavities from high purity niobium are proposed.
Globalization and Its Outcomes

John O'Loughlin, Lynn Staeheli, and Edward Greenberg, eds. New York: Guilford Press, 2004. ix and 404 pp., maps, diagrams, and index. $30.00 paperback (ISBN 1-59385-045-X). Despite its broad title,...
Criteria to assess when biodegradation is kinetically limited by intraparticle diffusion and sorption.

To determine when intraparticle diffusion and sorption can influence the rate of biodegradation, we consider the biodegradation of a pollutant diffusing into or out of porous aggregates suspended in a liquid medium, where the reactant is metabolized by bacteria. The pollutant that diffuses into the aggregates obeys a sorption-desorption equilibrium isotherm at sites on inner pore surfaces. The governing partial differential equations for the transient process describe (a) the local equilibrium sorption-desorption and the diffusion of the pollutant in the porous aggregate, (b) the mass transfer of the pollutant from the external surface of the spherical aggregates to the reaction medium, and (c) the biodegradation of the pollutant in the external medium. Illustrative calculations are presented for a linear sorption calculations are presented for a linear sorption isotherm and first-order biodegradation kinetics. A dimensionless group, comprised of the diffusion coefficient, biodegradation rate coefficient, aggregate characteristics length (radius), and adsorption capacity, serves as a criterion for determining when intraparticle diffusion can be ignored. The model provides a realistic description of experimental data for biodegradation of a pollutant subject to intraparticle diffusion and sorption.
Growing Effective CLD Teachers for Today’s Classrooms of CLD Children

Using a case study design, this investigation examined the effective teaching characteristics of nontraditional, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) student teachers placed in rural, elementary schools with high populations of Latino/a students. Data collected reflected high percentages of effective teaching characteristics in multiple domains with specific indicators reflective of consistent teaching over time. A discussion of these findings considered aspects within the distance-delivery model that facilitated the CLD participants' development of effective teaching and noted (1) consistent leadership, (2) explicit teacher instruction within CLD school settings, and (3) the strong cohesive nature of the CLD participants' cohort as positively affecting the CLD participants' teaching effectiveness.
Cost recovery in a project context: Some World Bank experience in tropical Africa

Abstract The shortage of government recurrent funding in Africa has led to widespread deterioration of public services. One reason for this shortage is the substantial consumption of public resources in Africa by parapublic organizations which elsewhere in the world cover costs or generate surpluses. In contrast, the World Bank emphasizes the development of institutions which cover costs either through sale of output or user charges. The Bank's experience with projects in non-market sectors is also of interest, e.g. primary education in which public subsidies predominate. Another reason for the shortage is that government budgeting – both revenues and expenditures – is rarely forward-looking. Aggregate future expenditure claims are often underestimated. Hence more attention to forward budgeting is needed. In general governments need to be far more concerned with getting projects which generate their own finance if broad-based public services are to become the rule.
Binding and Activation of Aromatic Molecules by a Molybdenum π-Base

Compounds having the form TpMo(NO)(1-methylimidazole)(η2-Lπ) (Tp = hydridotris(pyrazolyl)borate; Lπ = cyclohexene, naphthalene, furan, thiophene, and acetone) were synthesized in 31−41% yield by the reduction of TpMo(NO)Br2 in the presence of 1-methylimidazole and the respective π-acidic organic ligand. The structure of the naphthalene complex was confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Degradation studies showed the bound aromatics to have half-lives of 37−236 h in acetone solution at 20 °C. A tandem addition across the bound ring of the naphthalene complex yielded a free 1,2-dihydronaphthalene in 80% yield following decomplexation.
Competence, persistence, and success: The positive psychology of behavioral skill instruction

Early school failure is a critical factor in the development of peer rejection and antisocial behavior in children. This paper describes three sets of instructional strategies that have been shown to promote high levels of academic competence by arranging frequent opportunities for correct skill practice: (a) teaching children at their instructional level and monitoring progress, (b) teaching children differently as their skills improve, and (c) rewarding success and setting goals. Research is reviewed showing that practicing skills to high levels of fluency leads to retention and endurance, the emergence of new forms of a skill, and creative problem solving. The motivation of children to complete academic tasks through the strategic use of reinforcement is discussed, as are the implications of these strategies for encouraging children to be persistent, self-motivated, life-long learners. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 41: 19–30, 2004.
Chemical Studies on Heated Starch/Glycine Model Systems

Sixty-three compounds were isolated and identified from heated starch and from heated starch with glycine. Starch or starch with glycine was heated in an Erlenmeyer flask at 290°C under a nitrogen stream. The volatiles formed during heating were entrained on a porous polymer (Porapack Q). Residual charred materials in the flasks were extracted with methylene chloride. The oily dark brown materials recovered from both the Porapack Q traps and the methylene chloride extracts were subjected to gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The compounds identified include 3 hydrocarbons, 11 ketones, 3 aldehydes, 24 aromatic compounds, 10 furans and 12 nitrogen-containing compounds. Formation mechanisms of some major products are proposed.
Analysis of Blood Cortisol Levels in Oral Surgery Patients Given Various Levels of Intravenous Medication

Blood cortisol levels of oral surgery patients were analyzed to objectively determine the effect of intravenous sedation on surgical stress. Results showed a measure of sedation but did not adequately reflect the stress of oral surgery or the changes produced by intravenous sedation.
Factorization of mesoscopic intensity correlations

Mesoscopic correlations of field intensity transmitted through disordered waveguides are shown to factorize into (i)the correlator of intensity normalized by the transmission, (ii)the correlator of transmission normalized by conductance, and (iii)the variance of dimensionless conductance.
Vasoreactivity of Chorionic Plate Arteries in Response to Vasoconstrictors Produced by Preeclamptic Placentas

Inadequate blood flow and increased vasoconstriction of the placenta contribute to pregnancy associated disorders such as preeclampsia (PE). Because placental vessels lack autonomic innervation, humoral effects of the placenta must play critical roles in regulation of fetal-placental vascular contractility. In this study, we examined the nature of humoral factors produced by PE trophoblasts on placental vessel contractility using an organ bath perfusion model. Vasomotor responses were studied in vitro using placental chorionic plate arteries. Vessel rings from third branch chorionic plate arteries were dissected from human placentas following normal or PE delivery. The arterial rings were equilibrated in Krebs Henseleit buffer and exposed to placental conditioned medium, which was prepared by culture of villous tissue from PE placentas. Receptor antagonists for angiotensin II (ANG II), thromboxane (TX), and endothelin (ET) were used to determine which humoral factor produced by placental tissue (trophoblasts) was more effective in promoting vasoconstriction. The role of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) and non-ACE ANG II generating enzymes in regulation of placental vasomotor tone were also investigated. A total of 80 arterial rings from 48 placentas were studied. Our results showed: 1) enhanced vasomotor tone in arteries from PE placentas compared to those from normal placentas; 2) PE-CM induced vaso-constrictive activity could be partially attenuated by receptor antagonists for TX, ANG II and ET, respectively; and 3) chymostatin (a chymase inhibitor) produced a stronger inhibitory effect than captopril (ACE inhibitor) on PE conditioned medium induced vasoconstriction. Our data demonstrate increased vasocontractility in PE placentas and suggest that the non-ACE pathway is probably a major source of ANG II produced in the human placenta.
Apelin has in vivo inotropic effects on normal and failing hearts.

Background— Apelin has been shown ex vivo to be a potent cardiac inotrope. This study was undertaken to evaluate the in vivo effects of apelin on cardiac function in native and ischemic cardiomyopathic rat hearts using a novel combination of a perivascular flow probe and a conductance catheter. Methods and Results— Native rats (n =32) and rats in heart failure 6 weeks after left anterior descending coronary artery ligation (n =22) underwent median sternotomy with placement of a perivascular flow probe around the ascending aorta and a pressure volume conductance catheter into the left ventricle. Compared with sham-operated rats, the ligated rats had significantly decreased baseline Pmax and max dP/dt. Continuous infusion of apelin at a rate of 0.01 μg/min for 20 minutes significantly increased Pmax and max dP/dt compared with infusion of vehicle alone in both native and failing hearts. Apelin infusion increased cardiac contractility, indicated by a significant increase in stroke volume (SV) without a chang...
Admission to medical school: International perspectives.

Admission to medical school is the goal of many students in many countries. The admission process varies from country to country. In some countries, students compete in an open market to gain a position in medical school. In other countries, “intake” is a more routine, planned beaureaucratic process. Where competition reigns, the interview is an important part of the selection process. The interview has been defined by Bingham and Moore [1] as:
The Impact of a Structured-Argument Approach on Group Problem Formulation*

Despite advances in decision analysis and decision support systems, few formulaic procedures exist for undertaking problem formulation, particularly in group settings. This leaves managers with little procedural support for the important task of carefully structuring problems. In a laboratory experiment of 29 intact student teams, we contrasted two problem formulation methodologies: a structured argument approach (based on application of formal reasoning) and a group process approach (based on private idea generation prior to public sharing and evaluation of ideas). The structured argument approach took more time to use and failed to bring about more information search and equivocality reduction in group discussions. On the positive side, however, the structured argument approach led to a greater combination of both coverage of critical issues and consensus on those issues. Use of the structured argument approach also resulted in higher satisfaction with the problem definition and commitment to implementing results of the group meeting. Overall, the results reveal cost/benefit tradeoffs associated with developing argumentation-based procedures for problem formulation.
Identification of CYP2C9 as a human liver microsomal linoleic acid epoxygenase.

Abstract Leukotoxin (9,10-epoxy-12-octadecanoate) and isoleukotoxin (12,13-epoxy-9-octadecenoate) are monoepoxides of linoleic acid, synthesized by a cytochrome P450 monooxygenase and possibly by an oxidative burst of inflammatory cells. Recent experiments in this laboratory have indicated that the toxicity of leukotoxin and isoleukotoxin is not due to these epoxides, but to the 9,10- and 12,13-diol metabolites. Leukotoxin and isoleukotoxin are metabolized primarily by the soluble epoxide hydrolase to form leukotoxin diol. Investigations with recombinant cytochrome P450 enzymes have demonstrated that leukotoxin and isoleukotoxin can be formed by these enzymes. This study used a combination of experimental approaches to identify the major cytochrome P450 enzyme in human liver involved in linoleic acid epoxidation. The kinetic paramenters were determined; the K m of linoleic acid epoxidation by pooled human liver microsomes was 170 μM and the V max was 58 pmol/mg/min. Correlation analysis was performed using individual samples of human liver microsomes, and the best correlation of linoleic acid epoxidation activity was with tolbutamide hydroxylase activity, CYP2C9. Recombinant CYP2C9 was the most active in linoleic acid epoxygenation, and antibody and chemical inhibition also indicated the importance of CYP2C9. This enzyme, therefore, may serve as a therapeutic target in the treatment of inflammation in order to reduce the amount of circulating leukotoxin/isoleukotoxin and their related diols.
Genetic variation in an individual human exome.

There is much interest in characterizing the variation in a human individual, because this may elucidate what contributes significantly to a person's phenotype, thereby enabling personalized genomics. We focus here on the variants in a person's ‘exome,’ which is the set of exons in a genome, because the exome is believed to harbor much of the functional variation. We provide an analysis of the ∼12,500 variants that affect the protein coding portion of an individual's genome. We identified ∼10,400 nonsynonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) in this individual, of which ∼15–20% are rare in the human population. We predict ∼1,500 nsSNPs affect protein function and these tend be heterozygous, rare, or novel. Of the ∼700 coding indels, approximately half tend to have lengths that are a multiple of three, which causes insertions/deletions of amino acids in the corresponding protein, rather than introducing frameshifts. Coding indels also occur frequently at the termini of genes, so even if an indel causes a frameshift, an alternative start or stop site in the gene can still be used to make a functional protein. In summary, we reduced the set of ∼12,500 nonsilent coding variants by ∼8-fold to a set of variants that are most likely to have major effects on their proteins' functions. This is our first glimpse of an individual's exome and a snapshot of the current state of personalized genomics. The majority of coding variants in this individual are common and appear to be functionally neutral. Our results also indicate that some variants can be used to improve the current NCBI human reference genome. As more genomes are sequenced, many rare variants and non-SNP variants will be discovered. We present an approach to analyze the coding variation in humans by proposing multiple bioinformatic methods to hone in on possible functional variation.
Modelling Hierarchical Destination Choice

The production-constrained gravity formulation is shown to be an especially inaccurate specification of reality whenever the selection of destinations by individuals results from a hierarchical choice process. Hierarchical decisionmaking violates the Independence from Irrelevant Alternatives property embedded in the theoretical derivation of the production-constrained gravity model from choice axioms. Various aspects of gravity model misspecification resulting from hierarchical destination choice are investigated and an empirical example is given in terms of US migrants. A discussion is presented of several destination choice models that are more accurately specified than the gravity formulation when destination choice is hierarchical. The recently derived competing destinations formulation is shown to be amongst the most useful in this respect. The discussion is framed in the context of discrete choice theory.
Redundancy and Plasticity of Neutralizing Antibody Responses Are Cornerstone Attributes of the Human Immune Response to the Smallpox Vaccine

The smallpox vaccine is widely considered the gold standard for human vaccines, yet the key antibody targets in humans remain unclear. We endeavored to identify a stereotypic, dominant, mature virion (MV) neutralizing antibody target in humans which could be used as a diagnostic serological marker of protective humoral immunity induced by the smallpox vaccine (vaccinia virus [VACV]). We have instead found that diversity is a defining characteristic of the human antibody response to the smallpox vaccine. We show that H3 is the most immunodominant VACV neutralizing antibody target, as determined by correlation analysis of immunoglobulin G (IgG) specificities to MV neutralizing antibody titers. It was determined that purified human anti-H3 IgG is sufficient for neutralization of VACV; however, depletion or blockade of anti-H3 antibodies revealed no significant reduction in neutralization activity, showing anti-H3 IgG is not required in vaccinated humans (or mice) for neutralization of MV. Comparable results were obtained for human (and mouse) anti-L1 IgG and even for anti-H3 and anti-L1 IgG in combination. In addition to H3 and L1, human antibody responses to D8, A27, D13, and A14 exhibited statistically significant correlations with virus neutralization. Altogether, these data indicate the smallpox vaccine succeeds in generating strong neutralizing antibody responses not by eliciting a stereotypic response to a single key antigen but instead by driving development of neutralizing antibodies to multiple viral proteins, resulting in a “safety net” of highly redundant neutralizing antibody responses, the specificities of which can vary from individual to individual. We propose that this is a fundamental attribute of the smallpox vaccine.
Modeling of irregular shaped power distribution planes using transmission matrix method

A major problem in power distribution networks is simultaneous switching noise (SSN), which causes several signal integrity issues. To understand the behavior of the power distribution system (PDS) and its contribution to SSN, noise prediction methods are necessary. This paper presents a method for analyzing arbitrary shaped power distribution networks both in the frequency and time domain. Using a two dimensional array of distributed RLCG circuits, the impedance of a power/ground plane pair is computed. For the efficient computation of the power distribution impedances at specific points in the network, a multi-input and multi-output transmission matrix method has been used. To verify the accuracy of this method, the simulation results have been compared with Spice which uses a circuit based approach and an analytical solution based on the cavity modes in the structure. The simulation results have also been compared with measurements for an L-shaped structure. The transmission matrix method has been applied to a split plane and an arbitrary shaped power plane to demonstrate the application of this technique to irregular geometries.
Impacts of Hemlock Loss on Nitrogen Retention Vary with Soil Nitrogen Availability in the Southern Appalachian Mountains

The impacts of exotic insects and pathogens on forest ecosystems are increasingly recognized, yet the factors influencing the magnitude of effects remain poorly understood. Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis )e xerts strong control on nitrogen (N) dynamics, and its loss due to infestation by the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae) is expected to decrease N retention in impacted stands. We evaluated the potential for site variation in N availability to influence the magnitude of effects of hemlock decline on N dynamics in mixed hardwood stands. We measured N pools and fluxes at three elevations (low, mid, high) subjected to increasing atmospheric N deposition where hemlock was declining or absent (as reference), in western North Carolina. Nitrogen pools and fluxes varied substantially with elevation and increasing N availability. Total forest floor and mineral soil N increased (P < 0.0001, P = 0.0017, resp.) and forest floor and soil carbon (C) to N ratio decreased with elevation (P < 0.0001, P = 0.0123, resp.), suggesting that these high elevation pools are accumulating available N. Contrary to expectations, subsurface leaching of inorganic N was minimal overall (< 1k g ha -1 9m onths -1 ), and was not higher in stands with hemlock mortality. Mean subsurface flux was 0.16 ± 0.04 (SE) (kg N ha -1 100 days -1 )i n reference and 0.17 ± 0.05 (kg N ha -1 100 days -1 )i n declining hemlock stands. Moreover, although subsurface N flux increased with N availability in reference stands, there was no relationship between N availability and flux in stands experiencing hemlock decline. Higher foliar N and observed increases in the growth of hardwood species in high elevation stands suggest that hemlock decline has stimulated N uptake and growth by healthy vegetation within this mixed forest, and may contribute to decoupling the relationship between N deposition and ecosystem N flux.
Potential distribution in three-dimensional periodic myocardium. I. Solution with two-scale asymptotic analysis

The use of two-scale asymptotic analysis allows development of a model of the steady-state potential distribution in three-dimensional cardiac muscle while preserving the underlying cellular network. The myocardium is modeled as a periodic structure consisting of cylindrical cells embedded in extracellular fluid and connected by longitudinal and side junctions. The method is applicable to cardiac muscle of arbitrary extent since the periodicity of the tissue is dealt with analytically, and thus numerical computations require no more resources than a continuous volume conductor problem. The asymptotic analysis approach reveals that the potential in a periodic myocardium consists of two components. The large-scale component provides the baseline for the total solution and can be determined from the anisotropic monodomain model associated with the original periodic problem. The small-scale component reflects the periodicity of the underlying structure and oscillates with periods determined by the dimensions of cardiac cells. >