cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The PurR mutation of Drosophila melanogaster confers resistance to purine and 2,6-diaminopurine by elevating adenosine deaminase activity.

Media supplemented with purine (7H-imidazo[4,5-d]pyrimidine) or the purine analogue 2,6-diaminopurine (DAP) can be employed to select several classes of purine-resistant variants from mutagenized cultures of Drosophila. One class results in elevated resistance to purine and diaminopurine which is correlated with elevated activity of the enzyme adenosine deaminase (adenosine aminohydrolase=EC 3.5.4.4). The first member of this class, PurR, maps to position 82± in the right arm of the second chromosome. The PurR mutation causes an elevation of adenosine deaminase (ADA) enzyme activity, apparently by altering a thermolabile, ADA-specific repressor. PurR may thus encode a negative regulator of adenosine deaminase activity similar to the ADA-binding protein found in mammalian systems.
Microhardness and lattice parameter calibrations of the oxygen solid solutions of unalloyed alpha-titanium and Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo

Standards were prepared for calibrating microanalyses of dissolved oxygen in unalloyed alpha-Ti and Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo. Foils of both of these materials were homogenized for 120 hours in vacuum at 871 C following short exposures to the ambient atmosphere at 854 C that had partially oxidized the foils. The variation of Knoop microhardness with oxygen content was calibrated for both materials using 15-g and 5-g indentor loads. The unit-cell lattice parameters were calibrated for the unalloyed alpha-Ti. Example analyses demonstrate the usefulness of these calibrations and support an explanation of an anomaly in the lattice parameter variation. The results of the calibrations have been tabulated and summarized using predictive equations.
Assessment of the exercise electrocardiogram in women versus men using tomographic myocardial perfusion imaging as the reference standard.

Abstract The exercise electrocardiogram (ECG) is widely believed to be less accurate in women, primarily due to a high prevalence of false-positive tests. The purpose of this study was to examine the relative accuracy of the exercise ECG in women versus men in 8,671 patients (3,213 women, 5,458 men) using myocardial perfusion imaging as the reference standard. More women (14%) than men (10%) had a false-positive ECG (p
Synaptic activity and F-actin coordinately regulate CaMKIIα localization to dendritic postsynaptic sites in developing hippocampal slices

We examined the timing and mechanisms of CaMKIIalpha recruitment to nascent synapses of developing rat hippocampal pyramidal neurons in slice culture. Time-lapse confocal imaging shows that GFP-CaMKIIalpha in transfected neurons accumulates in spines as they are forming, and loss of CaMKIIalpha coincides with spine destabilization. Immunolabeling shows that endogenous CaMKIIalpha is concentrated at postsynaptic sites in spines under ambient slice culture conditions, and this is not disrupted by short-term (3 h) synaptic activity blockade or Latrunculin-induced F-actin depolymerization. However, the combination of activity blockade and F-actin depolymerization significantly reduces synaptic CaMKIIalpha. Conversely, postsynaptic activation induces synaptic recruitment of CaMKIIalpha even in the presence of F-actin depolymerizing drugs. Thus, synaptic-activity-dependent mechanisms and (synaptic activity-independent) F-actin-based mechanisms are individually sufficient and act in parallel to localize CaMKIIalpha to the dendritic spine compartment. Moreover, the timing of CaMKIIalpha recruitment to developing spines suggests a role for CaMKIIalpha in spine assembly and maintenance.
Ontogenetic shifts in habitat use and activity in a stream‐dwelling isopod

We examined ontogenetic changes in diel patterns of habitat use and activity of the lotic isopod Lirceus fontinalis in relation to differences in predation risk from green sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus. Juveniles are ≤5 mm total length (TL), individuals 6-9 mm TL are mature females (c. 90%) and immature males, and mature males are ≥10 mm TL. Isopods of all sizes were far more dense in Cladophora, a filamentous green algae, than in open silt/sand substrates in fish pools. Densities of each size did not increase in open areas at night in fish pools when risk of predation presumably decreases. Few individuals of any size class occurred in open silt/sand areas in fish pools. However, habitat use did not depend on fish presence. Densities and relative abundances of all sizes were similar between algal and open habitats in fishless pools both day and night, except for mature males which were more abundant in open areas during daylight. All sizes of isopods were significantly more dense in fishless versus fish pools, and density of a size class was influenced by fish presence. Densities of size classes were typically juveniles > individuals 6-9 mm TL > mature males. Green sunfish are size selective feeders on isopods, thus demography of isopods within pools may be partially influenced by the size structure of the fish population. Isopods reduced their activity, as measured by captures in benthic traps, in the presence of caged green sunfish only at night. This behavior coupled with relatively high activity levels during daylight regardless of fish presence suggests other predators or factors may influence diel activity. Mature males were overrepresented in traps relative to their occurrence in fish runs, indicating high activity levels. Mature males were also more active than gravid and nongravid females and juveniles in the presence of fish in laboratory aquaria. Number of male encounters with nongravid females depended on activity level.
Sizing an energy storage system to minimize wind power imbalances from the hourly average

Variability and uncertainty in wind power represent significant risks to system operators as well as wind farm owners. The coupling of wind with energy storage systems has been used as a means of managing wind power variability and intermittency. The purpose of this paper is to provide a methodology to estimate the size (power and energy capacities) of an energy storage system with the goal of minimizing deviations from the hourly average wind power production. Using a probabilistic forecast of the hourly average wind power production and the inverse of the joint cumulative distribution of the maximum and minimum deviations from the hourly average, hour-long wind power production scenarios are generated. The statistics of the energy storage system's characteristics are then estimated from these scenarios as a function of the desired risk parameter. The evaluation of the proposed methodology using real-world wind power data reveals that the generated wind power production scenarios have distributions which exhibit a small statistical distance to the actual ones. Moreover, the estimated energy storage system characteristics have coverage rates close to the nominal ones, with an average absolute deviation less than 1.5%.
Comparative antianaerobic activities of doripenem determined by MIC and time-kill analysis.

Against 447 anaerobe strains, the investigational carbapenem doripenem had an MIC50 of 0.125 μg/ml and an MIC90 of 1 μg/ml. Results were similar to those for imipenem, meropenem, and ertapenem. Time-kill studies showed that doripenem had very good bactericidal activity compared to other carbapenems, with 99.9% killing of 11 strains at 2× MIC after 48 h.
Methemoglobinemia in rats injected with 3-nitropropanoic acid, sodium nitrite, and nitroethane

Injection of sodium nitrite, 3-NPA, or nitroethane into rats produced methemoglobinemia in the order of decreasing effectiveness. The methemoglobin level reached 50% after administration of sodium nitrite, but the animals survived whereas animals having a methemoglobin level higher than 25% after injection of 3-NPA died. Nitroethane proved nontoxic at the concentrations used. Incubation in vitro of 3-NPA, and nitroethane with blood, did not produce methemoglobin. Excretion is not a major mode of detoxication. It is proposed that 3-NPA is degraded in vivo, at a site other than the circulatory system, with the production of nitrite and an unidentified carbon compound.
Immune-recognition of Schistosoma mansoni primary sporocysts may require specific receptors on Biomphalaria glabrata hemocytes.

Summary Cellular interactions, leading to cell-mediated cytotoxicity when Biomphalaria glabrata hemocytes encapsulate Schistosoma mansoni sporocysts, have been investigated. Rabbit antibodies (IgG), when bound to antigens on sporocyst surfaces, prevent the normal cytoadherence (CA) of hemocytes from both susceptible and resistant host snails. Since interference with CA occurs with even fixed sporocysts, the effect is not due to IgG stimulated modulation of the parasite surface. Using two antisera with some overlapping specificities, and quantitative immunofluorescent antibody technique (QIFAT), we determined the concentrations of IgG needed to place equivalent amounts of IgG on the sporocysts. At these concentrations, CA was affected differentially, implying that interference was due to the specific antigens bound, and not due simply to the presence of IgG. Also with QIFAT we determined how much F(ab')2 and IgG from anti-sporocyst serum were needed to block an equivalent amount of antigenic determinants from access by whole FITC labelled IgG. Sporocysts whose surface antigens were equally blocked were equally unadherent for hemocytes, supporting the notion that the nature of obscured antigens, and neither the Fc portion nor the larger size of intact IgG protein, was responsible for the effect on CA. These surprising results imply a role for specific antigen binding sites on snail hemocytes.
Properties of fluorinated silica glass deposited at low temperature by atmospheric plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Abstract The atmospheric pressure plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of fluorinated silica glass was demonstrated at a temperature of 120 °C. The process was carried out by simultaneously feeding tetramethylcyclotetrasiloxane (TMCTS) and triethoxyfluorosilane (TEOFS) into the afterglow of helium and oxygen plasma. The effect of the flow rate of the fluorinated precursor on the growth rate, composition, and optical properties was examined. The ratio of atomic fluorine to atomic silicon increased up to 10% at a TEOFS/TMCTS atomic Si feed ratio of 1.3 and then leveled off. Coatings made from pure TMCTS and both precursors showed higher surface roughness and porosity, and more hydroxyl content compared to coatings made from pure TEOFS. The refractive indices at 633 nm of films produced using pure TMCTS, a TEOFS/TMCTS atomic Si feed ratio of 1.3 and pure TEOFS were 1.457, 1.449, and 1.411, respectively.
Effect of bovine serum albumin on the isolation of boar spermatozoa and their fertility

Abstract A procedure for isolation of subpopulations of highly motile spermatozoa from ejaculates of several mammalian species was modified for use with boar semen. An initial trial was conducted to test the effectiveness of concentrations of 3 to 15% Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) as an isolation medium. A concentration of 15% BSA resulted in isolation of a population of boar spermatozoa with 70% motility compared with an estimate of 53.5% determined after collection. Although there was a variable effect of isolation on the rate of forward movement, sperm cell concentration decreased (P To test the fertilizing capacity of isolated boar spermatozoa, 16 sows were randomly alloted to either a treated group bred with isolated spermatozoa (12% BSA) or control group bred with raw semen. Both the percent motile spermatozoa (64.1%) and the rate of forward movement (2.9) were increased (P
After trafficking: Togolese girls’ orientations to life in a West African city:

This article offers an alternative explanation for why people “traffic” their children from Togo into Nigeria. Rather than explain parents’ motivations for sending their children to work as domestic servants as an escape from poverty (per the human rights discourse) or a rite of passage into adulthood (as described by informants), I argue that it is rooted in a future-oriented strategy of survival in an age of economic decline. Instead of a means towards short-term profits, the practice delivers on a different imaginary of the future for post–Cold War Togolese, where the most common strategy for success is to leave the country. To track this shifting sensibility, this article presents the cultural styles of Togolese girls living in Lagos after they have been “trafficked” and categorizes them into two figures: the cosmopolitanist and the localist. These styles of living are emblematic of different orientations toward the future with respect to investments in city or “local” relations. Despite the terms “co...
Some Biochemical Aspects of Red Tides and Related Oceanographic Problems1

“Red Tides” are blooms of plankton organisms which may or may not be lethal to aquatic organisms. The sudden increase in multiplication rates of the organisms is caused by a complex of biological factors, and physical factors play a major role in effecting mechanical concentration. This paper deals with the biological factors operative in the genesis of blooms. Nutritional studies show that organic factors which occur naturally in the water are important. The existence of biologically active organic compounds and possible modes of action are discussed. The method of measurement of “carbohydrates” is explained and their production by bacteria-free cultures of Prorocentrum is demonstrated. Such organic compounds could serve as substrates for vitamin B12-producing bacteria and thus play a role in the conditioning of water for succeeding populations. Gymnodinium breve, the causative organism of the Florida Red Tide, responds differentially to Gulf of Mexico waters of different origins. A suggested explanation is the interaction between environmental copper and hydrogen sulfide. Once started, a bloom may replenish the required nutrients by the decomposition of the fish that it kills.
Motion of flux lines in nearly pure superconductors

By use of a simple semiphenomenological argument, Sherman and the author showed that in nearly pure superconductors (mean free path large compared with the core radius) at low temperatures, the transport current flows directly through the core of a vortex line without backflow. Expressions they derived for the flux-flow resistivity and Hall angle are nearly identical with those derived later by Larkin and Ovchinnikov (resistivity) and by Kopnin and Kravtsov (Hall angle) using Green's-function methods except for a numerical factor of 4/3. It is shown that this factor comes from a difference in relaxation time between the vortex core and the normal metal.
Characterization of a Pseudomonas aeruginosa gene cluster involved in pilus biosynthesis and twitching motility: sequence similarity to the chemotaxis proteins of enterics and the gliding bacterium Myxococcus xanthus

The type 4 pili of Pseudomonas aeruginosa are important cell-associated virulence factors that play a crucial role in mediating (i) bacterial adherence to, and colonization of, mucosal surfaces, (ii) a novel mode of flagella-independent surface translocation known as 'twitching motility', and (iii) the initial stages of the infection process for a number of bacteriophages. A new set of loci involved in pilus biogenesis and twitching motility was identified based on the ability of DNA sequences downstream of the pilG gene to complement the non-piliated (pil) strain, PAO6609. Sequence analysis of a 3.2 kb region directly downstream of pilG revealed the presence of three genes, which have been designated pilH, pilI, and pilJ. The predicted translation product of the pilH gene (13,272 Da), like PilG, exhibits significant amino acid identity with the enteric single-domain response regulator CheY. The putative PilI protein (19,933 Da) is 28% identical to the FrzA protein, a CheW homologue of the gliding bacterium Myxococcus xanthus, and the PilJ protein (72,523 Da) is 26% identical to the enteric methyl-accepting chemotaxis protein (MCP) Tsr. Mutants containing insertions in pilI and pilJ were severely impaired in their ability to produce pili and did not translocate across solid surfaces. The pilH mutant remained capable of pilus production and twitching motility, but displayed an altered motility pattern characterized by the presence of many doughnut-shaped swirls. Each of these pil mutants, however, produced zones that were at least as large as the parent in flagellar-mediated swarm assays. The sequence similarities between the putative pilG, H, I and J gene products and several established chemotaxis proteins, therefore, lend strong support to the hypothesis that these proteins are part of a signal-transduction network that controls P. aeruginosa pilus biosynthesis and twitching motility.
Radicals and primes in incidence algebras

The nil radicals of an incidence algebra are determined. The prime ideal structure of the algebra and the unboundedness of the underlying partial order are related, leading to a notion of topological end for ordered sets.
Problems in the rational analysis of transportation safety

Analysis of air traffic control capacity shows the relation between traffic level and risk can be dealt with quantitatively only if units of risk are specified. Measuring risk in terms of fatalities per hour of exposure solves the major problem of how to compare the effects that many different kinds of risk have upon patterns of human activity, but leaves us with a number of unresolved secondary issues. Among these are : incommensurability of certain risks, failure of statistical independence, certain limitations of time-normalization, unequal distribution of costs and benefits, different weighting of voluntary and involuntary risks, liability, cost and value of uncertainty, positive value of some risks, acceptability of unequal risks, difficulty of estimating very small probabilities and threat of the unknown compared to threat of the known. Although these issues arose out of air traffic control studies, they are clearly relevant to risk analyses of many other systems.
Microeconomic Determinants of Income Inequality in Rural Pakistan

Abstract Inequality matters for poverty reduction. However, it is often unclear what policy could do to change the distribution of income as to date there is little quantitative evidence about the household characteristics that determine the level of income inequality and its changes over time. This paper sets out to identify these determinants by adapting a regression-based inequality decomposition technique and applying it to panel data from rural Pakistan. Land ownership is key to explaining the level of inequality, but not its changes. In contrast, higher education drives changes, but not the level of inequality. Household location affects both, reflecting growing differences in market access across regions.
Principle of Competitive Exclusion and Drosophila

THE Volterra–Gause equations1—the mathematical formulation of the principle of competitive exclusion2—are where r1 is the intrinsic rate of increase of species 1, N1 is its population size, and K1 is the expected value of N1 in single species culture. The constants α and β, the coefficients of competition, denote the relative effect of the abundance of one species on the population growth rate of the other. These relationships imply that for a stable competitive equilibrium to obtain it is necessary that
Clinical and neurobiological correlates of D10S1423 genotype in Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract Background: In a previous genome survey, we detected associations of alleles at six microsatellite loci with typical-onset AD, including the 234bp allele of the D10S1423 locus. The goal of the current study was to explore the clinical, neuropathological, and neurochemical correlates of the D10S1423 234bp allele in a group of 50 autopsy-confirmed cases of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) who lacked other brain diseases. Methods: Clinical assessments were performed as part of a longitudinal study of AD and related disorders. Autopsies were performed using standardized methods and diagnoses were made according to established criteria. Genotyping, morphometry, and neurochemical analyses were performed using postmortem brain tissue. Results: Patients with AD who carried the D10S1423 234bp allele manifested substantial reductions in dopamine levels in all six cortical regions examined. In contrast, carriers tended to have higher concentrations of cortical norepinephrine and revealed a dosage effect of the D10S1423 234bp allele. Conclusions: These findings support the results of our genome survey and suggest that a novel susceptibility gene for AD resides near the D10S1423 locus. The characterization of biologically meaningful subtypes, including genotypic subtypes with particular neurobiological derangements, may be important for the advancement of experimental therapeutics in AD.
Implications of variation in worker body size for the honey bee recruitment system

Honey bee scouts seek food from flowers, return to the colony, and may perform a dance used to recruit dance followers to the flowers. Variation in body size of workers may result in the communication of misinformation because some information acquired by the scout and signaled to recruits is affected by body size. I tested two predictions of this hypothesis. (1) Recruitment communication takes place between bees of similar size despite the withincolony size distribution. (2) There is an inverse relationship between the size variation of foraging honey bees (Apis mellifera)and the rate at which nectar is returned to the colony. A positive relationship was found between the size of a dancer and that of its dance followers, which together comprise a dance group. There was less variation in size within dance groups than among groups. These two factors effectively lower the difference in size between signal sender and signal receiver and may enhance the flow of accurate size-dependent information. Also, an inverse relationship between size variation and rate of nectar intake was detected in each of six colonies using partial correlation analysis. This may be due to communication of misinformation when size variance is higher. The relationship was statistically significant in two colonies and the combined results were significant. The results of the first study suggest the generally weak relationships found in this second study.
Local spatial and temporal processes of influenza in Pennsylvania, USA: 2003-2009.

Background Influenza is a contagious respiratory disease responsible for annual seasonal epidemics in temperate climates. An understanding of how influenza spreads geographically and temporally within regions could result in improved public health prevention programs. The purpose of this study was to summarize the spatial and temporal spread of influenza using data obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Health's influenza surveillance system.
Simulation of micro-scale interaction between ice and biological cells

This paper presents numerical simulations of the response of a biological cell during freezing. The cell is modeled as an aqueous salt solution surrounded by a semi-permeable membrane. The concentration and temperature fields both inside and outside a single cell are computed taking into account heat transfer, mass diffusion, membrane transport, and evolution of the solidification front. The external ice front is computed for both stable and unstable growth modes. It is shown that for the particular geometry chosen in this study, the instabilities on the front and the diffusional transport have only modest effects on the cell response. For the cooling conditions, solute and cell property parameters used, the low Peclet regime applies. The computational results are therefore validated against the conventional membrane-limited transport (Mazur) model. Good agreement of the simulation results with the Mazur model are obtained for a wide range of cooling rates and membrane permeabilities. A spatially non-isothermal situation is also considered and shown to yield significant differences in the cell response in comparison to the isothermal case.
Palatal Necrosis Secondary to Cytotoxin Therapy: Report of Case

A patient with lymphosarcoma was being treated with cyclophosphamide. During his therapy, oral surgeons diagnosed chronic periodontal disease and began treatment. Two weeks later, a necrosis was evident that continued to progress despite treatment.
Finding the sources of missing heritability in a yeast cross

For many traits, including susceptibility to common diseases in humans, causal loci uncovered by genetic-mapping studies explain only a minority of the heritable contribution to trait variation. Multiple explanations for this 'missing heritability' have been proposed. Here we use a large cross between two yeast strains to accurately estimate different sources of heritable variation for 46 quantitative traits, and to detect underlying loci with high statistical power. We find that the detected loci explain nearly the entire additive contribution to heritable variation for the traits studied. We also show that the contribution to heritability of gene-gene interactions varies among traits, from near zero to approximately 50 per cent. Detected two-locus interactions explain only a minority of this contribution. These results substantially advance our understanding of the missing heritability problem and have important implications for future studies of complex and quantitative traits.
Speciation of heteroatoms in coal by sulfur- and nitrogen-selective techniques

Abstract The peroxyacetic acid oxidation products from a series of coals of organic sulfur content 0.5–9.8 wt% were examined. The distributions of organic S and N compounds were determined by gas chromatography with sulfur-selective flame photometric and nitrogen-selective thermionic specific detection respectively. A selected sample was also examined in greater detail using low-voltage high-resolution mass spectrometry. The distribution of organic sulfur compounds in the oxidation products was remarkably similar for all the coals. The number of sulfur compounds detected was small compared with that of organic nitrogen compounds detected. This suggests that the sulfur chemistry of coal is considerably simpler than its nitrogen chemistry. Analysis of the m.s. data, together with a comparison of sulfur-selective and nitrogen-selective chromatograms, indicated that a significant proportion of the heteroatomic species present in coal contain more than one heteroatom. This is significant, because few models of coal structure incorporate such species.
Evaluating Decision Strategies for Equity of Public Risks

Many important decisions include the loss of life among their possible consequences. Alternative actions have different implications for the number of possible fatalities, the equity of those eventual fatalities, and the equity of the process resulting in those fatalities. This paper defines a concept of ex ante risk equity to address the equity of the process and distinguishes this concept from the ex post risk equity of the fatalities. The paper indicates that an analysis of decision strategies addresses ex ante equity. In this context, both types of equity as well as loss of life are included in a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility model developed to evaluate public risks. This approach provides a method to investigate the implications of different value judgments in examining alternatives and illustrates an appropriate use of von Neumann-Morgenstern utility for problems involving social consequences such as public risks.
High-speed electrochemically modulated liquid chromatography

The performance advantages of carrying out electrochemically modulated liquid chromatography (EMLC) at elevated temperatures and mobile-phase flow rates are investigated. EMLC has the unique ability to manipulate analyte retention and enhance separation efficiencies through changes in the potential applied to a conductive stationary phase. Operation of high-performance liquid chromatography systems at elevated column temperatures also provides pathways to improve chromatographic performance by enhancing analyte diffusivity and facilitating the use of higher mobile-phase flow rates than conventionally attainable. The results show that performing EMLC separations at elevated temperatures (e.g., 100 °C) reduces the analysis time of a mixture of aromatic sulfonates in a mixed mobile phase by more than a factor of 20. Moreover, use of higher operating temperatures enables the separation of this mixture with an entirely aqueous mobile phase in less than 2 min.
The Use of Recycled Paper Chips as Litter Material for Rearing Broiler Chickens

Abstract The suitability of recycled paper chips (RPC), formed by completely reprocessing waste newspaper, as litter material for rearing broilers was investigated in two successive trials. In Trial 1, broilers were reared in pens prepared with a 9-cm layer of either unused RPC or pine shavings (PS). In Trial 2, broilers were reared in pens prepared by adding 3 cm of clean RPC or PS to used litter of the same type remaining from Trial 1. Mortality, BW, feed consumption and conversion, carcass yield, and incidences of breast blisters and leg abnormalities were not influenced by litter treatments. Litter moisture was greater in RPC during Week 3 of Trial 1, but did not differ between treatments at other times during either trial. Litter caking was greater in RPC throughout Trial 1, but did not differ between treatments during Trial 2. Populations of aerobic, psychrotrophic, and coliform bacteria, and fungi (yeasts and molds) in the two litter types did not differ during the rearing period of either trial. Populations of aerobic bacteria and fungi were greater in unused PS, and fungi populations were greater in used PS prior to initiation of Trial 2. Populations of psychrotrophic bacteria were greater in used PS 6 days after bird removal in Trial 2. Generally, RPC are comparable to PS and have potential as an alternative litter material for rearing broilers.
Strategic codeswitching, interliteracy, and other phenomena of emergent bilingual writing: Lessons from first grade dual language classrooms:

This qualitative study investigated the writing processes of eight emergent bilingual children as they composed stories in two languages in a Writing Workshop (WW) context. The research was situated in two grade 1 classrooms in a Spanish/English Two-Way Bilingual Education program in the north-eastern USA. For six months, researchers observed students in Spanish and English WWs, interviewed students about their writing behaviors and understandings, and collected samples from all stages of the writing process. Cross-case analyses of individual bilingual writing profiles revealed similarities and differences in students’ cross-linguistic skills, as well as patterns of transfer. Patterns of bilingual writing related to strategic codeswitching, positive literacy transfer, and interliteracy led to the development of a preliminary model of bilingual writing development for English-dominant and Spanish-dominant bilingual learners.This model presents phenomena unique to bilingual writers, relates these to bilingu...
Studies on N4-(2-deoxy-D-pentofuranosyl)-4,6-diamino-5-formamidopyrimidine (Fapy.dA) and N6-(2-deoxy-D-pentofuranosyl)-6-diamino-5-formamido-4-hydroxypyrimidine (Fapy.dG).

Exposure of DNA to oxidative stress produces a variety of DNA lesions including the formamidopyrimidines, which are derived from the purines. These lesions may play important roles in carcinogenesis. We achieved the first chemical syntheses of a monomeric form of Fapy-dA (1) and oligonucleotides containing this lesion or Fapy-dG at a defined site. Monomeric Fapy-dA readily epimerized at 25 degrees C in phosphate buffer (pH 7.5). The beta-anomer was favored by a ratio of 1.33:1.0, and equilibration was achieved in less than 7 h. Deglycosylation of Fapy-dA in the monomer follows first-order kinetics from 37 to 90 degrees C. The rate constants for deglycosylation of Fapy-dA in the monomeric and oligonucleotide substrates were measured at a common temperature (55 degrees C) and found to be the same within experimental error (t(1/2) = 20.5 h). Implementation of the activation parameters measured for the deglycosylation of 1 indicates that the half-life for deglycosylation of Fapy-dA at 37 degrees C is approximately 103 h. Analysis of the rate constant for deglycosylation of Fapy-dG in an oligonucleotide, revealed that this lesion is approximately 25 times more resistant to hydrolysis than Fapy-dA at 55 degrees C. These results indicate that Fapy-dA and Fapy-dG will be sufficiently long-lived in DNA so as to warrant investigation of their genotoxicity, and both anomers will be present during this time.
GWIS: geostationary wedge-filter imager-sounder

Imaging spectrometry from geostationary earth orbit (GEO) can provide the frequently-refreshed detailed information on physical properties of earth's atmosphere and surface needed to enable critical new science missions and ultimately improve operational weather forecasting. We describe and evaluate a concept for imaging spectrometry from GEO that addresses both traditional imaging and sounding applications. Our Geostationary Wedge-filter Imager-Sounder (GWIS) uses spatially variable wedge filter spectrometers to collect earth radiance with approximately 2 km resolution over a 710 - 2900 cm -1 (3.45 - 14.0 micrometer) spectral range at 1% spectral resolution. The resulting instrument, based on LWIR and MWIR wedge spectrometer technology recently developed by Raytheon, is a compact, rugged imager-sounder with better sensitivity, spectral resolution, spatial resolution and full disk coverage time than the current multispectral GOES imager. GWIS sounding performance was simulated by evaluating retrieval performance with respect to a global database of 119,694 cloud-free samples using a stepwise regression algorithm. Retrieved atmospheric parameters included surface air temperature, surface skin temperature, surface water vapor, total precipitable water vapor, total ozone and vertical profiles of temperature and water vapor. In all cases, GWIS outperformed the current GOES sounder. Furthermore, GWIS RMS error performance approached that of advanced higher spectral resolution sounders (e.g., 1.2 K/1 km for GWIS versus 1 K/1 km for advanced sounders). Due to its higher spatial resolution and more complete spatial coverage, GWIS achieves this high quality cloud free sounding performance roughly two times more frequently than high spectral resolution advanced sounders. Combining this new technology with proven wedge spectrometer approaches for visible and near-infrared wavelengths would provide imaging- sounding data from GEO with unprecedented detail and fidelity for a wide range of weather, climate, land use, ocean color and other earth science studies.
Enabling cross-site interactions in social networks

Online social networks is one of the major technological phenomena on the Web 2.0. Hundreds of millions of people are posting articles, photos, and videos on their profiles and interacting with other people, but the sharing and interaction are limited within a same social network site. Although users can share some contents in a social network site with people outside of the social network site using a secret address of content, appropriate access control mechanisms are still not supported. To overcome this limitation, we propose a cross-site interaction framework x-mngr, allowing users to interact with users in other social network sites, with a cross-site access control policy, which enables users to specify policies that allow/deny access to their shared contents across social network sites. We also propose a partial mapping approach based on a supervised learning mechanism to map user’s identities across social network sites. We implemented our proposed framework through a photo album sharing application that shares user’s photos between Facebook and MySpace based on the cross-site access control policy that is defined by the content owner. Furthermore, we provide mechanisms to enable users to fuse user-mapping decisions that are provided by their friends or others in the social network. We implemented our framework and through extensive experimentation we prove the accuracy and precision of our proposed mechanisms.
TUNNELING UNDER THE APACHE TRAIL

Abstract A short tunnel has been constructed to provide access to the raised crest of Theodore Roosevelt Dam. Field and laboratory data, rock mass classification, and block theory were used to design the basic rock support. A unique aspect of the tunnel is that it crosses beneath a highly used Arizona state highway known as the Apache Trail, with limited rock cover between the tunnel and the highway. Special measures were taken to ensure continued use of the highway during construction. The design was effective in that little movement was measured in the rock beneath the roadway during or following construction.
Asymmetric seafloor spreading and short ridge jumps in the Australian-Antarctic discordance

The crenulated geometry of the Southeast Indian ridge within the Australian-Antarctic discordance is formed by numerous spreading ridge segments that are offset, alternately to the north and south, by transform faults. Suggested causes for these offsets, which largely developed since ~ 20 Ma, include asymmetric seafloor spreading, ridge jumps, and propagating rifts that have transferred seafloor from one flank of the spreading ridge to the other. Each of these processes has operated at different times in different locations of the discordance; here we document an instance where a small (~ 20 km), young (< 0.2 Ma), southward ridge jump has contributed to the observed asymmetry. When aeromagnetic anomalies from the Project Investigator-1 survey are superposed on gravity anomalies computed from Geosat GM and ERM data, we find that in segment B4 of the discordance (between 125° and 126° E), the roughly east-west-trending gravity low, correlated with the axial valley, is 20–25 km south of the ridge axis position inferred from the center of magnetic anomaly 1. Elsewhere in the discordance, the inferred locations of the ridge axis from magnetics and gravity are in excellent agreement. Ship track data confirm these observations: portions of Moana Wave track crossing the ridge in B4 show that a topographic valley correlated with the gravity anomaly low lies south of the center of magnetic anomaly 1; while other ship track data that cross the spreading ridge in segments B3 and B5 demonstrate good agreement between the axial valley, the gravity anomaly low, and the central magnetic anomaly. Based on these observations, we speculate that the ridge axis in B4 has recently jumped to the south, from a ridge location closer to the center of the young normally magnetized crust, to that of the gravity anomaly low. The position of the gravity low essentially at the edge of normally magnetized crust requires a very recent (< 0.2 Ma) arrival of the ridge in this new location. Because this ridge jump is so young, it may be a promising location for future detailed studies of the dynamics, kinematics, and thermal effects of ridge jumps.
POSTSHOCK SPECTRAL RADIANCE MEASUREMENTS IN NICKEL AND NICKEL/ALUMINUM POWDERS

Because of complications associated with temperature heterogeneities in shocked metal powders, time-resolved radiation pyrometer measurements of shock temperatures in powders with particle sizes greater than a few tens of microns cannot be made under normal laboratory conditions with uniaxial loading durations limited to about one microsecond. Fortunately, for highly porous, reactive powders, the difference between shock and postshock temperature is negligible. For loading conditions similar to those that have yielded reaction products in recovery experiments, there is no evidence of any chemical reaction in a coarse (-325 mesh) nickel/aluminum powder mixture within the first 6 μs of shock arrival, based on constraints on postshock temperatures provided by thermal radiation measurements. This result is in contrast to that for a micron-sized nickel/aluminum mixture, for which there is evidence of significant reaction on a time scale of 100 ns under similar shock loading conditions.
Water Gas Shift Reaction in a glass microreactor

Abstract A micro scale glass reactor was designed, fabricated and characterized with Water Gas Shift Reaction (WGSR). The fabrication procedure was quick, uncomplicated, template-free and inexpensive and did not require any special clean room facility, making it ideal for first generation prototyping. The fabricated unit was able to withstand pressure and temperature of 1.65 MPa and 260 °C respectively. An important reaction in micro scale fuel processing, namely WGSR, was carried out in this microreactor using a packed bed of 50–75 μm commercial catalyst particles at 185–250 °C. The design sizing was based on a CO flow of 0.06 mol/h. Experimental results were used to develop a kinetic model of the reaction.
The influence of Philip Foster on the World Bank

At a conference on education in Addis Ababa in 1961 countries from all over the world gathered to assess their ambitions for education. Without exception, each brought a report justifying their plans in accordance with a manpower forecast. It did not matter whether they were socialist or capitalist, newly independent or of long standing independence; it did not matter whether they were Asian, African or European. Manpower plans had a monopoly, being the accepted technique to respond to the question: Should the public invest more in education and how can it know if the investment will be productive? For the 18 years from the time of its first loan in 1962‐1980, the World Bank justified every education lending operation through the use of manpower forecasting (Heyneman 2003). Among the consequences of this analytic monopoly was the restriction of all lending to specific skill instruction and to vocational and engineering schools. Primary and secondary schools were occasionally allowed to benefit from a loan, but only if they could be justified by adding workshops, handicraft centres and other ‘‘practical’’ facilities. Academic skills were described as being ‘‘impractical.’’ They were thought to lead students astray, to encourage them to migrate to the cities and to be disgruntled when they did not find work or work appropriate to their expectations, which were assumed to be unrealistic. There were two problems with this. The first was that the bias introduced by manpower forecasting meant that important areas of the education sector had to be ignored (Heyneman 1986a). During this period the Bank could lend for the improvement of universities but only in the faculties of engineering. Regardless of the demand from the country, internal rules meant that the Bank could not assist general libraries, the liberal arts, the humanities, general science, primary or secondary education, preschool education, education research or statistics (Heyneman 1987). None of these areas could be justified with a manpower plan and hence they were forbidden. The second problem concerned the demand for new kinds of lending. Vocational and technical education was a small part of the education sector and under President
Response of corn markets to climate volatility under alternative energy futures

Several factors can either increase or buffer the effects of climate change on the volatility of grain prices. A study shows that US corn price volatility is more sensitive to near-term climate change than to energy policy or agriculture–energy market integration. A biofuels mandate increases price sensitivity to climate change by more than 50%. Recent price spikes1,2 have raised concern that climate change could increase food insecurity by reducing grain yields in the coming decades3,4. However, commodity price volatility is also influenced by other factors5,6, which may either exacerbate or buffer the effects of climate change. Here we show that US corn price volatility exhibits higher sensitivity to near-term climate change than to energy policy influences or agriculture–energy market integration, and that the presence of a biofuels mandate enhances the sensitivity to climate change by more than 50%. The climate change impact is driven primarily by intensification of severe hot conditions in the primary corn-growing region of the United States, which causes US corn price volatility to increase sharply in response to global warming projected to occur over the next three decades. Closer integration of agriculture and energy markets moderates the effects of climate change, unless the biofuels mandate becomes binding, in which case corn price volatility is instead exacerbated. However, in spite of the substantial impact on US corn price volatility, we find relatively small impact on food prices. Our findings highlight the critical importance of interactions between energy policies, energy–agriculture linkages and climate change.
Management of Right Colon Diverticulitis

Purpose: There are still many controversial aspects in the management of right colon diverticulitis. The aim of this study is to find an appropriate treatment for right colon diverticulitis. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 88 patients who were admitted with right colon diverticulitis to Wallace Memorial Baptist Hospital from January 2001 to December 2007. Results: The patients enrolled in this study included 52 men and 36 women. The mean age was 39.6 yr, ranging from 13 to 84 yr. Fifty-four of 88 patients underwent conservative treatment for right colon diverticulitis, and 34 of 88 patients underwent operative treatment. There were 5 cases of recurrence in the conservative treatment group, but there were no cases of recurrence in the operative treatment group. We experienced 43 cases with right colon diverticulitis at the operational fields, including 9 cases that underwent conservative treatment after an appendectomy: eleven cases that underwent conservative treatment after an appendectomy or an appendectomy with diverticulectomy, 19 cases that underwent an ileocecectomy, and 13 cases that underwent a right hemicolectomy. There were no statistically significant difference in complications among 3 groups (P=0.148). However, there were statistical differences among the 3 groups in the length of hospital stay (P=0.016), and the use of intravenous antibiotics (P<0.001), and the use of oral antibiotics (P=0.019). Conclusion: When the preoperative diagnosis is exact, uncomplicated right colon diverticulitis can be managed by conservative treatment. On the other hand, an ileocecectomy or a right hemicolectomy is the proper treatment for complicated right colon diverticulitis. However, if uncomplicated right colon diverticulitis is diagnosed intraoperatively, conservative treatment or a diverticulectomy should be considered.
Low Temperature Double-Exposed Polyimide/Oxide Dielectric for VLSI Multilevel Metal Interconnection

By use of a double-exposed (double-etch) low temperature polyimide/oxide process, the packing density for both first and second level metal interconnection can be improved by some 35 percent and 30 percent, respectively, in the vicinity Of the via. Moreover, the complete interconnect process may be realized at temperatures below 300°C. Since polyimide can be applied in thick layers having negligible (tensile) stress, a planar surface results and also parasitic lead capacitances may be considerably reduced. This process is also amenable to either wet chemical or dry plasma processing.
Determination of refractive indices of porcine skin tissues and intralipid at eight wavelengths between 325 and 1557 nm.

We constructed an automated reflectometry system for accurate measurement of coherent reflectance curves of turbid samples and analyzed the presence of coherent and diffuse reflection near the specular reflection angle. An existing method has been validated to determine the complex refractive indices of turbid samples on the basis of nonlinear regression of the coherent reflectance curves by Fresnel’s equations. The complex refractive indices of fresh porcine skin epidermis and dermis tissues and Intralipid solutions were determined at eight wavelengths: 325, 442, 532, 633, 850, 1064, 1310, and 1557 nm.