cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Molecular weights of antihaemophilic factor and von Willebrand factor proteins in human plasma.

HUMAN factor VIII contains at least two biological activities, antihaemophilic factor (AHF) and von Willebrand factor (VWF). When highly purified, factor VIII is estimated to have a molecular weight of over 1.12 × 106, as determined by gel chromatography or sedimentation equilibrium centrifugation1–4. Some investigators2–4 consider factor VIII a single glycoprotein with a number of covalently linked subunits. Since factor VIII can be dissociated in certain conditions, others5–7 consider it to be a two-molecule complex consisting of a multi-subunit high molecular weight protein (> 106) with VWF activity that acts as a carrier molecule for a lower molecular weight (2.4 × 105) subunit with AHF activity. A third model suggests that both AHF and VWF are high molecular weight, separate proteins consisting of disulphide linked subunits8,9.
Determining Air Demand for Small- to Medium-Sized Embankment Dam Low-Level Outlet Works

Air vents in low-level outlet works are installed downstream of control gates or valves to mitigate subatmospheric pressures locally and reduce the potential for damaging cavitation. Published air-vent-sizing methods, which have been limited to large-dam outlet geometries (in-line vertical slide gate), are not applicable for small- to medium-sized embankment dam low-level outlet geometries in which the slide gate is installed on the upstream sloping face of the dam. The water-discharge and air-demand characteristics of a lab-scale low-level outlet works, with the inlet installed on a 3H:1V sloping floor (representing the upstream face of an embankment dam), were evaluated experimentally with respect to gate design (round or rectangular), gate opening, driving head, and outlet submergence; the results are reported herein. Discharge coefficients for predicting low-level outlet works discharge rates (vented or nonvented), and a methodology for air-vent sizing for small- to medium-sized embankment dams are al...
Transforming "racial characteristics": is it an appropriate role for aesthetic surgery?

Aesthetic surgeons have faced sensitive issues before, including the appropriateness of aesthetic surgical procedures for adolescents.1 Likewise, performing elective surgery to transform “racial characteristics” of the eyelids, nose, and lips has potentially broad social ramifications because of the manifold social meanings of “race” and the painful heritage of racial discrimination. Humans are visually-oriented, observant, imitative, status-conscious, and continuously culturally-modified beings. As such, we are obsessed with looks. We assess the appearance of others, both consciously and unconsciously, as we decide what to do from one moment to the next. Therefore, our brains expend great cognitive effort in the interpretation of faces. Thanks to a complex cortical face-processing network, we instantaneously assess a person’s age, health, relatedness, mood, intention, and attractiveness based on his or her appearance. What we do with that information depends on previous experiences and our current physiological state. Even our assessment of a keystone trait such as facial symmetry (which dictates relative attractiveness) is labile because it is affected by the sex and hormone levels of the observer.2,3 Our perceptions of attractiveness are also affected … Corresponding Author: Dr. Nina G. Jablonski, 409 Carpenter Building, Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University,University Park, PA 16802 E-mail: ngj2{at}psu.edu
Outpatient echocardiographic assessment of complex pulmonary outflow stenosis: Doppler mean gradient is superior to the maximum instantaneous gradient.

Evaluation of pulmonary outflow obstruction has focused on maximum instantaneous gradient (MIG). However, experience suggests that outpatient Doppler MIG often overstates the degree of stenosis. In this study of 132 patients with complex pulmonary stenosis, the mean Doppler gradient showed superior correlation and agreement with invasive peak-to-peak gradient (PPG) ( r = 0.91, bias=−6 mm Hg). Agreement between mean gradient and PPG remained excellent for patients with prosthetic conduits (bias = −4 mm Hg). When PPG was 50 mm Hg more, both mean Doppler gradient and MIG corrected for prevalve velocity provided reasonable estimates of PPG (bias = −13 and +17 mm Hg, respectively). Uncorrected MIG remained significantly greater than PPG (bias = +27 mm Hg). Outpatient MIG consistently overstated subsequent PPG. In unselected patients with conduits or with PPG of 50 mm Hg or less, mean Doppler gradient provided the best prediction of PPG. These data provide a strong argument for the routine use of mean gradients in complex pulmonary stenosis.
Social Justice and Cultural Responsiveness: Innovative Teaching Strategies for Group Work

This article presents a teaching strategy for group work that enhances the social justice consciousness of course participants by increasing their knowledge of their own cultural identity, worldview, acculturation, privilege, and oppression to improve their cultural responsiveness and understanding of social justice issues. The focus is on group teaching strategies designed to help counselors-in-training learn about culture (their own and others) so they can better understand cultural differences and social issues, and learn group process and practice, keeping culture and social justice issues in the forefront.
Using a knowledge graph and query click logs for unsupervised learning of relation detection

In this paper, we introduce a novel statistical language understanding paradigm inspired by the emerging semantic web: Instead of building models for the target application, we propose relying on the semantic space already defined and populated in the knowledge graph for the target domain. As a first step towards this direction, we present unsupervised methods for training relation detection models exploiting the semantic knowledge graphs of the semantic web. The detected relations are used to mine natural language queries against a back-end knowledge base. For each relation, we leverage the complete set of entities that are connected to each other in the graph with the specific relation, and search these entity pairs on the web. We use the snippets that the search engine returns to create natural language examples that can be used as the training data for each relation. We further refine the annotations of these examples using the knowledge graph itself and iterate using a bootstrap approach. Furthermore, we explot the URLs returned for these pairs by the search engine to mine additional examples from the search engine query click logs. In our experiments, we show that, we can achieve relation detection models that perform about 60% macro F-measure on the relations that are in the knowledge graph without any manual labeling, resulting in a comparable performance with supervised training.
Psychoneuroendocrine effects of methadone maintenance

A variety of neuroendocrine and psychiatric dysfunctions have been demonstrated in humans maintained on opiates, but both have not previously been examined in the same population. We performed a series of neuroendocrine challenge tests in men participating in a methadone maintenance clinic and in normal controls. Psychiatric diagnoses were made with DSM-III Criteria, using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, and subjects also completed the Symptom Checklist. Our results in the methadone group suggest (a) near-maximal stimulation of prolactin secretion, with a blunted prolactin response to insulin hypoglycemia, (b) mild suppression of cortisol levels, but an exaggerated cortisol response to stimulation, (c) a delayed and inhibited insulin response to food ingestion with resulting mild hyperglycemia, (d) low body weight, but elevated calorie ingestion, and (e) inability to concentrate urine when dehydrated, which was partially corrected by administration of arginine vasopressin. Phobic disorder was associated with a lower prolactin response to both inhibitory and stimulatory challenges. Depression did not appear to be related to the increased cortisol response to stimulation. These results suggest several potentially fruitful areas for future investigation, including the prolactin system and anxiety disorders, nutrient ingestion and metabolism, and posterior pituitary function.
Looking at the roots of psychosomatic medicine: Adolf Meyer.

Background Adolf Meyer, the first Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, and Chief of the Phipps Clinic, brought a bevy of new ideas to clinical practice and to medical education. He used the word "psychobiology," which helped to establish psychosomatic medicine and formed the basis for Engel's "biopsychosocial" concept. Objective This paper aims to review the contributions of Adolf Meyer, who proposed that in studying patients, it was impossible to consider the mind and body separately. Results Adolf Meyer, through his insight and tenacity, promoted the integration of psychiatry and medicine in medical education and practice. Conclusion By taking a closer look at the role of Meyer's work in relation to today's psychosomatic medicine, current challenges do not appear to be dramatically different from the issues faced a century ago.
Life-cycle cost analysis of major appliances☆

Abstract The Department of Energy has proposed energy efficiency standards for eight types of appliances. One of the criteria used to establish these standards is the economic impact of the standard on the consumers of the regulated products. A life-cycle cost analysis was performed for 32 classes of these eight appliances in order to gain a measure of the economic impact of equipment purchases on the consumer. Simple payback times were also computed to indicate how much time is required for the consumer to recapture his or her initial added investment in a more efficient product. Using national average energy use for each appliance type, we found that the proposed 1986 standards are cost-effective with respect to the energy efficiency levels projected to occur in the absence of standards for all classes of products. Simple payback periods range from several months for refrigerators and freezers to a maximum of 5.3 years for split system central air conditioners. A regional life-cycle cost analysis indicated that the distribution of costs and benefits from the proposed national standards varies significantly among the different regions for air conditioners and furnaces. In the region with the least cooling load hours, simple payback times are quite lengthy for air conditioners, and in some cases exceed the appliance lifetime.
R7BP, a Novel Neuronal Protein Interacting with RGS Proteins of the R7 Family

The R7 subfamily of the regulators of G protein signaling (RGS) proteins is represented by four members broadly expressed in the mammalian nervous system. Here we report that in the brain all four R7 proteins form tight complexes with a previously unidentified protein, which we call the R7-binding protein or R7BP. We initially identified R7BP as a protein co-precipitating with the R7 protein, RGS9, from extracts obtained from the striatal region of the brain. We further showed that R7BP forms a tight complex with RGS9 in vitro and that this binding occurs via the N-terminal DEP domain of RGS9. R7BP is expressed throughout the entire central nervous system but not in any of the tested non-neuronal tissues. All four R7 RGS proteins co-precipitate with R7BP from brain extracts and recombinant R7 proteins bind recombinant R7BP with high efficiency. The closest homolog of R7BP is R9AP which was previously found to interact with RGS9 in photoreceptors. Both R7BP and R9AP are related to the syntaxin subfamily of soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptor (SNARE) proteins involved in vesicular trafficking and exocytosis. In photoreceptors R9AP regulates several critical properties of RGS9 including its intracellular targeting, stability and catalytic activity. This suggests that R7BP interactions with R7 proteins in the brain may also bear major functional significance.
The relationship of oxygen content, structural phase transition and Tc in Tl2Ba2CuO6 ± δ

Abstract Polycrystalline samples of Tl 2 Ba 2 CuO 6 ± δ were prepared by solid state reaction technique, with different heat treatments. Samples that were quenched from 860°C in air were pseudo-tetragonal and exhibited superconducting onsets at ∼ 84 K. Samples slow cooled from 860°C to room temperature in air showed a clear orthorhombic distortion and exhibited onsets at ∼ 20 K. No evidence of superconductivity was observed for samples prepared in sealed tubes at 860°C which were orthorhombic. Post annealing the 20 K and non-superconducting samples in argon atmosphere at 400–450°C for 1–2 h resulted in superconductivity at ∼ 50 K. A reversible structural phase transition from pseudo-tetragonal to orthorhombic symmetry accompanied by oxygen uptake/loss was observed in controlled oxygen atmosphere at ∼ 300°C as evidenced by DTA, TGA and high temperature X-ray diffraction studies. Variations in the oxygen content, although very small, have dramatic effects on the superconducting properties of Tl 2 Ba 2 CuO 6 ± δ . The dependence of superconductivity on structure, oxygen content/ordering is discussed.
Effect of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine on [3H]paroxetine binding in the frontal cortex and blood platelets of rats.

The effects of single or repeated administration of the racemic mixture of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA; 20 mg/kg, s.c.) on the number (Bmax) of serotonin (5-HT) uptake sites as determined by [3H]paroxetine binding and the concentration of 5-HT and its major metabolite, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), were measured in the frontal cortex and blood platelets of rats 1 and 7 days following its administration. A single injection of MDMA significantly (P < 0.05) decreased the number of [3H]paroxetine binding sites as well as the concentrations of 5-HT and 5-HIAA in the frontal cortex but not in platelets 7 days following administration. Repeated injections of MDMA (twice daily for 4 days) significantly (P < 0.05) decreased the number of 5-HT uptake sites and the concentration of 5-HT and 5-HIAA in the frontal cortex but not in platelets 7 days following administration. Pretreatment with the 5-HT2/5-HT1C antagonist, ketanserin, inhibited the MDMA-induced decrease in 5-HT and 5-HIAA concentrations and the number of [3H]paroxetine binding sites in the frontal cortex 7 days following a single administration. These data are suggestive that blood platelets are less sensitive than brain tissue to the 5-HT-depleting effects of MDMA. The ability of ketanserin pretreatment to block MDMA-induced decreases in [3H]paroxetine binding sites in the frontal cortex is suggestive that 5-HT2/5-HT1C receptors may be involved in the neurotoxic effects of MDMA.
Adaptive pseudo-continuous conduction mode operation schemes and circuit designs for single-inductor multiple-output switching converters

As single-inductor multiple-output (SIMO) switching converters proliferate in integrated power management designs, pseudo-continuous conduction mode (PCCM) operation with freewheel switching has been well adopted owing to its effectiveness on cross-regulation, voltage ripple and switching noise issues, especially in heavy load scenarios. However, the technique faces a direct challenge in unbalanced loading conditions. Potential lengthy freewheel switching periods and high I dc current levels could lead to conduction and switching power losses, degrading the efficiency of the converters. To alleviate this problem, this paper presents adaptive PCCM operation schemes with the respective distributed and unified freewheel switching schemes. The optimal freewheel switching durations are achieved in various load conditions by adaptively adjusting the phase durations and freewheel switching I dc current level, thereby reducing the conduction and switching losses effectively. The switching power loss is further reduced by turning on/off the freewheel switch less frequently, without compromising the performance of operation. The proposed schemes have been implemented and verified in digital and analog-based SIMO power converters designed with 130 nm CMOS process.
Abstract 1423: SatB2, targeted by miR31, is a modulator in cancer microenvironment

Proceedings: AACR 101st Annual Meeting 2010‐‐ Apr 17‐21, 2010; Washington, DC Cancer growth and metastasis involve an active interaction between primary tumor cells and the tumor's microenvironment, which consists of fibroblasts, vascular cells and inflammatory cells. Such interactions between the cancer and the cells within the microenvironment induce differential expression of genes that act to foster the growth, invasion and spread of tumor cells. This study utilizes pair-wise primary cultures of fibroblasts from normal and cancerous human endometrial tissues of the same patients to investigate the potential factors in the tumor microenvironment and their role in carcinogenesis. Both microRNA and mRNA profiling were performed on paired normal and cancer fibroblasts. SatB2 emerged as a promising candidate when its expression was shown to be significantly increased in fibroblasts surrounding the tumor tissues in all but one patients tested (n=8). Further investigation documented that SatB2 is a target for miR31, via 2 binding sites located within the SATB2 3’ UTR region. In concordance, miR31 is down-regulated in tumor fibroblasts, which further implicates the potential role of SatB2 in promoting a favorable environment for tumors. Ectopic expression of SATB2 in normal fibroblasts does not affect the growth rate of an endometrial cancer cell line (EC-1) in co-culture experiments; however, it did increase the motility of EC-1 cells towards these fibroblasts by multiple folds in both in vitro migration and invasion assays. A reduction of SATB2 expression in cancer activated fibroblasts (CAFs) by shRNA attenuated the migratory ability of EC-1 cells, further supporting the role of SatB2 in tumor aggression. Our observations also indicated that the conditioned media from CAFs were sufficient to induce the motility changes in the EC-1 cells. We believe the elucidation of SatB2 pathway(s) will assist in uncovering the intricate connections between tumors and their microenvironments, leading to new targets for treating tumor progression. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2010 Apr 17-21; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2010;70(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1423.
Baboon immunoglobulin constant region heavy chains: identification of four IGHG genes.

The increasing use of nonhuman primate models in biomedical research and especially in vaccine development requires the characterization of their immunoglobulin genes and corresponding products. Therefore, we sequenced, cloned and characterized the four immunoglobulin gamma chain constant region genes (IGHG) present in baboons. These four genes were designated IGHG1, IGHG2, IGHG3 and IGHG4 on the basis of sequence similarities with the four human genes encoding the IgG1, IgG2, IgG3 and IgG4 subclasses and the three known rhesus macaque IGHG genes. Specifically, the baboon IgG1, IgG2, IgG3 and IgG4 sequences exhibit 90.3%, 88.3%, 86.7% and 89.6% amino acid identity to their human counterpart. The percent of amino acid identity of baboon IgG1, IgG2 and IgG3 to the corresponding rhesus macaque sequences is 98.5, 93.1 and 94.4, respectively. Therefore, baboon and rhesus macaque IGHG genes are highly homologous to each other. The majority of differences existing between baboon and human sequences are clustered in the hinge region, with the upper hinge being the most diverse and containing several proline residues. Similar to rhesus macaques, the hinge regions of all baboon IGHG genes consist of a single exon, whereas in humans the IgG3 molecule is encoded by multiple exons. These results confirm the evolutionary instability of the hinge region and indicate that functional properties associated with the hinge regions of baboon and human IgG molecules might differ between the two species.
THE PREDICTION AND ACQUISITION OF SEQUENTIAL PATTERNS OF BINARY EVENTS

Patterns of events 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 event runs in length with average run lengths of 2, 3, 4 and 6 events were learned by 16 practised subjects. Increased difficulty was most clearly related to an increase in runs per sequence rather than the sequence length per se, although the generality of the effect is limited. Initial prediction strategies were maintained throughout the acquisition of simple sequences. The more difficult sequences, however, went through several stages of increased prediction accuracy. The elimination of errors on specific events in sequences showed evidence for strategic behaviour (i.e. consistent prediction) only on the relatively short or the relatively difficult sequences. For individual subjects efficient acquisition correlated with consistent response strategies and with a measure of ‘insight’ in acquisition. Response strategy and ‘insight’ did not correlate significantly with each other, however.
A review of the Mabuya quinquetaeniata complex in East Africa (Sauria: Scincidae)

Abstract Much of the available material of the Mabuya quinquetaeniata complex from south of Latitude 5°N and east of Longitude 25°E has been examined. Mabuya margaritifera (peters) is reinstated as a full species, which is sympatric with M. quinquetaeniata (Lichtenstein) in southeastern Kenya. Mabuya pulcherrima De Witte is recognised as a full species in the Shaba Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Colorectal cancer screening attitudes and behavior: a population-based study.

Abstract Background Even though colorectal cancer (CRC) screening tests for persons 50 years of age or over are recommended to reduce colorectal cancer mortality, screening rates remain disturbingly low. Methods Using random digit dialing, 355 telephone interviews were conducted with black and white men and women, 50–79 years of age, who resided in Genesee County, Michigan. The Health Belief Model provided the framework to assess attitudes and practices regarding CRC screening. Results For both endoscopic procedures, significantly higher percentages of whites than blacks were aware of the screening procedure ( P P Conclusions Interventions directed at physicians and patients are essential to enhance CRC screening rates. CRC survival rates may be improved by physician-guided promotion of screening that focuses on identified barriers.
Molecular simulation of the glass transition and proton conductivity of 2,2′-benzidinedisulfonic acid and 4,4′-diaminodiphenylether-2,2′-disulfonic acid-based copolyimides as polyelectrolytes for fuel cell applications

The glass transition temperatures (Tgs) and proton conductivities of polyimides synthesized from naphthalene-1,4,5,8-tetracarboxylic dianhydride (NTDA), 2,2′-benzidinedisulfonic acid (BDSA), 4,4′-diaminodiphenylether-2,2′-disulfonic acid (ODADS), and non-sulfonated diamine monomers have been predicted using molecular dynamics simulations. The specific volumes for two dry and four hydrated NTDA-based polyimides were plotted versus temperatures above and below Tgs to obtain the glass transition temperatures. The simulation results suggest that the ODADS-based polyimide membranes exhibit lower Tgs and thus better mechanical properties than the BDSA-based polyimides, which may be attributed to the high mobility of backbones of ODADS as supported by the vectorial autocorrelation function (VACF) results of this study. In addition, comparison of the simulated Tgs for the dry and hydrated ODADS-based polyimides has shown that water content in polyimides can affect their Tgs. The proton conductivities of a representative polyimide in both dry and hydrated conditions have been obtained from molecular dynamics simulations of the proton and hydronium ion diffusion. The simulated conductivity for the hydrated NTDA-ODADS/BAPB cell is in reasonable agreement with the experimental value obtained from the AC impedance method. The relationship between the chemical composition, chain flexibility, and the glass transition and proton conduction of these NTDA-based polyimides was explored on the basis of VACF and pair correlation function analysis. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry
Nonsurgical ablation of primary breast cancer

The potential for these therapies is overwhelming when one considers that as many as 90,000 patients may be candidates annually in the United States. The ideal therapy should be safe, as painless as possible, accessible, and effective in reducing local recurrence. Because of the novelty of these techniques, no therapy has met all of these goals. Even if these ideals are attained, questions remain about how to follow these patients with regard to frequency and imaging modality for local recurrence. As these technologies are refined, and they mature; it is conceivable that the future treatment of breast cancer may be less morbid than the open breast biopsies now being used for just the diagnosis of the disease.
AID: a very old motif newly recognized

Immunoglobulin class-switch recombination occurs in both frogs and mammals. A new study shows that the recognition mechanism used for the targeting of switch sequences might be evolutionary conserved.
Measurement of the time between biosynthesis and surface excretion of sebaceous lipids in the horse.

Abstract The time between the biosynthesis and excretion of sebum to the skin surface of the horse was examined by in vivo intradermal injection of (1- 14 C]acetate followed by periodic surface lipid collections. The radiolabelling of the major neutral lipid classes, equolides (giant ring ω-lactones, C 32 –C 36 ) and cholesteryl esters, was evaluated by thin-layer chromatography and autoradiography. The distribution of radioactivity within the monounsaturated equolides was examined by oxidative fragmentation and evaluation of the products. A peak of radioactivity in the equolides and cholesteryl esters occurred 15–21 days and 10–16 days, respectively, after injection. The time-courses of specific radioactivity of the two types of equolide oxidation fragments were also found to be dissimilar. The results are interpreted as indicating that in the biosynthesis of a large proportion of the equolides, de novo fatty acid synthesis was not followed immediately by fatty acid chain elongation. The phospholipids of the sebaceous cells are proposed as the long-term intermediate in which fatty acids reside between these two biosynthetic processes.
Degradation of low gloss polyurethane aircraft coatings under UV and prohesion alternating exposures

In this work, scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were used to study the accelerated weathering coating degradation that occurred in two low gloss polyurethane aircraft coating systems. One was epoxy primer with a traditional matte polyurethane topcoat and the other was the epoxy primer with a fluorinated polyurethane topcoat. The coated panels were exposed in a QUV chamber and a Prohesion chamber alternately. It was found that the primer with the matte topcoat system could not stop water penetration effectively, and the coating system was destroyed after 25 weeks. In contrast, the primer with the fluorinated polyurethane topcoat system formed a good barrier of water on the substrate, and the coating system was still functional after 2 years of exposure. Adhesion tests showed that the loss of coating adhesion caused the eventual failure of the low gloss coatings.
Matrix functions and applications: Part IV — Matrix functions and constituent matrices

This fourth part of a five-part series starts with the expansion of an analytic function of an arbitrary square matrix, involving real or complex numbers, in terms of its constituent matrices. The conjoint matrix and characteristic polynominal are computed by a convenient algorithm and are then used for calculating constituent matrices. Finally there is a discussion of the two-sided matrix equation AY + B = YC, and of the reduction of an arbitrary matrix to a similar Jordan matrix.
A comparison of miscible binary blend interaction parameters measured by different methods

Miscible blends of the polyhydroxy ether of bisphenol-A, Phenoxy, with a series of aliphatic polyesters were studied using melting point depression analysis and sorption to obtain the Flory-Huggins polymer-polymer interaction parameter, B. The B values obtained from these measurements were found to agree well in sign, magnitude, and variation with ester repeat structure and to also agree well with B values measured calorimetrically for mixtures of low molecular weight compounds with structures which are analogous to those of the polymers. These comparisons suggest that the same mechanisms are responsible for the exothermic heats of mixing measured directly for the analog compounds and indirectly for the miscible polymer blends. For this general system, evidence is provided which suggests that hydrogen bond formation between the hydroxyl group on Phenoxy and the ester moiety is probably responsible for the exothermic interactions and polymer blend miscibility observed.
Physicochemical properties and sensory attributes of resistant starch-supplemented granola bars and cereals

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of resistant starch (RS) on physicochemical and sensory properties of cereal-based food products. RS granola bars and cereals containing two levels of RS (10 g/100 g and 15 g/100 g) were compared to isocaloric (0 g RS/100 g) control granola products. Texture, color, proximate composition, caloric content, water activity, RS, and soluble starch (SS) were measured. Sensory acceptability was evaluated using a 9-point hedonic scale. Attributes (color, sweetness, moistness, crunchiness, stickiness, chewiness) of the RS bar, control bar, and two commercial bars were also assessed with a “just about right” (JAR) sensory method. High RS bars contained 6 g/100 g protein, 15 g/100 g moisture, and 18 g/100 g lipid. RS levels increased from 14 to 16 g/serving after 4 weeks of storage, supporting published research that RS increases with storage due to retrogradation of amylose chains. Soluble starch concentrations were not changed during storage. Color became lighter as the level of RS increased. Consumer acceptability results indicated that the granola bars/cereals were acceptable. The RS granola bars differed significantly in stickiness (p < 0.0001), and chewiness (p = 0.0063) compared to the control and 2 commercial granola bars. Incorporation of high levels of RS in food systems is feasible without compromising product acceptability.
Footprints in time: comparative quantitative trait loci mapping of the pitcher-plant mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii

Identifying regions of the genome contributing to phenotypic evolution often involves genetic mapping of quantitative traits. The focus then turns to identifying regions of ‘major’ effect, overlooking the observation that traits of ecological or evolutionary relevance usually involve many genes whose individual effects are small but whose cumulative effect is large. Herein, we use the power of fully interfertile natural populations of a single species of mosquito to develop three quantitative trait loci (QTL) maps: one between two post-glacially diverged populations and two between a more ancient and a post-glacial population. All demonstrate that photoperiodic response is genetically a highly complex trait. Furthermore, we show that marker regressions identify apparently ‘non-significant’ regions of the genome not identified by composite interval mapping, that the perception of the genetic basis of adaptive evolution is crucially dependent upon genetic background and that the genetic basis for adaptive evolution of photoperiodic response is highly variable within contemporary populations as well as between anciently diverged populations.
Cooperative Coevolution: An Architecture for Evolving Coadapted Subcomponents

To successfully apply evolutionary algorithms to the solution of increasingly complex problems, we must develop effective techniques for evolving solutions in the form of interacting coadapted subcomponents. One of the major difficulties is finding computational extensions to our current evolutionary paradigms that will enable such subcomponents to "emerge" rather than being hand designed. In this paper, we describe an architecture for evolving such subcomponents as a collection of cooperating species. Given a simple string-matching task, we show that evolutionary pressure to increase the overall fitness of the ecosystem can provide the needed stimulus for the emergence of an appropriate number of interdependent subcomponents that cover multiple niches, evolve to an appropriate level of generality, and adapt as the number and roles of their fellow subcomponents change over time. We then explore these issues within the context of a more complicated domain through a case study involving the evolution of artificial neural networks.
An analytical IGBT model for power circuit simulation

On the basis of the physical picture obtained by a detailed two-dimensional numerical simulation, an analytical CAD (computer-aided design) model for an IGBT (insulated-gate bipolar transistor) is developed which has sufficient flexibility to account for the unique characteristics of IGBT operation, while still retaining a mathematically simple form with readily extractable model parameters. The static model has been implemented in the circuit simulator SPICE. A systematic method of DC model parameter extraction is developed based on the parameter optimization program TOPEX. A set of model parameters extracted for a n-channel 600-V, symmetric IGBT is shown. Good agreement has been obtained between the simulation results and measurements. >
Sp1 and Sp3 transcription factors synergistically regulate HGF receptor gene expression in kidney

We investigated the expression pattern and underlying mechanism that controls hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) receptor (c-met) expression in normal kidney and a variety of kidney cells. Immunohistochemical staining showed widespread expression of c-met in mouse kidney, a pattern closely correlated with renal expression of Sp1 and Sp3 transcription factors. In vitro, all types of kidney cells tested expressed different levels of c-met, which was tightly proportional to the cellular abundances of Sp1 and Sp3. Both Sp1 and Sp3 bound to the multiple GC boxes in the promoter region of the c-met gene. Coimmunoprecipitation suggested a physical interaction between Sp1 and Sp3. Functionally, Sp1 markedly stimulated c-met promoter activity. Although Sp3 only weakly activated the c-met promoter, its combination with Sp1 synergistically stimulated c-met transcription. Conversely, deprivation of Sp proteins by transfection of decoy Sp1 oligonucleotide or blockade of Sp1 binding with mithramycin A inhibited c-met expression. The c-met receptor in all types of kidney cells was functional and induced protein kinase B/Akt phosphorylation in a distinctly dynamic pattern after HGF stimulation. These results indicate that members of the Sp family of transcription factors play an important role in regulating constitutive expression of the c-met gene in all types of renal cells. Our findings suggest that HGF may have a broader spectrum of target cells and possess wider implications in kidney structure and function than originally thought.
Representation in Congress: Constituents and Roll Calls in the 106th House

This paper examines the extent to which constituency and subconstituency preferences are reflected in roll-call voting in the 106th House. Aggregating 100,814 randomly selected respondents to measure subconstituency preferences provides an unprecedented ability to measure subconstituency preferences in the House. Looking at the relationship over all votes, “key votes,” and on individual votes confirms that representatives are not completely responsive to the district mean voter, that only majority party Republicans are especially responsive to the preferences of same-party constituents, and that same-party constituency preferences cannot entirely account for systematic differences in Republican and Democratic voting behavior.
Entry into Mitosis in Vertebrate Somatic Cells Is Guarded by a Chromosome Damage Checkpoint That Reverses the Cell Cycle When Triggered during Early but Not Late Prophase

When vertebrate somatic cells are selectively irradiated in the nucleus during late prophase (<30 min before nuclear envelope breakdown) they progress normally through mitosis even if they contain broken chromosomes. However, if early prophase nuclei are similarly irradiated, chromosome condensation is reversed and the cells return to interphase. Thus, the G2 checkpoint that prevents entry into mitosis in response to nuclear damage ceases to function in late prophase. If one nucleus in a cell containing two early prophase nuclei is selectively irradiated, both return to interphase, and prophase cells that have been induced to returned to interphase retain a normal cytoplasmic microtubule complex. Thus, damage to an early prophase nucleus is converted into a signal that not only reverses the nuclear events of prophase, but this signal also enters the cytoplasm where it inhibits e.g., centrosome maturation and the formation of asters. Immunofluorescent analyses reveal that the irradiation-induced reversion of prophase is correlated with the dephosphorylation of histone H1, histone H3, and the MPM2 epitopes. Together, these data reveal that a checkpoint control exists in early but not late prophase in vertebrate cells that, when triggered, reverses the cell cycle by apparently downregulating existing cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK1) activity.
Negotiating Our Positions in Culture: Popular Adolescent Fiction and the Self-constructions of Women

This study examines the influence of adolescent fiction on the identity constructions of 84 adult women. Based on their reading autobiographies, the study argues that childhood reading did more than gratify needs for entertainment; it provided women with alternative targets for identification when they experienced division within their environment. By looking for strong, smart, sassy, independent heroines the women were seeking agency and practicing resistance as they negotiated their positions within their families and the larger culture.
Unitarity and ultraviolet regularity in cosmology

Quantum field theory in curved space-times is a well developed area in mathematical physics which has had important phenomenological applications to the very early universe. However, it is not commonly appreciated that on time-dependent space-times---including the simplest cosmological models---dynamics of quantum fields is not unitary in the standard sense. This issue is first explained with an explicit example, and it is then shown that a generalized notion of unitarity does hold. The generalized notion allows one to correctly pass to the Schr\"odinger picture starting from the Heisenberg picture used in the textbook treatments. Finally, we indicate how these considerations can be extended from simple cosmological models to general globally hyperbolic space-times.
Youth resistance revisited: new theories of youth negotiations of educational injustices

This special issue explores the possibilities and limitations of theories of youth resistance in educational research, and presents new and expanded theories of youth responses to injustices in schooling. Drawing from a range of discourses – including, but not limited to, critical theory, political economy, decolonizing theory, queer theory, critical race theory, and educational discourses that borrow from criminal justice, health, and sociology – the articles present research findings that complicate, extend, and sometimes explode current conceptualizations of youth resistance. Featuring qualitative studies in education that employ a diversity of methods, the articles solder empirical research to theory, providing on-the-ground examples of new or reclaimed theories of youth resistance in action.
'New technology' magnetic attitude sensors in autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) applications

Some recent improvements in fluxgate magnetometers are described. A fluxgate compass can be made into an attitude sensor providing accurate pitch and roll outputs by the addition of coils surrounding a triaxial arrangement of gimbaled fluxgate magnetometer elements. Deviational errors due to fixed permanent and soft iron sources within vehicles and submersibles with ferrous hulls can now be precisely and autonomously corrected without need for external references or surfacing. With modeling of the geomagnetic sphere and temporal changes of magnetic declination, magnetic heading can be accurate enough to satisfy most submersible navigation requirements without the need for a gyrocompass. >
Wavelet packet shrinkage based adaptive resampling

We present an adaptive compression and resampling technique using wavelet packet shrinkage. The motivating application is surface digitization for computer-aided manufacturing. The objective is to improve estimation accuracy using a sparse and irregular, but more accurate, resampling of the data. We provide modified thresholds for wavepacket shrinkage, heuristics for choosing the resampling grid, and a mean estimator using measured data. Computed results illustrate application of the proposed technique.
The Telephone as a Communication Medium for Health Education

The telephone is being widely used by the private sector as a communication medium for understanding and influencing consumer behavior. Coinciding with the growth of telephone use in the private sector is the expansion of telephone use in health care to include complex health promotion and disease prevention interventions aimed at initiating and maintaining health-related behavioral changes. While several studies have evaluated the impact of telephone interventions on a wide range of health behaviors, no published reports synthesizing current knowledge about using the telephone as a communication medium for health education were identified. In this article, the authors therefore (1) examine recent applications of telephone use in health education by describing three example interventions, (2) outline key features and alternatives in conceptualizing and designing health education using the telephone, (3) review advantages and disadvantages of using the telephone for health education, and (4) discuss implic...
Using thermodynamic availability to determine the energy of explosion for compressed gases

This paper expands on the work of Crowl by using thermodynamic availability to calculate the energy of explosion for compressed gases. The results show that thermodynamic availability is a completely general approach, including effects due to chemical reaction and mechanical expansion. For the case of a non-reactive gas, a general equation is presented to determine the energy of explosion due to mechanical expansion of the gas. The energy determined using availability is much less than the energy determined assuming an isothermal expansion and usually much more than the energy determined assuming an isentropic expansion. Since availability is a state function, the energy determined is independent of the path.
What Eye Movements Reveal About Deaf Readers

Levels of illiteracy in the deaf populations around the world have been extremely high for decades and much higher than the illiteracy levels found in the general population. Research has mostly focused on deaf readers' difficulties rather than on their strengths, which can then inform reading education. Deaf readers are a unique population. They process language and the world surrounding them mostly via the visual channel and this greatly affects how they read or might learn to read. The study of eye movements in reading provides highly sophisticated information about how words and sentences are processed and our research with deaf readers reveals the importance of their uniqueness.
Improving Classification of Natural Language Answers to ITS Questions with Item-Specific Supervised Learning

In a natural language intelligent tutoring system, improving assessment of student input is a challenge that typically requires close collaboration between domain experts and NLP experts. This paper proposes a method for building small item-specific classifiers that would allow a domain expert author to improve quality of assessment for student input, through supervised tagging of a small number of good and bad examples. Our approach then generates large sets of item-specific features, which are reduced by algorithms (e.g., Support Vector Machines, Ridge Regression) designed for high-dimensional feature sets. The feasibility of this approach is evaluated using an existing data set collected from an intelligent tutoring system based on AutoTutor. Evaluations of this technique show that it performs about as effectively as iteratively hand-tuned regular expressions for evaluating student input, which is a time-consuming process. This method also outperforms general Latent Semantic Analysis for evaluating the quality of input after approximately 8 tagged examples are available. By 16 tagged examples, it improves the correlation with human raters to over R=0.50, as compared to about R=0.25 for LSA alone. As such, this approach could be used by ITS authors to improve the quality of natural language understanding for their content by classifying a fairly small number of student inputs. Future directions for this work include integrating this approach into an authoring system and exploring directions for decreasing the number of tagged examples that are needed to provide effective classifications.
Snapshots of Proton Accommodation at a Microscopic Water Surface: Understanding the Vibrational Spectral Signatures of the Charge Defect in Cryogenically Cooled H(+)(H2O)(n=2-28) Clusters.

We review the role that gas-phase, size-selected protonated water clusters, H+(H2O)n, have played in unraveling the microscopic mechanics responsible for the spectroscopic behavior of the excess proton in bulk water. Because the larger (n ≥ 10) assemblies are formed with three-dimensional cage morphologies that more closely mimic the bulk environment, we report the spectra of cryogenically cooled (10 K) clusters over the size range 2 ≤ n ≤ 28, over which the structures evolve from two-dimensional arrangements to cages at around n = 10. The clusters that feature a complete second solvation shell around a surface-embedded hydronium ion yield spectral signatures of the proton defect similar to those observed in dilute acids. The origins of the large observed shifts in the proton vibrational signature upon cluster growth were explored with two types of theoretical analyses. First, we calculate the cubic and semidiagonal quartic force constants and use these in vibrational perturbation theory calculations to e...
The Warm-Core Structure of Hurricane Earl (2010)

AbstractThe warm-core structure of Hurricane Earl (2010) is examined on four different days, spanning periods of both rapid intensification (RI) and weakening, using high-altitude dropsondes from both the inner core and the environment, as well as a convection-permitting numerical forecast. During RI, strong warming occurred at all heights, while during rapid weakening, little temperature change was observed, implying the likelihood of substantial (unobserved) cooling above flight level (12 km). Using a local environmental reference state yields a perturbation temperature profile with two distinct maxima of approximately equal magnitude: one at 4–6-km and the other at 9–12-km height. However, using a climatological-mean sounding instead results in the upper-level maximum being substantially stronger than the midlevel maximum. This difference results from the fact that the local environment of Earl was warmer than the climatological mean and that this relative warmth increased with height. There is no obvi...