cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Bacterial DNA strand compositional asymmetry.

Genes that deviate strongly in codon usage from the average gene but are relatively similar in codon usage to ribosomal protein (RP) genes are viewed as highly expressed22xKarlin, S., Campbell, A.M., and Mrazek, J. Annu. Rev. Genet. 1998; 32: 185–225Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (229)See all References, 23xKarlin, S., Mrazek, J., and Campbell, A.M. Mol. Microbiol. 1998; 29: 1341–1355Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (155)See all References. In most prokaryotic genomes, highly expressed genes include those encoding RPs, transcription and translation processing factors, chaperonins, degradation proteases and the principal proteins of energy metabolism. For example, in the genomes of the fast-growing E. coli, H. influenzae and B. subtilis, many glycolysis genes are highly expressed. In Synechosytis, several photosystem II genes are highly expressed, and in methanogens such as M. jannaschii and M. thermoautotrophicum, many highly expressed genes are essential for methanogenesis. A gene is referred to as alien if the codon-usage difference from the average gene exceeds a high threshold, and if the codon-usage difference from RP genes is also high. Alien genes are mainly open reading frames of unknown function, but can also include transposases, prophage genes and restriction/modification enzymes22xKarlin, S., Campbell, A.M., and Mrazek, J. Annu. Rev. Genet. 1998; 32: 185–225Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (229)See all References, 23xKarlin, S., Mrazek, J., and Campbell, A.M. Mol. Microbiol. 1998; 29: 1341–1355Crossref | PubMed | Scopus (155)See all References.Highly expressed RPs are encoded predominantly from the leading strand. Remarkably, this finding applies to all the currently available complete genomes that have a single bidirectional origin of replication. Consequently, we can modify the method of Rocha and colleagues8xRocha, E.P.C., Danchin, A., and Viari, A. Mol. Microbiol. 1999; 32: 11–16Crossref | PubMedSee all References8 as follows: consider an oriC and its antipodal termination point; count the number of RP genes encoded by the leading strand; choose the origin and termination points that maximize the number of RP genes encoded by the leading strand. This method works very well and has located the origin quite accurately in all cases to date. Thus, the mapping of oriC in H. pylori to genome position ∼110 000 implies that all highly expressed RPs of this genome are encoded from the leading strand. By contrast, all specifications of oriC location in the genomes of M. jannaschii, A. fulgidus, P. horikoshii, P. aerophilum, Synechosystis and A. aeolicus indicate that at least two highly expressed RP genes are encoded by the lagging strand. We interpret this to mean that these genomes possess multiple replication origins. In most cases, highly expressed genes are overrepresented on the leading strand and alien genes are encoded mainly by the lagging strand.
Insulin and the gastrointestinal tract

Abstract To provide a less cumbersome and more socially accepted form of insulin treatment than subcutaneous injections, we have designed an azopolymer system to deliver insulin with an absorption enhancer to the upper colon. In pancreatectomized dogs repeated oral doses of insulin in azopolymer-coated capsules lower the diabetic hyperglycemia to near normal values. Direct visualization of capsules containing radionuclides and coated with two new batches of azopolymer demonstrated that the capsules either passed intact through the gut or were opened in the small intestine. Direct visualization and insulin delivery using the same azopolymer will be necessary to locate the site of insulin delivery, but there remains the possibility that the insulin was delivered within the small intestine. To understand the effect of large doses of insulin delivered to the upper GI tract, an insulin solution was substituted for the drinking water of normal and diabetic rats. This produced temporary decreases in blood glucose levels, showing that in rats some absorption of insulin takes place above the colon. However, these rats became hyperphagic and lost weight. On post mortem examination the gut was distended with undigested food. Insulin seemed to inhibit processing of the food by the gut, in confirmation of observations by Elliasson and coworkers in human volunteers. The inhibitory effect of insulin on the gut, coupled with the presence of insulin receptors on the mucosal side of the gut and the presence of other pancreatic peptides in the gut, suggested to us that the gut may be able to make insulin. Accordingly, we looked for and found immunocytochemical evidence for preformed insulin in crypt cells in the colon and stomach, as well as the mRNAs for both rat insulins in similar cells. Gut insulin may be involved in the response of the gastrointestinal tract to food. Caution must be exerted in the introduction of high concentrations of insulin into the gastrointestinal tract. The same may be true of other powerful natural agents for which an oral delivery system would be desirable.
Restricted Structural Heterogeneity in Antibodies: Might Different Heavy Chains have a Common Light Chain?

MOST structural studies of immunoglobulins have utilized homogeneous myeloma proteins because antibodies elicited during conventional immunization are a heterogeneous population of molecules. Hyperimmunization with streptococcal vaccines1 has been used to obtain large quantities of antibody of known specificity and “restricted structural heterogeneity” for studies on the structural basis of antibody function and on the genetic basis of the immune response1,2. In the course of these studies we have characterized an antibody which seems to have a single light chain associated with two or more different heavy chains.
Average-case analysis of multiple Quickselect: An algorithm for finding order statistics

We analyze multiple Quickselect (MQS), a variant of Quicksort designed to search for several order statistics simultaneously. We show that, when p is an integer fixed with respect to n, the size of the data set, MQS requires an average of (2Hp + 1)n - 8p In n + O(1) comparisons to find p order statistics, where Hp is the pth harmonic number. AMS classification: Primary 68P10; 68Q22; secondary 05C05
Crystallographic Texture and Orientation Variants in Al2o3-Y3al5o12 Directionally Solidified Eutectic Crystals

Eutectic rods of Al2O3 and Y3Al5O12 were grown by a laser-heated float zone method, and their microstructure and crystallographic texture were studied by scanning electron microscopy, electron backscattered diffraction and x-ray diffraction. The composites were found to be highly textured with two twin-related crystallographic orientation relationships between the phases. Electron backscattered diffraction was employed to determine the spatial distribution of the orientational variants within the samples and to define the crystallographic orientation of various microstructural features.
Response of two oligohaline marsh communities to lethal and nonlethal disturbance

Severity is recognized as an important attribute of disturbance in many plant communities. However, the effects of disturbances of different severity on patterns of regeneration in oligohaline marsh vegetation have not been experimentally examined. In these communities, a critical difference in the effects of disturbance severity may be whether the vegetation dies as a result of the disturbance or is merely damaged and hence capable of resprouting. We described the regeneration of vegetation in two Louisiana marsh community types, one dominated by Sagittaria lancifolia L. and the other by Spartina patens (Ait.) Muhl., following three levels of disturbance: no disturbance, a nonlethal disturbance, and a lethal disturbance. In the nonlethal disturbance, aboveground vegetation was clipped to simulate common disturbances such as fire and herbivory that remove aboveground vegetation but leave rhizomes intact. In the lethal disturbance vegetation was killed using herbicide to simulate disturbances causing plant mortality such as wrack deposition, sedimentation, scouring, and flooding following fire or herbivory. Regeneration was assessed over a 2-year period by measuring plant species richness, relative abundance, relative dominance, cover, and final biomass. To elucidate mechanisms for observed responses of vegetation, the species composition of the seed bank, light penetration, water level, salinity, and soil redox potential were evaluated. Despite differences in the structure of undisturbed vegetation in the two community types, they exhibited the same overall pattern of regeneration. Following nonlethal disturbance, the dominant species resprouted and quickly reestablished the structure of the vegetation. In contrast, recolonization following lethal disturbance occurred primarily via seedling recruitment, which resulted in marked shifts in community structure that persisted throughout the study. While the two communities responded similarly overall to disturbance, the response of individual species was not uniform; abundance, dominance, biomass, or cover increased for some species but decreased for others in response to disturbance. Seed bank species occurred in the vegetation following lethal disturbance in the Spartina community and in both disturbed and undisturbed plots in the Sagittaria community, indicating that the seed bank is a source of propagules for regeneration and maintenance of oligohaline marshes. Of the environmental variables measured, light level was most closely related to the effect of disturbance severity on community structure. Our results suggest that lethal and nonlethal disturbances have differential effects on regeneration of vegetation that can create pattern in oligohaline marshes communities.
Hankel operators in the Dixmier class

Abstract We study holomorphic functions / in the unit ball for which the small Hankel operator hf belongs to the Dixmier class.
Foot management in the foal and weanling

Foot management and hoof care of foals, weanlings, and yearlings tends to be considered a specialist job. Many farriers and veterinary surgeons have little exposure to young and growing stock. Nevertheless, a variety of angular and flexural limb deformities can benefit from simple podiatry techniques, which can be performed provided that a few basic rules are followed. The combined skills of the farrier and veterinary surgeon offer many young horses with angular or flexural limb deformities a chance of a future athletic career.
The proposed ExoMars Climate Sounder instrument

This paper describes the ExoMars Climate Sounder (EMCS) instrument currently under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It would be one of five scientific instruments on board the proposed ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft of the 2016 Mars Mission. EMCS would image and generate high vertical resolution global thermal/infrared profile maps of temperature, dust, water, CO2, ice, and water vapor. It is a 9 spectral channel infrared radiometer, with its sensory system distributed between two identical, boresighted telescopes. The instrument consists of an Optical Bench (OB), housing the two telescopes, a yoke and gimbal mechanism that would provide articulation for the OB, enabling planet, limb, black space, and instrument-internal calibration target observations, and a mounting bracket that serves as interface to the spacecraft. The paper briefly outlines the proposed mission, observation subsystem and data acquisition technique. It describes the various subsystems of the instrument, which are mechanical, structural, thermal electronics and software.
Pharmacokinetics of selected stilbenes: rhapontigenin, piceatannol and pinosylvin in rats

The pharmacokinetics of piceatannol, pinosylvin and rhapontigenin were characterized in male Sprague-Dawley rats after single intravenous doses of 10 mg kg(-1) of each stilbene. Serial blood samples were collected via a catheter inserted into the right jugular vein and plasma samples were analysed for the selected stilbenes concentrations using reverse phase HPLC methods. After an acute intravenous dose of piceatannol, plasma AUC, urine t(1/2), CL and V(d) were 8.48+/-2.48 micro g h mL(-1), 19.88+/-5.66 h, 2.13+/-0.92 Lh(-1) kg(-1) and 10.76+/-2.88 L kg(-1)(mean+/-s.e.m.), respectively. The acute intravenous dose of pinosylvin yielded the plasma AUC, urine t(1/2), CL and V(d) values of 5.23+/-1.20 micro g h mL(-1), 13.13+/-2.05 h, 1.84+/-0.44 Lh(-1) kg(-1) and 2.29+/-0.56 L kg(-1)(mean+/-s.e.m.), respectively. Rhapontigenin intravenous dosing yielded the plasma AUC, urine t(1/2), CL and V(d) values of 8.39+/-0.10 micro g h mL(-1), 25.31+/-1.46 h, 1.18+/-0.035 Lh(-1) kg(-1) and 11.05+/-0.17 L kg(-1)(mean+/-s.e.m.), respectively. Each stilbene was extensively glucuronidated. These stilbenes were predominantly eliminated via non-urinary routes. All three stilbenes were highly distributed into tissues and were highly extracted by the liver. The detectable plasma half-lives of these xenobiotics appear to be relatively short. However, utilizing urinary concentration-time data, much longer elimination half-lives were evident. The estimates of oral bioavailability characterize these stilbenes as poorly bioavailable compounds.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Children.

Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis remain medically incurable conditions with potentially significant morbidity. The treatment of children with these conditions therefore should seek to reduce or eliminate symptoms, optimize nutritional status, promote normal growth and development, prevent complications, and minimize the potential psychologic effects of chronic illness. Treatment strategies must seek to both induce and maintain clinical remission. For all but the most mildly affected children with Crohn’s disease, a combination of nutritional and pharmacologic approaches is optimal. For those with ulcerative colitis, anti-inflammatory medication is necessary. Moderate to severe Crohn’s disease acutely responds best to potent immunomodulatory therapy, eg, corticosteroids and infliximab. Either agent must be coupled with 6-mercaptopurine or azathioprine to maintain long-term remission and to minimize toxicity. Particular attention must be paid to limit the growth suppression and other toxic effects of corticosteroids. Elemental or semielemental enteral nutrition also can induce remission effectively, but relapse is common after primary nutritional therapy is discontinued, mandating concomitant pharmacologic therapy with either 6-mercaptopurine or azathioprine. The availability of 6-mercaptopurine/azathioprine metabolite testing allows optimization of immunomodulatory therapy, detection of noncompliance, and avoidance of potentially dangerous toxicity. Mild ulcerative colitis acutely responds to treatment with a 5-aminosalicylate medication. Long-term remission frequently can be maintained with the same medication. Moderate to severe disease activity requires potent immunomodulatory therapy if colectomy is to be avoided. Surgery is a potential cure for patients with ulcerative colitis, although the development of pouchitis after ileal pouch anal anastomosis is common and frequently requires long-term medical management. Surgery provides only palliative relief of complications in those with Crohn’s disease. Emerging therapies, especially evolving biologic and probiotic agents, offer hope for better treatments in the years ahead.
Identification and Implementation of End-User Needs During Development of a State-of-the-Art Modeling Toolset

The U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE) Office of Environmental Management, Technology Innovation and Development is supporting a multi-National Laboratory effort to develop the Advanced Simulation Capability for Environmental Management (ASCEM). ASCEM is an emerging state-of-the-art scientific approach and software infrastructure for understanding and predicting contaminant fate and transport in natural and engineered systems. These modular and open-source high performance computing tools and user interfaces will facilitate integrated approaches that enable standardized assessments of performance and risk for EM cleanup and closure decisions. The ASCEM team recognized that engaging end-users in the ASCEM development process would lead to enhanced development and implementation of the ASCEM toolsets in the user community. End-user involvement in ASCEM covers a broad spectrum of perspectives, including: performance assessment (PA) and risk assessment practitioners, research scientists, decision-makers, oversight personnel, and regulators engaged in the US DOE cleanup mission. End-users are primarily engaged in ASCEM via the ASCEM User Steering Committee (USC) and the ‘user needs interface’ task. Future plans also include user involvement in demonstrations of the ASCEM tools. This paper will describe the details of how end users have been engaged in the ASCEM program and will demonstrate how this involvement has strengthened both the tool development and community confidence. ASCEM tools requested by end-users specifically target modeling challenges associated with US DOE cleanup activities. The demonstration activities involve application of ASCEM tools and capabilities to representative problems at DOE sites. Selected results from the ASCEM Phase 1 demonstrations are discussed to illustrate how capabilities requested by end-users were implemented in prototype versions of the ASCEM tool.Copyright © 2011 by ASME
Faculty Ownership of the Assurance of Learning Process: Determinants of Faculty Engagement and Continuing Challenges.

Although this article provides further evidence of serious impediments to faculty ownership of assurance of learning, including inadequate and misaligned resources, the results indicate that faculty can be energized to become actively engaged in the assurance of learning (AOL) process, particularly when they believe that AOL results are useful and help students prepare for future business challenges. The authors suggest strategies for building a more engaged faculty as well as highlighting ongoing challenges in that process.
East versus West: organic contaminant differences in brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) eggs from South Carolina, USA and the Gulf of California, Mexico.

article i nfo Brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) were listed as endangered in the United States in 1970, largely due to reproductive failure and mortality caused by organochlorine contaminants, such as DDT. The southeast pop- ulation, P.o. carolinensis, was delisted in 1985, while the west coast population, P.o. californicus, was not delisted until 2009. As fish-eating coastal seabirds, brown pelicans may serve as a biomonitors. Organic con- taminants were examined in brown pelican eggs collected from the Gulf of California in 2004 and South Carolina in 2005 using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Contaminants were compared using all individual data as well as statistically pooled samples to provide similar sample sizes with little dif- ference in results. Principal components analysis separated the Gulf of California brown pelican eggs from the South Carolina eggs based on contaminant patterns. The South Carolina population had significantly (Pb0.05) higher levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chlordanes, dieldrin and mirex, while the Gulf of California eggs had higher levels of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs) and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs). With the exception of dieldrin and brominated diphenyl ether (BDE) 47, this pattern was observed for mussel and oyster tissues from these regions, indicating the need for further study into the differences between east and west coast brown pelican populations and ecosystem contamination patterns. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Uranium determination in sea water

Uranium analyses of sea-water samples taken from different locations were carried out by the isotope-dilution method. Uranium was separated by liquid-liquid extraction from 2000 ml of sea water, for each determination. The small residue of uranium resulting from the chemical separation was analyzed by mounting it on a tantalum filament and examining the U02+ thermal ions in a Nier six-inch radius, 60° sector-type mass spectrometer. The results show a concentration of 3.1 to 3.5 micrograms of uranium per kilogram of sea water, with a uranium/sahnity ratio of 9.0 to 9.8 X 10minus;8.
Introduction to FORMAC

The purpose of this paper is to give an over-all view of the FORMAC language. FORMAC is an experimental programming system designed to permit the manipulation of mathematical expressions. The paper includes a brief description of the FORMAC language and samples of complete FORMAC programs. It should be noted that FORMAC is an experimental program, and that at the present time IBM has no intention of releasing it to their customers.
On the Role of Prostaglandins in Parturition in the Rat11

Treatment of both intact and hypophysectomized pregnant rats on days 19 and 20 of pregnancy with PGF2α results in a rapid fall in plasma progesterone concentrations by day 20 followed by premature delivery on day 21. Administration of depoprovera did not prevent the PGF2α induced fall in progesterone levels but premature littering was adverted. Indomethacin, an inhibitor of prostaglandin biosynthesis, postponed the onset of parturition by 20 h when administered in late pregnancy but rats treated with both indomethacin and PGF2α delivered at the normal time. Treatment of both intact and hypophysectomized animals with indomethacin delayed the fall in plasma progesterone concentrations which normally occurs between days 21 and 22 of pregnancy. Concomitant PGF2α treatment of rats receiving indomethacin caused plasma progesterone levels to fall in a pattern similar to controls. These findings indicate that endogenous PGF2α induces a fall in blood progesterone concentrations which is followed by increased myome...
Aging in Place? Evidence That a State Medicaid Waiver Program Helps Frail Older Persons Avoid Institutionalization

ABSTRACT Long-term care will increasingly shift from institutions to home and community based services. Using data from a Medicaid home care waiver program in South Carolina, the Community Long-Term Care (CLTC) program, we evaluated differences in frailty and service use among CLTC clients between 1995 (n = 3,748) and 2005 (n = 9,157). The expectation was that CLTC clients had become more frail in that period, and had greater access to services in the community, results that might suggest the CLTC program had helped individuals to avoid institutionalization. Frailty measures included acute and chronic conditions, other health conditions, and activities of daily living (ADL). We evaluated the percentage of clients using services, and service use intensity. A large majority of clients in both years were impaired in at least four ADL. In 2005, CLTC clients were significantly more likely to have chronic conditions, including hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, ...
The effect of intraosseous sodium bicarbonate on bone in swine

Five domestic swine weighing 8 to 12 kg were anesthetized with ketamine 20 mg/kg IM and pentobarbital 20 mg/kg IV. After a sterile prep each animal received NaHCO 3 1 mEq/mL/kg in one tibia and saline 1 mL/kg in the other. The animals were allowed to recover and were observed for 30 days. At the end of this period, roentgenographs were obtained of each tibia and triple phase 99 m technetium bone scans were obtained. The tibias also were sectioned, stained, and examined under light microscopy for microscopic abnormalities. The only deficit found was a small cortical calcification at the site of the needle puncture in an animal that received NaHCO 3 . All other roentgenographs, bone scans, and microscopic specimens were normal. This study demonstrates that NaHCO 3 does not have permanent adverse effects when injected into the marrow cavity of swine and supports previous clinical observations regarding the safety of NaHCO 3 .
Electroencephalogram of the mature chimpanzee: twenty-four hour recordings.

Abstract Twenty-four hour EEG recordings were obtained from three sexually mature chimpanzees. Telemetry permitted the study of unrestrained animals in their home cages, during both sleep and wakefulness. These mature chimpanzees slept a mean of 9 h 40 min at night, but they slept hardly at all during the day. The sleep EEG of the animals contained very few sigma rhythms, vertex sharp waves and K complexes as compared with adult human subjects or juvenile chimpanzees. Awakening were very frequent, amounting to 17% of the sleep periods, and episodes of each stage were short because of frequent stage shifts. Stage REM occupied only 15% of the sleep recorded. Although the findings confirm the general similarity of chimpanzee sleep patterns to those of humans, the records were actually more similar to recordings of lower primates than to those of humans. It is hard to explain these findings phylogenetically, and they may reflect the effects of captivity on laboratory animals.
The flexible, polarizable, thole-type interaction potential for water (TTM2-F) revisited.

We present a revision of the flexible, polarizable, Thole-type interaction potential for water [J. Chem. Phys. 2002, 116, 5115], which allows for condensed-phase simulations. The revised version (TTM2.1-F) of the potential correctly describes the individual water molecular dipole moment and alleviates problems arising at short intermolecular separations that can be sampled in the course of molecular dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations of condensed environments. Furthermore, its parallel implementation under periodic boundary conditions enables the efficient calculation of the macroscopic structural and thermodynamic properties of liquid water, as its performance scales superlinearly with up to a number of 64 processors for a simulation box of 512 molecules. We report the radial distribution functions, average energy, internal geometry, and dipole moment in the liquid as well as the density, dielectric constant, and self-diffusion coefficient at T = 300 K from (NVT) and (NPT) classical molecular dynamics ...
High School Student Participation in Scientific Research Apprenticeships: Variation in and Relationships Among Student Experiences and Outcomes

Research apprenticeships for secondary students provide authentic contexts for learning science in which students engage in scientific investigations with practicing scientists in working laboratory groups. Student experiences in these research apprenticeships vary depending on the individual nature of the laboratory in which students have been placed. This study explores potential relationships among student experiences in apprenticeship contexts and desired student outcomes (e.g. science content knowledge, understandings of nature of science, and aspirations for science oriented career plans). The following two research questions guided the study: How do participant experiences in and outcomes resulting from an authentic research program for high school students vary? How does variation in participant experiences in an authentic research program relate to participant outcomes? Primary data sources were student and mentor interviews in addition to student generated concept maps. Results indicated that the greatest variance in student experiences existed in the categories of collaboration, epistemic involvement, and understandings of the significance of research results. The greatest variation in desired student outcomes was observed in student understandings of nature of science and in students’ future science plans. Results suggested that collaboration and interest in the project were experience aspects most likely to be related to desired outcomes. Implications for the design of research apprenticeships for secondary students are discussed.
Altered pain perception and psychosocial features among women with gastrointestinal disorders and history of abuse : a preliminary model

Abstract objectives: To evaluate the relationships between sexual/physical abuse, pain perception, environmental events, coping strategies, and psychiatric morbidity in a sample of female patients with painful gastrointestinal disorders. patients: Fifty paid volunteers from a tertiary care center including 13 patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), 26 with noncardiac chest pain (NCCP), and 11 with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). measurements: (1) Sexual and physical abuse interview questions; (2) Structured psychiatric interview; (3) Self-report questionnaires: demographics, clinical pain measurement, Millon Behavioral Health Inventory, Hassles and Uplifts Scales, Sickness Impact Profile, Life Experiences Survey, Pain Beliefs and Perceptions Inventory, and Coping Strategies Questionnaire; (4) Pain Perception and Sensory Decision Theory tasks. results: Fifty-six percent of the sample reported a history of sexual/physical abuse. Abuse was significantly more prevalent among patients with GERD (92%) and IBS (82%) compared with those with NCCP (27%). Abused patients, relative to nonabused patients, had significantly lower pain threshold levels in response to finger pressure stimuli and significantly lower cognitive standards for judging stimuli as noxious. Abused patients reported significantly higher levels of functional disability and a significantly greater number of psychiatric disorders, minor daily hassles, and pain syndromes unrelated to gastrointestinal disorders. In addition, abused patients more frequently blamed themselves for their pain and reported significantly greater use of maladaptive pain coping strategies than nonabused patients. conclusion: These data suggest that the relationships between abuse, disability, multiple pain syndromes, and health care seeking behavior are mediated by abnormal pain perception, psychiatric disorders, disruption of physical function, and environmental stressors
Generalizing the Disappearing Act: A Reply to István Aranyosi

In “The Reappearing Act” Istvan Aranyosi postulates a new way of seeing to solve a puzzle posed in “The Disappearing Act;” an object that is exactly shaded can be seen simply by virtue of its contrast with its environment – just like a shadow. This object need not reflect, refract, absorb or block light. To undermine the motive for this heretical innovation, I generalize the puzzle to situations involving inexact shading. Aranyosi cannot extend his solution to these variations because he needs to conserve principles of camouflage. On the bright side, the solution to the puzzle that I propose in my book Seeing Dark Things does extend to these variations.
Clinical utility of automated assessment of left ventricular ejection fraction using artificial intelligence-assisted border detection.

Background Ejection fraction (EF) calculated from 2-dimensional echocardiography provides important prognostic and therapeutic information in patients with heart disease. However, quantification of EF requires planimetry and is time-consuming. As a result, visual assessment is frequently used but is subjective and requires extensive experience. New computer software to assess EF automatically is now available and could be used routinely in busy digital laboratories (>15 000 studies per year) and in core laboratories running large clinical trials. We tested Siemens AutoEF software (Siemens Medical Solutions, Erlangen, Germany) to determine whether it correlated with visual estimates of EF, manual planimetry, and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR). Methods Siemens AutoEF is based on learned patterns and artificial intelligence. An expert and a novice reader assessed EF visually by reviewing transthoracic echocardiograms from consecutive patients. An experienced sonographer quantified EF in all studies using Simpson's method of disks. AutoEF results were compared to CMR. Results Ninety-two echocardiograms were analyzed. Visual assessment by the expert (R = 0.86) and the novice reader (R = 0.80) correlated more closely with manual planimetry using Simpson's method than did AutoEF (R = 0.64). The correlation between AutoEF and CMR was 0.63, 0.28, and 0.51 for EF, end-diastolic and end-systolic volumes, respectively. Conclusion The discrepancies in EF estimates between AutoEF and manual tracing using Simpson's method and between AutoEF and CMR preclude routine clinical use of AutoEF until it has been validated in a number of large, busy echocardiographic laboratories. Visual assessment of EF, with its strong correlation with quantitative EF, underscores its continued clinical utility.
A stochastic model of port elevator capacity

Abstract This paper uses the results from a queueing model to optimize the inventory to be held at the port when exporting a bulk commodity.
Agricultural landscape change and stability in northeast Thailand: historical patch-level analysis

Abstract The temporal nature of agricultural landscape change, where both intra- and inter-annual processes and changes are often at work, renders traditional methods of landscape change assessment not completely effective. Additionally, seasonal and longer-term shifting patterns of cultivation can sometimes appear as permanent landscape change when in fact they actually are simply a local change in spatial arrangement. To address these complexities, this work tests an approach that is longitudinal in character and based upon assessing the structure of landscape change as well as the landuse/landcover (LULC) change. Set in rural northeast Thailand, patch dynamics are examined through use of LULC change trajectories built from an image time series and temporal patterns built from pattern metrics. The given unit of observation is the pixel, and its “life history” is constituted by the values derived from the images of a satellite time series, which are then reconstituted at the patch level for better ecological interpretation. The hypothesis that underpins this approach is that the nature of the trajectory is associated with the function of the land in that patch and in the neighborhood of surrounding patches. Hence, different trajectories of LULC spatial arrangement may suggest, for example, differences in the stability or dynamics of LULC over time and space, which are further suggestive of land sustainability or resilience, or conversely land conversion or dynamism. The study area for this research is a marginalized, agrarian environment in northeast Thailand, a region that has undergone deforestation of upland forests for the cultivation of commercial field crops, intensification of lowland rice for subsistence as well as local and regional sales and global export, and LULC scenarios altering the savanna landscape that serves as the background matrix. The analysis here characterizes the relative stability and temporal dynamics of LULC at the patch level. Pattern metrics calculated at the patch level are assessed as the spatial organization of landscape units that represent: (1) transitional areas of LULC dynamics occurring as peripheral expansion, (2) LULC change from forest to agriculture through deforestation, or (3) agriculture to forest through secondary plant succession, with savanna serving as a transitional matrix. In short, this paper proposes and tests a method for assessing the temporal persistence of LULC through pattern metrics. The method contributes a technique for analyzing the landscape ecology of sites as a function of their stability/dynamics within a scale-explicit context, and contributes to the growing body of work on relating scale, pattern, and process.
Sulfur mineralization rates and potentials of soils

Field-moist soil and glass beads mixtures were packed in glass tubes and leached with 100 ml of 5 mM CaCl2 and incubated at 20 or 30°C. The leaching procedure was repeated every 2 weeks for 14 weeks. The leachates were analysed for SO inf4 sup2− and NO3 −. The S uptake by three successive croppings of corn (Zea mays L.) or soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] at 40- or 60-day intervals, respectively, or three cuttings of ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum L.) at 30-day intervals were studied under greenhouse conditions. Results showed that significantly greater amounts of S were mineralized at 30°C than at 20°C in each of 13 Iowa and 7 Chilean surface soils. Expressed as percentages of organic S in soils, the amounts of S mineralized in the Iowa surface soils in 14 weeks at 20 and 30°C ranged from 1.2% to 9.8% and from 2.4% to 17.5%, respectively. The corresponding values for the Chilean soils ranged from 0.9% to 7.2%6 and from 1.4% to 12.1%. The Q10 values of S mineralization ranged from 1.7 to 4.4 (average 2.5) for the Iowa soils and from 1.7 to 3.1 (average 2.1) for the Chilean soils. The cumulative S mineralized at 20°C in 14 weeks was significantly correlated with the cumulative N mineralized (linear model, r=0.72**; quadratic model, r=0.84***). Similarly, the cumulative S mineralized at 30°C was significantly correlated with the cumulative N mineralized at this temperature (linear model, r=0.81***; quadratic model, r = 0.82***). The potentially mineralizable S pool (S0), calculated by using an exponential equation for the S mineralized at 20°C, ranged from 5 to 44 mg kg−1 for the Iowa soils and from 10 to 25 mg kg−1 for the Chilean soils. The corresponding values obtained by using a reciprocal-plot technique ranged from 6 to 48 mg kg−1 and from 12 to 26 mg kg−1, respectively. The S0 values calculated for S mineralized at 30°C, in general, were higher than those obtained at 20°C. The S mineralization rate constant (k) and the time required to mineralize 50% of S0 (K t), calculated by using the cumulative SO inf4 sup2− released during 14 weeks of incubation, varied considerably among the soils. Up take of S by corn and soybean (tops+roots) were, in general, lower than the total SO inf4 sup2− mineralized in 14 weeks at 20°C.
The Existence of Pure‐Phase Transition Metal Hydroxy Apatites

Abstract The existence of pure‐phase transition metal hydroxy apatites of zinc, copper, manganese, and cobalt could not be verified by repeated attempts to duplicate the few literature procedures reported for their preparation in aqueous solution. Variations of temperature, time of reactions, pH, and use of decomplexation also did not produce apatitic compounds. In the case of zinc, the product resulting from the addition of zinc nitrate to ammonium dihydrogen phosphate in solutions brought to pH >9 with ammonia appears to be a zinc ammonia complex with phosphate as the counter ion. Extensive drying removed ammonia to produce the phosphate. At pH <8.5 several hydrates of zinc phosphate were formed. With copper, the use of literature procedures and variations thereon resulted in libethenite, Cu2(PO4)OH. The literature procedure for the cobalt(II) apatite using ethylenediamine produced no precipitate; at pH 5, Co3(PO4)2 · H2O was formed in the presence of ethylenediamine. The Mahapatra procedure for the man...
Acid pH enhances the effects of taurodeoxycholate on water and solute transport in the human and rat jejunum

The relative rate of unspecific binding of bile acids to brush border membrane vesicles resembles their relative potencies as intestinal secretagogues. This interaction of bile acids with brush border membranes is enhanced in an acid environment. We, therefore, studied the effects of taurodeoxycholate and taurocholate on water and solute transport at pH 7.6 and pH 4.0 in the human and rat jejunum. Five mM taurodeoxycholate induced significantly greater fluid secretion in the human jejunum at pH 4.0 than at pH 7.6 (p<0.02;n=5), 10 mM taurocholate (n=4) had no effect at either pH. In the rat 15 mM taurodeoxycholate at pH 4.0 induced greater fluid secretion (p<0.01;n=6), released more phospholipid (p<0.001;n=4) and enhanced absorption of mannitol more than at pH 7.6 (p<0.05;n=6). In contrast fluid secretion and release of phospholipids induced by Triton X-100 were not affected by pH (n=6), nor was fluid secrection induced by cholera toxin (n=8). The data suggest that the enhancement of the secretory effect of taurodeoxycholate in an acid environment is due to its increased interaction with the mucosal surface, and support the concept that the ability of detergents to interact with the intestinal brush border membrane determines their effectiveness as intestinal secretagogues.
Spherulitic crystallization in starch as a model for starch granule initiation.

The influence of cooling rate and quench temperature on the formation of spherulitic morphology in heated mung bean starch is reported. Spherulites were obtained for a wide range of cooling rates (2.5−250 °C/min), provided the system was heated to 180 °C and then cooled below 65 °C. Branched crystalline structures were also observed, as was a gellike morphology. The dissolution temperature for spherulitic material ranged between 100 and 130 °C. A second dissolution endotherm was observed between 130 and 150 °C in systems containing gellike material. Spherulites revealed B-type X-ray diffraction patterns. Spherulitic crystallization of starch following phase separation is proposed as a model for starch granule initiation in vivo.
Serologic comparisons of 4 Anaplasma isolates as measured by the complement-fixation test

Abstract Anaplasma marginale isolated from Virginia (VAM), from North Texas (NTAM), from Florida (FAM), and Anaplasma ovis from Idaho were used in these trials. Complement-fixation antigens from each of the 4 isolates were used to compare complement-fixing antibody titers of 10 cattle infected with VAM, 17 with FAM, and 6 with NTAM. Strong cross-reactions occurred with all antigens and sera. The homologous system generally showed higher average antibody titers. The serum antibody titers occuring with the A. ovis antigen were significantly lower than those seen with A. marginale antigens. Serum antibody titer differences as measured by FAM and NTAM antigens on sera from VAM, NTAM and FAM failed to reach significance. Serum antibody titer comparisons using VAM antigen were significantly different from those occurring with FAM and NTAM in most instances.
An Overview of Tubulin Inhibitors That Interact with the Colchicine Binding Site

Tubulin dynamics is a promising target for new chemotherapeutic agents. The colchicine binding site is one of the most important pockets for potential tubulin polymerization destabilizers. Colchicine binding site inhibitors (CBSI) exert their biological effects by inhibiting tubulin assembly and suppressing microtubule formation. A large number of molecules interacting with the colchicine binding site have been designed and synthesized with significant structural diversity. CBSIs have been modified as to chemical structure as well as pharmacokinetic properties, and tested in order to find a highly potent, low toxicity agent for treatment of cancers. CBSIs are believed to act by a common mechanism via binding to the colchicine site on tubulin. The present review is a synopsis of compounds that have been reported in the past decade that have provided an increase in our understanding of the actions of CBSIs.
Modular Development of Certified System Software

Certified software consists of a machine executable program plus a rigorous formal proof (checkable by computer) that the software is free of bugs with respect to a particular specification. The conventional wisdom is that certified software will never be practical because any real software must also rely on the underlying operating system which is too low-level and complex to be verifiable. In recent years, however, there have been many advances in the theory and engineering of mechanized proof systems applied to verification of low-level code, including proof-carrying code, certified assembly programming, logic-based type system, and certified or certifying compilation. In this talk, I will give an overview of this exciting new area, focusing on both foundational ideas and key insights that make the work on certified software differ from traditional style program verification. I will also describe several recent work on building certified thread implementation, interrupt handlers,stack-based control libraries, garbage collectors, and OS bootloaders.
Student Peer Mentoring: A Tool for Clinical Educators

Peer mentoring has been shown to provide benefits in a variety of situations in several professions. To facilitate clinical learning in speech-language pathology, a clinical teaching paradigm utili...
The current state of mycotoxin biomarker development in humans and animals and the potential for application to plant systems

Filamentous fungi that contaminate livestock feeds and human food supply often produce toxigenic secondary metabolites known as mycotoxins. Among the hundreds of known mycotoxins, aflatoxins, deoxynivalenol, fumonisins, ochratoxin A and zearalenone are considered the most commercially important. Intense research on these mycotoxins, especially aflatoxin, has resulted in the development of ‘biomarkers’ used to link exposure to disease risk. In the case of aflatoxin this effort has led to the discovery of both exposure and mechanism-based biomarkers, which have proven essential for understanding aflatoxin’s potential for causing disease in humans, including subtle effects on growth and immune response. Fumonisin biomarkers have also been used extensively in farm and laboratory animals to study the fumonisin-induced disruption of cellular and systemic physiology which leads to disease. This review summarises the status of mycotoxin biomarker development in humans and animals for the commercially important mycotoxins. Since the fungi responsible for the production of these mycotoxins are often endophytes that infect and colonise living plant tissues, accumulation of mycotoxins in the plant tissues may at times be associated with development of plant disease symptoms. The presence of mycotoxins, even in the absence of disease symptoms, may still have subtle biological effects on the physiology of plants. This review examines the question of whether or not the knowledge gained from mechanistic studies and development of biomarkers in animal and human systems is transferable to the study of mycotoxin effects on plant systems. Thus far, fumonisin has proven amenable to development of mechanism-based biomarkers to study maize seedling disease caused by the fumonisin producer, Fusarium verticillioides. Expanding our knowledge of mechanisms of toxicity and the overt and subtle effects on animal, human, and plant systems through the identification and validation of biomarkers will further our ability to monitor and limit the damage and economic impact of mycotoxins.
Design of a neuro-fuzzy controller

The essence of fuzzy control is to build a model of human expert who is capable of controlling the plant without thinking in terms of mathematical model. The transformation of expert's knowledge in terms of control rules to fuzzy framework has not been formalized and arbitrary choices concerning, for example, the shape of membership functions have to be made. The quality of fuzzy controller can be drastically affected by the choice of membership functions. Thus, methods for tuning the fuzzy logic controllers are needed. In this paper, neural networks are used in a novel way to solve the problem of tuning a fuzzy logic controller. The neuro-fuzzy controller uses the neural network learning techniques to tune the membership functions while keeping the semantics of the fuzzy logic controller intact. Both the architecture and the learning algorithm are presented for a general neuro-fuzzy controller. From this general neuro-fuzzy controller, a proportional neuro-fuzzy controllers is derived. A step by step algorithm for off-line training is given along with numerical examples.