cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
THE FORM AND FUNCTION OF SYNOVIAL CELLS IN TISSUE CULTURES II. THE PRODUCTION OF MUCIN

1. Synovial cultures are differentiated in tissue cultures from other tissues of mesenchymal origin by their type of growth and cell function. 2. In these respects they are more closely allied to chondroblasts and osteoblasts than to fibroblasts. 3. Synovial cells in tissue cultures develop marked globular cytoplasmic granulations that stain easily with neutral red and sometimes with toluidine blue; they show marked polymorphism with all transitions from round to spindle, polygonal and star shapes and eventually form an epithelial-like membrane, composed of cells with numerous syncytial bridges. 4. In cultures of typically growing synovial cells a mucin-like substance is elaborated. Typical growth and maximal mucin production is best maintained in media containing a minimum of growth-stimulating substances. Transformation of synovial cell growths into fibroblastic growth is accompanied by a loss of mucin production. Dying cells apparently do not produce mucin. 5. Amitotic cell division and the formation of macrophage-like cells were observed. 6. Marked tendency to liquefaction of the plasma about the growths was observed and attributed to the elaboration of a proteolytic ferment. 7. The specific designation "synovioblasts" is proposed for these cells.
Bone health in prostate cancer patients receiving androgen-deprivation therapy: the role of bisphosphonates

Androgen-deprivation therapy, a mainstay in the treatment of locally advanced and metastatic prostate cancer, is associated with significant bone loss and related complications, such as fracture. Bisphosphonates, osteoclast inhibitors, are effective in preventing skeletal-related events in patients with metastatic prostate cancer and also in preventing bone loss in patients with locally advanced disease. Understanding the management of bone health, including identifying patients at risk, the most appropriate therapy, and monitoring and managing side effects, is critical. This review provides the most recent bone health risk factor and bisphosphonate data available for prostate cancer patients.
Sparse inverse kernel Gaussian Process regression

Regression problems on massive data sets are ubiquitous in many application domains including the Internet, earth and space sciences, and finances. Gaussian Process regression (GPR) is a popular technique for modeling the input–output relations of a set of variables under the assumption that the weight vector has a Gaussian prior. However, it is challenging to apply GPR to large data sets since prediction based on the learned model requires inversion of an order n kernel matrix. Approximate solutions for sparse Gaussian Processes have been proposed for sparse problems. However, in almost all cases, these solution techniques are agnostic to the input domain and do not preserve the similarity structure in the data. As a result, although these solutions sometimes provide excellent accuracy, the models do not have interpretability. Such interpretable sparsity patterns are very important for many applications. We propose a new technique for sparse GPR that allows us to compute a parsimonious model while preserving the interpretability of the sparsity structure in the data. We discuss how the inverse kernel matrix used in Gaussian Process prediction gives valuable domain information and then adapt the inverse covariance estimation from Gaussian graphical models to estimate the Gaussian kernel. We solve the optimization problem using the alternating direction method of multipliers that is amenable to parallel computation. We compare the performance of this algorithm to different existing methods for sparse covariance regression in terms of both speed and accuracy. We demonstrate the performance of our method in terms of accuracy, scalability, and interpretability on two different satellite data sets from the climate domain. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining 6: 205–220, 2013
Extraction and translocation of calcium from gypsum during wood biodegradation by oxalate-producing fungi

Abstract Dry rot fungi are a unique group of brown rot fungi, capable of decaying wood at a distance from soil and moisture sources. When degrading wood in the built environment, these fungi are typically observed in contact with calcium (Ca)-containing materials, but it is unclear how or if this association benefits the fungus. In this work, several wood-degrading fungi, including two dry rot species, were cultured for 10 weeks in agar-block microcosms containing spruce heartwood and a Ca treatment. Calcium treatments were gypsum blocks (>99% pure CaSO4) or 2 mM CaCl2 in agar. Controls contained no Ca addition. Scanning electron microscopy and microanalysis confirmed hyphal contact with gyp-board and verified Ca oxalate crystal formation. Cation analysis revealed net Ca enrichment in wood degraded in the presence of gyp-board, including wood degraded by a white rot fungus. Despite wood Ca enrichment in gypsum treatments, wood weight loss and pH were unaffected, while acid-extractable oxalate was often higher. This suggests that Ca extracted from materials by wood decay fungi affects oxalate solubility, but does not necessarily facilitate wood decay. This dynamic should, however, be explored in relation to other building material elements and during incipient decay.
Induction of budding in a nonbudding mutant of Hydra viridis as a result of grafts using wild type tissue with varying compositions of interstitial and nerve cells

In order to determine if the interstitial cell or its derivative nerve cells play a role in inducing buds, experiments were conducted in which grafts using wild type tissue of varying cell compositions were made with the nonbudding mutant. Wild type specimens of H. viridis lacking i-cells but possessing nerve cells as well as lacking both i-cells and nerve cells were prepared using various combinations of hydroxyurea and colchicine. Wild type tissue lacking i-cells but possessing nerve cells stimulated the mutant tissue to bud. Wild type tissue without i-cells and nerve cells, however, was unable to induce budding. Chimeric hydra consisting of epithelial cells from wild type hydra and i-cell lineages from the mutant reproduced asexually by budding as do wild type epithelial animals repopulated with wild type i-cells. Chimeric hydra, however, were unable to induce budding when grafted back to the mutant. From the results of these experiments dealing with properties and induction of budding, we propose that nerve cells can influence adjacent epithelial tissues to form buds.
Novel Approaches to the Diagnosis, Prevention, and Treatment of Medical Device-Associated Infections

The pathogenesis of device-associated infections is related to biofilm bacteria that exhibit distinct characteristics with respect to growth rate, structural features, and protection from host immune mechanisms and antimicrobial agents when compared with planktonic counterparts. Biofilm-associated infections are prevented, diagnosed, and treated differently from infections not associated with biofilms. This article reviews innovative concepts for the prevention of biofilm formation, and novel treatment approaches. Specific approaches for the diagnosis and prevention of catheter-associated urinary tract and bloodstream infections, as well as infections associated with orthopedic implants and cardiovascular implantable electronic devices, are also discussed.
A monolithic nanodiamond lateral field emission triode

A laterally configured field emission device comprised of nanodiamond has shown low turn-on and operating voltages, and enhanced performance, owing to lithographic control over the device parameters, viz., interelectrode spacing, emitter geometry, and large-area array structure. This work deals with the development of a monolithic nanodiamond lateral vacuum triode. Gate-controlled current modulation behavior is clearly observed. The low applied electric fields required to initiate and modulate the electron emission between the electrodes are attributed to the geometry and material composition of the nanodiamond lateral emitter. Other measured parameters include 1.1 μA (anode current density ~1 A/cm 2 ) per finger; DC gain/amplification factor: 200; output impedance: ~10 GΩ. The g m was found to increase exponentially with Vg, suggesting that the electron current is well modulated by the gate voltage. The device characteristics were consistent with Fowler-Nordheim emission, the extracted anode current arising from field emission tunneling mechanism.
Local extinction event despite high levels of gene flow and genetic diversity in the federally-endangered Miami blue butterfly

A certain level of genetic diversity and connectivity between populations is necessary to allow small populations to persist over time. In this study, we investigate the last two populations of the highly endangered Miami blue butterfly, one of which was extirpated in 2010. We investigate whether an erosion of genetic diversity was the cause for the extirpation of the Bahia Honda State Park (BHSP) population. As the level of existing molecular diversity within and gene flow between the last two populations of the endangered Miami blue butterfly was unknown, we present data from twelve polymorphic microsatellite loci as an assessment. We show that greater genetic diversity (allelic richness and observed heterozygosity) than originally predicted existed in the BHSP population prior to its extirpation and values were even greater in the Key West National Wildlife Refuge population. Allelic frequencies show short-range gene flow between neighboring habitat patches and underline the importance of habitat connectivity. It does not appear that loss of genetic diversity was the cause for the loss of the BHSP population. Greater consideration of habitat connectivity should be considered for short and long-term conservation and management of this taxon.
Assessment of neurobehavioral function with computerized tests in a population of hispanic adolescents working in agriculture

In recent years there has been heightened concern over the potential of occupational or environmental exposures to affect neurological function in children and adolescents. The current study was designed to develop computerized tests to effectively assess neurobehavioral function in Hispanic adolescents working in agriculture and to evaluate those tests in Hispanic youths working in agriculture and in a non-agricultural group. After exclusions, 96 adolescents currently working in agriculture (AG) and 51 adolescents currently non-migratory and not working in agriculture (Non-AG) were tested. Neurobehavioral tests were selected from the computerized Behavioral Assessment and Research System. AG test performance was significantly below Non-AG performance on the cognitive tests. However, educational and cultural differences between the AG and Non-AG groups may explain this difference. Repeat testing of the AG group revealed substantially improved performance, further supporting educational or cultural differences as an explanation for the group differences. Together, these results expose the limitations in case-control or cross-sectional designs for testing migrant worker populations in the United States. Longitudinal or cross-sectional designs with repeat testing offer more promise and may be essential for drawing accurate conclusions in migrant worker groups where there are no truly equivalent comparison or control groups.
The use of dried bentonite as a disintegrating agent in compressed tablets of thyroid.

The results of the use of dried bentonite as the disintegrating agent in compressed tablets of thyroid are reported. Methods of determining the degree of hardness and relative rate of disintegration are included.
Parrots and Poets in Late Medieval Literature

ABSTRACTParrots have been kept as pets in the West since Classical antiquity, and they appear frequently in art. However, they are rarely represented in European literature until the end of the Middle Ages. “Le Chevalier du Papegau” (late fourteenth century, anonymous), “Les Epitres de l'Amant Vert” (1505) by Jean Lemaire de Belges, and “The Testament and Complaynt of Our Soverane Lordis Papyngo” (1529) by Sir David Lindsay all employ speaking parrot protagonists. Analysis and comparison of the parrot characters in these three works demonstrates some of the ways in which the parrot species' ability to mimic human speech provides a vehicle which medieval and Renaissance authors used for entertainment, social commentary, and moral instruction.
Episodic dyscontrol disorder and paroxysmal EEG abnormalities: Successful treatment with carbamazepine

Rhythmic midtemporal discharges (RMTD or psychomotor variant) and 6/set spike and wave complexes (6SW) are considered to be controversial electroencephalic (EEG) patterns because of a variable association with clinical seizures and nonspecific psychological features (Gibb et al. 1963; Garvin 1968; Thomas and Klass 1968). Many electroencephalographers consider these uncommon patterns to be normal variants (Maulsby 1979). However, numerous studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between psychiatric symptomatology and these EEG findings (Small et al. 1968; Milstein and Small 1971; Olson et al. 1971; Hughes and Hermann 1984). This article describes a patient with EEG findings of both RMTD and 6SW: psychiatric symptomatology lessened and paroxysmal EEG abnormalities abated with carbamazepine treatment.
Differential utilization of the promoter of peripheral-type benzodiazepine receptor by steroidogenic versus nonsteroidogenic cell lines and the role of Sp1 and Sp3 in the regulation of basal activity.

The peripheral-type benzodiazepine receptor (PBR) is involved in many cellular functions, including steroidogenesis, oxidative processes, cellular proliferation, and apoptosis. Secretory and glandular tissues, especially steroid hormone-producing cells, are particularly rich in PBR. To understand the mechanisms of PBR expression and regulation, we established an mRNA expression profile in mouse tissues and cell lines and subsequently mapped the transcription start site and characterized the promoter of the gene. Our findings indicate that PBR tissue mRNA levels are relatively high in kidney, spleen, muscle, lung, adrenal gland, thymus, and stomach; are intermediate in pancreas, uterus, prostate, heart, and testis; and are low in brain and liver. Relatively high levels of PBR mRNA were also observed in the steroid-synthesizing MA-10 mouse Leydig tumor cells compared with adrenocortical Y1 mouse cells and nonsteroidogenic NIH-3T3 mouse fibroblasts, although PBR protein levels were much higher in both steroi...
1E-4 Optical Generation of High Frequency Ultrasound Using a Two Dimensional Array of Gold Nanoparticles

The thermoelastic effect in a thin film is used to produce high-frequency, high-intensity ultrasound for applications in water and soft tissue. We have fabricated a structure that consists of 2D arrangements of gold nanoparticles, sandwiched between a transparent substrate and a 4.5 mum thick PDMS layer. The acoustic signal displays significant improvements compared to a bulk black PDMS film (the current state of the art) at frequencies from 50-100 MHz. When a 5 ns laser pulse with energy of 25 muJ is delivered to a spot size of 25 mum, the acoustic pressure can reach 500 kPa at a distance of 10 mm away from the film surface. We also propose a convenient method to construct an integrated transmit/receive optoacoustic array based on the high optical extinction ratio of the film. These results show that this PDMS film with 2D array of gold nanoparticles can be used to produce high-frequency arrays for ultrasound imaging
Space-time treatment of inverse bioelectric field problems

Inverse bioelectric field problems require estimation of a matrix representing the space-time distribution of source-layer strength-which is formally the quotient of a space-time data matrix and a spatial transfer matrix (the latter being ill-conditioned and noise-corrupted). A nonlinear estimation formulation results from imposition of constraints on the form of the solution time series (e.g. as a cardiac action potential, or a cerebral epileptogenic spike). In the absence of such constraints, the optimal (linear) estimation algorithm is based on the novel concept of a "Virtual-SVD",, which we present herein.
Activity-stress increases density of GFAP-immunoreactive astrocytes in the rat hippocampus

Although past research has indicated that stress and the accompanying increase in glucocorticoids compromises hippocampal neurons, little is known about the effect of stress on hippocampal glial cells. In the current study, male rats were exposed to activity-stress (A-S) for six days; this comprised housing with an activity wheel and restricted access (1h/day) to food. Physiological data (e.g., relative adrenal and thymus weights, gastric ulceration) suggested that the A-S rats experienced more stress than pair-fed (no wheel) and control (fed ad libitum, no wheel) rats. Whereas stress did not influence the quantitative morphology of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-immunoreactive cells, a semi-quantitative analysis revealed that the A-S rats had significantly more (30%) GFAP-immunoreactive cells in the hippocampal CA3 region than the control rats. Based on the present findings, it appears that the hippocampal astrocytic response to chronic stress may be similar to the response found in endangered, or challenged hippocampal environments, such as in ischemia.
Do African American women require fewer calories to maintain weight?: Results from a controlled feeding trial

Background:The high prevalence of obesity in African American (AA) women may result, in part, from a lower resting metabolic rate (RMR) than non-AA women. If true, AA women should require fewer calories than non-AA women to maintain weight. Our objective was to determine in the setting of a controlled feeding study, if AA women required fewer calories than non-AA women to maintain weight.Materials and Methods:This analysis includes 206 women (73% AA), aged 22–75 years, who participated in the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) trial—a multicenter, randomized, controlled, feeding study comparing the effects of 3 dietary patterns on blood pressure in individuals with prehypertension or stage 1 hypertension. After a 3-week run-in, participants were randomized to 1 of 3 dietary patterns for 8 weeks. Calorie intake was adjusted during feeding to maintain stable weight. The primary outcome of this analysis was average daily calorie (kcal) intake during feeding.Results:AA women had higher baseline we...
Dimensions of Behavior and Home Environment in School-Age Children India and the United States

The combined etic-emic approach was used to study the conceptual equivalence of objectively and quantifiably measurable dimensions of children's behavior and home environment in the United States and in India. In the United States, information on behavior and home environment was provided on the Missouri Children's Behavior Checklist (MCBC) and Home Environment Questionnaire (HEQ) by the mothers of 681 school-age children. Following the revision of the HEQ and the MCBC for cultural relevance to an Indian population, the mothers of 419 school-age children in India completed both revised questionnaires. Similar dimensions of home environment and children's behavior emerged for both the U.S. and Indian samples. Dimensions of behavior appeared to have similar item content across both cultural groups although the specific item content of dimensions of home environment differed in the two groups. Features of home environment such as Rejection and Affection were consistently related to several behaviors of child...
Relaxin modulates human cervical stromal cell activity.

The cervix undergoes profound changes in size and consistency during pregnancy which are designed to facilitate a normal delivery. These changes are under the control of a number of hormonal factors. Experimental and clinical studies suggest that relaxin, a protein hormone, plays a role in promoting cervical softening. One possible target site for the effects of relaxin on the cervix is the stroma. In the studies reported here, cultures of normal human cervical stromal cells were used to determine what direct relaxin has on cervical cells. Relaxin at concentrations ranging from 0.10-100 ng/mL had no effect on human cervical stromal cell proliferation, but was found to modulate stromal cell activity related to the remodeling of extracellular matrix. When gelatin substrate gels were used, relaxin stimulated the secretion of several cervical stromal proteinase activities, including 36,52, and 116 kDa. Inhibitor studies using ethylenediamine tetraacetate, 1,10-phenanthroline, and L-cysteine identify these gel...
Linkage and physical mapping of prolactin to porcine chromosome 7

Comparative mapping studies between human and pig have shown that there is conserved synteny between human chromosome 6 and pig chromosomes 1 and 7, but some gene locations are not well established. Prolactin (PRL), an anterior pituitary hormone, has been mapped to human chromosome 6, and has tentatively mapped to pig chromosome 7 using Southern-RFLP analysis with a limited number of meioses. To confirm the assignment of prolactin to porcine chromosome 7 by physical and linkage analysis, pig cDNA and human genomic DNA sequences were used to design pig-specific PCR primers. The primers amplified a fragment of approximately 2.8 kb. Two polymorphic restriction sites were identified within this fragment with the restriction endonuclease BstUI. Prolactin was significantly linked to six markers on the published PiGMaP map of pig chromosome 7. Prolactin was physically mapped using a pig x rodent somatic cell hybrid panel. An analysis of these data placed PRL on pig 7p1.1-p1.2 with 100% concordance and was in complete agreement with the linkage data. Both mapping techniques placed PRL in a conserved order with the loci in the syntenic region of human chromosome 6.
Comments on "A sliding mode controller with bound estimation for robot manipulators"

In Su and Leung (1993), a sliding mode control method is proposed for joint trajectory tracking of robot manipulators. The method is based on the decomposition of the manipulator dynamics into the product of a constant parameter vector and a regressor matrix, originally developed by Slotine and Li (1988). This note shows that the method proposed by Su and Leung does not offer any advantage over the method of Slotine and Li. >
Automatic Compiler Production: The Front End

This paper describes a system for automatically producing complete compiler front ends from simple, nonprocedural specifications of the source language. This system is based on a detailed model of a compiler front end that is presented first. The system itself is then described using a Pascal subset as an example. This work was part of a larger project aimed at producing complete compilers in a similar fashion.
Sexual dimorphic expression of ADH in rat liver: importance of the hypothalamic-pituitary-liver axis.

Hepatic alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) activity is higher in female than in male rats. Although sex steroids, thyroid, and growth hormone (GH) have been shown to regulate hepatic ADH, the mechanism(s)...
The expression and activity of prostaglandin H synthase-2 is enhanced in trophoblast from women with preeclampsia.

Preeclampsia is associated with altered biosynthesis of vasoactive prostanoids in placental villi. The two isozymes of prostaglandin H synthase (PGHS) are essential for prostanoid synthesis. We tested the hypothesis that PGHS-2 expression is elevated in trophoblast from preeclamptic women, compared with trophoblast from healthy women. Using immunofluorescent staining, we demonstrated a higher PGHS-2 expression in villi from preeclampsia, compared with normal pregnancy. Cytotrophoblasts cultured from placentas of preeclamptic women expressed higher levels of PGHS-2 compared with cytotrophoblasts from normal placentas. This enhanced expression of PGHS-2 correlated with increased media levels of both thromboxane and prostaglandin E2, two products of PGHS activity. The increased prostanoid production by trophoblast from preeclamptic women was markedly reduced by NS-398, a specific inhibitor of PGHS-2. We conclude that both expression and activity of PGHS-2 are enhanced in trophoblasts from preeclamptic women ...
A comparative study of the disappearance of radioactive sodium from human uterine muscle in normal and abnormal pregnancy.

Abstract The pioneering work of several British investigators 1–4 on placental and myometrial circulation has provided a new approach to the study of normal and abnormal physiology in the human gravid uterus. Their methods consist of injecting a tracer amount of radioactive sodium into the intervillous space and/or the myometrium and recording the time for one half of the radioactivity to disappear. Their experimental results show that there is a delay in the disappearance of radioactive sodium from the injected sites in cases of toxemia as compared to normal controls. They interpret these data to indicate reduced placental and myometrial circulation in the toxemias of pregnancy. With the use of this same tracer technique, preliminary studies 5, 6 performed in this department indicated that premature labor was associated with three rather constant factors: reduced urinary excretion of steroid metabolites, increased uterine contractility, and delayed disappearance of radioactive sodium from the myometrium. These changes were observed most frequently in complicated prematurity, but were found also in patients who were delivered prematurely without apparent cause. This study was designed to establish the pattern of disappearance of radioactive sodium from the myometrium during the last half of normal pregnancy and to compare these data with those from abnormal pregnancy, both full term and premature.
Failed merger: Failed corporate governance?

The last wave of mergers also produced some of the greatest merger failures of all time. How many were due to failed corporate governance? © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Proving safety properties of software

The use of software is pervasive in areas as diverse as aerospace, automotive, chemical processes, civil infrastructure, energy, health-care, manufacturing, transportation, entertainment, and consumer appliances. Our safety, security, and economy are now closely linked to the reliability of software. This research is about a technique to prove event-based safety properties of program. A safety property is defined in terms of event traces. An event trace is associated with an execution path and it is the sequence of events that execute on the path. Each event is identified with a program statement or a block of statements. Particularly, this research has been focused on one type of problem that follows one type of safety property we call matching pair (MP) property. Memory leaks, asymmetric synchronization, and several other defects are examples of violation of the matching pair property. The property involves matching between two types of events on every execution path. We present a practical method to validate the MP property for large software. The method is designed to address the challenges resulting from the cross-cutting semantics and presence of invisible control flow. The method has two phases: the macro phrase and the micro phrase. The macro analysis phase incorporates important notions of signature and matching pair graph (MPG). Signatures enable a decomposition of the problem into small independent instances for validation, each identified by a unique signature. The MPG( X) defines for each signature X, a minimal set of functions to be analyzed for validating the instance. The micro analysis phase produces the event traces graph representing all the relevant execution paths through the functions belonging to a MPG(X). A fast and accurate analysis of large software is possible because the macro analysis can exactly identify the functions that need to be analyzed and the micro analysis further greatly reduces the amount of analysis required to cover all execution paths by creating event trace graph (ETG) from the control flow graph (CFG). We applied macro level analysis on eight versions of Linux kernels spanning for three years. We further calculated ETGs for all functions identified by macro analysis for three versions of Linux. With the combination of macro and micro analysis, we were able to prove the correctness of more than 90% of the synchronization instances in the Linux kernel. For each remaining case, we produced relevant ETGs for the further investigation by human experts.
Simulation of low clouds in the Southeast Pacific by the NCEP GFS: sensitivity to vertical mixing

Abstract. The NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) model has an important systematic error shared by many other models: stratocumuli are missed over the subtropical eastern oceans. It is shown that this error can be alleviated in the GFS by introducing a consideration of the low-level inversion and making two modifications in the model's representation of vertical mixing. The modifications consist of (a) the elimination of background vertical diffusion above the inversion and (b) the incorporation of a stability parameter based on the cloud-top entrainment instability (CTEI) criterion, which limits the strength of shallow convective mixing across the inversion. A control simulation and three experiments are performed in order to examine both the individual and combined effects of modifications on the generation of the stratocumulus clouds. Individually, both modifications result in enhanced cloudiness in the Southeast Pacific (SEP) region, although the cloudiness is still low compared to the ISCCP climatology. If the modifications are applied together, however, the total cloudiness produced in the southeast Pacific has realistic values. This nonlinearity arises as the effects of both modifications reinforce each other in reducing the leakage of moisture across the inversion. Increased moisture trapped below the inversion than in the control run without modifications leads to an increase in cloud amount and cloud-top radiative cooling. Then a positive feedback due to enhanced turbulent mixing in the planetary boundary layer by cloud-top radiative cooling leads to and maintains the stratocumulus cover. Although the amount of total cloudiness obtained with both modifications has realistic values, the relative contributions of low, middle, and high layers tend to differ from the observations. These results demonstrate that it is possible to simulate realistic marine boundary clouds in large-scale models by implementing direct and physically based improvements in the model parameterizations.
Gene cloning, RNA distribution, and functional expression of mCX3CR1, a mouse chemotactic receptor for the CX3C chemokine fractalkine.

Abstract Human fractalkine and its apparent murine counterpart neurotactin are the only members identified so far of the CX3C subfamily of chemokines. Recently, a human fractalkine receptor was identified and named CX3CR1. Here we have identified a mouse counterpart of this receptor. The receptor was identified by analysis of a mouse genomic clone named PC2 isolated by homology hybridization using CX3CR1 as probe. Clone PC2 has a 354-codon open reading frame that has 83% amino acid identity to CX3CR1. PC2 RNA was abundant in brain and lung and comparatively less abundant in lung, liver, kidney, testis, and peripheral blood leukocytes, a pattern similar to that found for CX3CR1. The recombinant fractalkine, but no other chemokines tested, induced chemotaxis and transient increases in [Ca2+]iin HEK 293 cells transfected with PC2, whereas untransfected cells did not respond. Furthermore, fractalkine bound specifically to the transfected cells (Kd= 4 nM). Thus, fractalkine is a functional ligand for this receptor and we propose to name it mCX3CR1 for murine CX3C chemokine receptor 1.
Differentiation of Diaprepes abbreviatus and Pachnaeus litus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Egg Masses: PCR-Restriction Fragment-Length Polymorphism and Species-Specific PCR Amplification of 18S rDNA Products

The root weevils Diaprepes abbreviatus (L.) and Pachnaeus litus (Germar) are both pests of Florida horticulture, but D. abbreviatus is a regulated exotic species that causes severe damage whereas P. litus is considered a minor pest. Egg masses of these two weevil species are indistinguishable when they are detected on host plants. Two approaches to differentiating the egg masses are described herein. Total genomic DNAs extracted from D. abbreviatus and P. litus were used for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification and the PCR products were sequenced to obtain the 2014-bp sequence of the complete 18S rRNA gene for each species. A 446-bp region amplified from the 5' end of the 18S rDNA of P. litus contained a restriction fragment-length polymorphism marker, an extra BstU I recognition site that was not present in D. abbreviatus. Agarose gel electrophoresis of the restriction enzyme-digested PCR products produced a restriction pattern that enabled differentiation of the egg masses. Additionally, two species-specific reverse primers were designed to exploit a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) that occurred at the restriction fragment-length polymorphism marker site. These reverse primers differed only by a single nucleotide at the 3' end. When used in concert with a standard 18S rDNA forward primer, each species-specific reverse primer distinctly amplified a 256-bp product only when the correct genomic DNA was present.
Refractory hypoxemic respiratory failure due to adenocarcinoma of the lung with predominant bronchioloalveolar carcinoma component

Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma is a subtype of lung adenocarcinoma, characterized by well-differentiated cytology, peripheral location, and characteristic growth of neoplastic cells along intact alveolar septa (ie, lepidic growth pattern). Pure bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, by definition, doesn’t invade stroma, pleura, or lymphatic spaces. If there is lymphatic invasion, the tumor is classified as an adenocarcinoma, mixed subtype with predominant bronchioloalveolar carcinoma. Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma can present in various forms, including focal areas of increased lung opacity with ground-glass appearance (either as a single lesion or a confluence of lesions), or as a lobar consolidation mimicking bacterial pneumonia. We report an uncommon presentation of adenocarcinoma with predominant bronchioloalveolar carcinoma component, manifesting as multifocal pulmonary consolidation leading to refractory hypoxemic respiratory failure.
Tobacco Grower Livelihoods During Agricultural Restructuring

In the summer of 2002, Kentucky tobacco farmers had undergone production cuts of more than sixty percent and federal legislation had been proposed for a tobacco buyout. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 58 Kentucky farmers to learn how tobacco growers were responding to production cuts and/or engaging with tobacco restructuring more broadly. While tobacco restructuring could have been the catalyst toward a more diversified and sustainable agriculture, farm diversification had not taken place for the majority of Kentucky tobacco farmers. While farm diversification was fairly scarce, income diversification in response to tobacco restructuring was widespread. Outside of (mostly European) studies of pluriactivity, studies of livelihood and livelihood transition have traditionally focused on less-developed countries. In addition to the utilitarian lessons of this research, this study extends understanding of farmer livelihood transition in a developed country (the United States).
III. Philip Nye on Church and State

Philip Nye was one of the most important of the early Independents. His youthful allegiance to the cause, and his exile from 1633 to 1640 in Holland, gave him a breadth of outlook and an experience of congregational churches which effected a greater balance of his natural abilities. He has been coupled with John Goodwin as one of the most original minds among later Puritans. Returning from Holland, he soon had occasion to display his talents. As a representative to the Westminster Assembly he became one of the group of dissenting ministers which challenged the validity of the Presbyterian system of church government. The five “Holland Ministers” resisted the alien centralising policy of the Scottish Presbyterians. During the Protectorate, Nye became more prominent in ecclesiastical politics, but the Restoration forced him into the background. He died in 1672, serving an Independent church in London as its “doctor”.
Securing the HIPAA Security Rule

Both patients and health care providers have much to gain from the electronic processing of health data. Its advantages include speed, efficiency, and flexibility of information processing, which can result in long-term cost savings and improved patient outcomes. Unfortunately, many of the positive attributes of medical record computerization enable the operation of a market in illicitly-obtained private health information. The Internet provides a nearly ideal channel for trafficking in health information because it allows data to be transmitted anywhere in the world quickly, inexpensively, and with relatively little risk of detection. The threat to data security associated with the electronic storage and transmission of health information is serious enough that it has merited regulatory intervention, which came in the form of the HIPAA Security Rule, promulgated as part of the HIPAA Privacy Rule on April 20, 2005. Based on a close reading of the Security Rule and on empirical evidence, we argue that the Rule has thus far fallen far short of fulfilling its goal of safeguarding the security of electronic health information. This article briefly describes the provisions of the Security Rule and then offers a critique of it. It details the Rule's major shortcomings, emphasizing the many ways in which it fails to provide meaningful compliance guidance to covered entities. The article also develops recommendations for revisions to the Rule, focusing on a proposed "best practices" standard.
Telling and retelling prankster stories: Evaluating cleverness to perform identity:

Using interactional sociolinguistics, I analyze two versions of a narrative chronicling the humorous antics of a prankster called Zimmerman who, along with the narrator, was a seminary student in the Midwestern United States in the 1950s. To explore the interactional function of telling stories about pranks, I compare two versions: one which is more performative (Schiffrin, 2006), the other which feels more like a summary, calling attention to differences in narrative evaluation accomplished through use of such linguistic features as reference, deixis, and contextualization cues (i.e. laughter). I argue that both versions accomplish moral positioning for the narrator, and work to construct and negotiate his identity as someone who values cleverness, finding humor in the playful defiance of authority. However, by contrasting a telling in which this evaluation is accomplished internally (the more performative version) to one in which evaluation is largely external, I hope to highlight how evaluative devices...
Examining Trade Mechanism of International Carbon Dioxide Emission: Evidence from Major Emitter Countries

This study examines factors affecting the changes in the net exports of the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions embodied in global trade, conducting seemingly unrelated regression-based generalized least square method. The study uses balanced panel data sets of 34 OECD and 7 major non-OECD countries in the G-20 and the period of 1996-2011. Along with various explanatory variables, we also add interaction terms between structural changes and income variables for crosschecking. Results reveal that trade openness leads to increase in emission exports, while GDP per capita has a slight negative effect. Net oil export per capita is the most important factor raising the emission export. The finding that structural changes also affect emission density affirms the importance of technological progress. Considering international trade pattern, overall results underline that nobody is responsible for global emission individually since countries emit for others. For trade mechanism of emission reduction, ‘ideal’ and ‘global’ green trade implications seem to be appropriate policy initiatives. Keywords: CO 2 Emission, Emission Export, Kuznets Curve, SUR model, Structural Change. JEL Classifications: C33, F18, Q56
Remote Optically-Controlled Modulation of Catalytic Properties of Nanoparticles Through Reconfiguration of the Inorganic/Organic Interface

We introduce here a concept of remote photoinitiated reconfiguration of ligands adsorbed onto a nanocatalyst surface to enable reversible modulation of the catalytic activity. This is demonstrated by using peptide-ligand-capped Au nanoparticles with a photoswitchable azobenzene unit integrated into the biomolecular ligand. Optical switching of the azobenzene isomerization state drives rearrangement of the ligand layer, substantially changing the accessibility and subsequent catalytic activity of the underlying metal surface. The catalytic activity was probed using 4-nitrophenol reduction as a model reaction, where both the position of the photoswitch in the peptide sequence and its isomerization state affected the catalytic activity of the nanoparticles. Reversible switching of the isomerization state produces reversible changes in catalytic activity via reconfiguration of the biomolecular overlayer. These results provide a pathway to catalytic materials whose activity can be remotely modulated, which cou...
Examination of Spheroidal Graphite Growth and Austenite Solidification in Ductile Iron

Microstructures of a ductile iron alloy at different solidification stages were captured in quenching experiments. Etched microstructures showed that spheroidal graphite particles and austenite dendrites nucleated independently to a significant extent. Growth of the austenite dendrite engulfed the spheroidal graphite particles after first contacting the nodule and then by forming an austenite shell around the spheroidal graphite particle. Statistical analysis of the graphite size distribution was used to determine the nodule diameter when the austenite shell was completed. In addition, multiple graphite nucleation events were discerned from the graphite particle distributions. Majority of graphite growth occurred when the graphite was in contact with the austenite. Circumferential growth of curved graphene layers appeared as faceted growth fronts sweeping around the entire surface of a spheroidal graphite particle which was at the early growth stage. Mismatches between competing graphene growth fronts created gaps, which divided the spheroidal graphite particle into radially oriented conical substructures. Graphene layers continued growing in each conical substructure to further extend the size of the spheroidal graphite particle.
Spontaneous emergence of fast attractor dynamics in a model of developing primary visual cortex

Recent evidence suggests that neurons in primary sensory cortex arrange into competitive groups, representing stimuli by their joint activity rather than as independent feature analysers. A possible explanation for these results is that sensory cortex implements attractor dynamics, although this proposal remains controversial. Here we report that fast attractor dynamics emerge naturally in a computational model of a patch of primary visual cortex endowed with realistic plasticity (at both feedforward and lateral synapses) and mutual inhibition. When exposed to natural images (but not random pixels), the model spontaneously arranges into competitive groups of reciprocally connected, similarly tuned neurons, while developing realistic, orientation-selective receptive fields. Importantly, the same groups are observed in both stimulus-evoked and spontaneous (stimulus-absent) activity. The resulting network is inhibition-stabilized and exhibits fast, non-persistent attractor dynamics. Our results suggest that realistic plasticity, mutual inhibition and natural stimuli are jointly necessary and sufficient to generate attractor dynamics in primary sensory cortex. Sensory cortices represent stimuli through joint activity of competing neuronal assemblies. Here the authors show that a model of visual cortex with plastic feedforward and recurrent synapses, exposed to natural images, spontaneously develops attractor dynamics between groups of similarly tuned neurons.
Code complexity versus performance for GPU-accelerated scientific applications

Summary form only given. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are becoming widely used as parallel accelerators in high-performance computing. GPU programming until recently, has been done by using low-level programming models such as CUDA and OpenCL. The directive-based OpenACC programming model has been growing in popularity due to its higher level of abstraction. This technique, which uses “directive” or “pragma” statements to annotate source code written in traditional high-level languages such as Fortran, C, and C++, is intended to allow a single code base to work across multiple computational platforms. We attempt to compare code complexity and performance of CUDA, OpenCL, and OpenACC implementations for three benchmark codes – the Game of Life (GOL) example code, the LULESH hydrodynamics proxy application, and the CloverLeaf mini-app from the Mantevo suite For the GOL C, CUDA C, and OpenCL codes and the LULESH C++, CUDA, and OpenCL codes, we measured source lines of code (SLOC) and cyclomatic complexity using the Oxbow toolkit static analysis tools. We ran the commercial McCabe IQ tool on the CloverLeaf Fortran90, Fortran90 + OpenACC, and Fortran portion of CloverLeaf_CUDA to measure cyclomatic complexity, design complexity, and essential complexity. We found that the CUDA and OpenCL implementations have significantly more lines of code than the corresponding OpenACC implementations but that the measured cyclomatic complexity is not always higher. The CUDA and OpenCL implementations generally have better performance, but there is not a drastic difference if the OpenACC code is optimized. We conclude that the available metrics and tools for measuring complexity of GPU programs are inadequate, since they do not quantify the portability and maintainability of the codes, and that specialization and extensions are needed.