cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Juvenile hormone esterase activity in the plasma and body tissue during the larval and adult stages of the house cricket

Abstract Superimposed peaks of juvenile hormone esterase (JHE) on electrofocusing gels indicate that the same JHE occurs in the tissues and plasma of both last instar larvae and adults of Acheta domesticus. Electrofocusing resolved two peaks of JHE activity, pI 5.0 and 4.5. The apparent K m of the plasma JHE was 1.1 × 10 −7 M. Acheta JHE hydrolyzed racemic JH III twice as fast as racemic JH I, which is consistent with previously published evidence that the endogenous JH homolog will be the homolog most quickly hydrolyzed. JHE was essentially lacking in both tissues and plasma of the penultimate instar larvae. There was a single mid-instar peak of both plasma (16 nmol/min-ml) and tissue JHE activity during the last instar. A second prepupal JHE peak (characteristic of Lepidoptera) was lacking in Acheta, possibly because orthopterans lack a pupal stage. The distinct differences in the developmental activity patterns for alpha-naphthyl acetate esterase (ANAE) and JHE in Acheta emphasized that JH hydrolysis is not likely to be the result of carboxyl esterases. We confirmed the JH dependent degeneration of the dorsal longitudinal flight muscles [Bocharova-Messner et al. (1970) Ontogenez1, 209–212; Bocharova-Messner et al. (1974) Ontogenez5, 130–138], which indicates a peak of JH on day 3 following adult emergence. Plasma JHE decreased from 5.5 nmol/min-ml on the day of emergence to 3.2 on day 3 and remained low in mated females that were permitted to oviposit. When eggs were caused to accumulate in the females so that vitellogenesis-oogenesis was supressed, as consistently happened in virgins > 14 days old or in mated females not afforded oviposition sites, the plasma JHE level increased to 8.8 nmol/min-ml. Within 24 hr of ovipositing, oogenesis restarted and the JHE activity was halved. The evidence indicated that JHE activity is correlated with a reduction in the JH titer.
A study of the behaviour of semi‐Lagrangian models in the presence of orography

Orography is incorporated into two global shallow-water numerical models, the first (which is termed the (u, u) model) based on a semi-Lagrangian vector discretization of the momentum equation, the second (which is termed the PV–D model) based on the semi-Lagrangian advection of potential vorticity. Both models are two-time-level and use the finite-difference approach. Linear analyses of both models are performed for the idealized situation of stationary flow over orography on an f-plane. In extension of the analysis of Rivest et al. the effects of spatial discretization are included. Spurious orographic resonance in the sense of infinite amplitude is eliminated by the damping effects of spatial interpolation, but spurious enhanced responses in the neighbourhood of the points at which resonance previously occurred still remain. The linear analyses indicate similar spurious enhanced responses for both models, which is confirmed by the numerical experiments. The spurious orographic noise in both models can be eliminated by a sufficient amount of uncentring, though it is shown that uncentring of either first order or second order can have negative impacts on the large-scale Rossby waves. The PV–D model formulation, however, allows the use of a scheme in which only the divergence and continuity equations are uncentred, which minimizes such negative impacts.
Curcumin modulates the self-assembly of the islet amyloid polypeptide by disassembling α-helix

Abstract Understanding how small molecules affect amyloid formation is of major biomedical and pharmaceutical importance due to the association of amyloid with incurable diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and type II diabetes. Using solution state 1H NMR, we demonstrate that curcumin, a planar biphenolic compound found in the Indian spice turmeric, delays the self-assembly of islet amyloid polypeptide to NMR-invisible assemblies. Accompanying circular dichroism studies show that curcumin disassembles α-helix in maturing assemblies of IAPP. The amount of α-helix disassembled correlates with predicted and experimentally determined helical content of IAPP obtained by others. Taken together, these results indicate that curcumin modulates IAPP self-assembly by unfolding α-helix on pathway to amyloid. The implications of this work in the elucidation of the mechanism for amyloid formation by IAPP in the presence of curcumin are discussed.
Thucydides and the Plague in Athens: The Roots of Scientific Writing

Commentary: When “Thucydides and the Plague in Athens: The Roots of Scientific Writing” was written in 1988, genre analysis was an emerging area for scholarship. Thucydides' Historiae, which includ...
Clinical evaluation of PACS: a transcript of Session 8

This session really had its genesis sometime ago when Ed Staab and I had a discussion about the problems of evaluating a PACS. A lot of what we had seen had related to technical evaluation or observer performance studies, and we think those studies are extremely important, but it looked like a lot of the radiology community was interested in going beyond those and looking at PACS as a whole and how it might impact patient care With that thought in mind we began planning the session. We saw a really excellent study by David Gur and his colleagues yesterday on some of the observer performance issues, perhaps the ultimate expression of observer performance studies in terms of evaluating film or digitized film versus CRT displays. As I said, our goal in putting this session together was to try to get some additional insight into clinical evaluation beyond the methodology used for observer performance studies. And perhaps looking at some long range issues that could potentially affect the clinical evaluation of PACS. In that regard I invited, and was happy to receive acceptances from, three speakers. There will be three papers in this session. Unfortunately the last one did not get printed. Harold Kundel and Constantine Gatsonis have their subject titles listed. The third speaker will be David Beard from the University of North Carolina who will be talking about "Is a Work Station as Good as Film?" I think you are in for a very interesting, and I hope thought-provoking session. With that, I would like to introduce Harold Kundel, a radiologist and Professor of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania, who will speak about the impact of PACS on patient care, efficacy, and outcome studies.
Proteomic adaptations to starvation prepare Escherichia coli for disinfection tolerance

Despite the low nutrient level and constant presence of secondary disinfectants, bacterial re-growth still occurs in drinking water distribution systems. The molecular mechanisms that starved bacteria use to survive low-level chlorine-based disinfectants are not well understood. The objective of this study is to investigate these molecular mechanisms at the protein level that prepare starved cells for disinfection tolerance. Two commonly used secondary disinfectants chlorine and monochloramine, both at 1 mg/L, were used in this study. The proteomes of normal and starved Escherichia coli (K12 MG1655) cells were studied using quantitative proteomics. Over 60-min disinfection, starved cells showed significantly higher disinfection tolerance than normal cells based on the inactivation curves for both chlorine and monochloramine. Proteomic analyses suggest that starvation may prepare cells for the oxidative stress that chlorine-based disinfection will cause by affecting glutathione metabolism. In addition, proteins involved in stress regulation and stress responses were among the ones up-regulated under both starvation and chlorine/monochloramine disinfection. By comparing the fold changes under different conditions, it is suggested that starvation prepares E. coli for disinfection tolerance by increasing the expression of enzymes that can help cells survive chlorine/monochloramine disinfection. Protein co-expression analyses show that proteins in glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway that were up-regulated under starvation are also involved in disinfection tolerance. Finally, the production and detoxification of methylglyoxal may be involved in the chlorine-based disinfection and cell defense mechanisms.
The CME-productivity associated with flares from two active regions

Abstract We report on two flare-productive adjacent active regions (ARs), with different levels of coronal mass ejection (CME) association. AR 10039 and AR 10044 produced strong X-ray flares during their disk passages. We examined the CME association rate of X-ray flares and found it to be different between the two ARs. AR 10039 was CME-rich with 72% association with flares, while AR 10044 was CME-poor with an association rate of only 14%. CMEs from the CME-rich AR were faster and wider than the ones from the CME-poor AR. The flare activity of AR 10044 was temporally concentrated over a short interval and spatially localized over a compact area between the major sun spots. We suggest that different pre-eruption evolution and magnetic configuration in the two regions might have contributed to the difference between the two ARs.
TRANSLATION PLANES IN WHICH THE STABILIZER OF EVERY LINE IS DOUBLY TRANSITIVE

Ltineburg [12] recently investigated affine planes having a collineation group G with the property that the stabilizer of every affine line I is doubly transitive on L He shows that all such planes are translation planes and that G contains the group of translations. (This was proven independently in [10].) Such planes are generalizations of rank 3 affine planes which have been investigated by several authors. (See [11], p. 121.) In this article we will investigate the question of which translation planes ~ satisfy Liineburg's hypothesis. We restrict our attention to planes having odd dimension d over their kernel GF(q), q=p" with p an odd prime. Our results are generalizations of the known results for rank 3 affine planes. The ideas of the proofs are as follows: For an affine point 0 the group 6= Go has the property that for every component l ofzr (i.e., line through ~0) Gz is transitive on the points of l different than 0. Thus G~ induces a transitive group of semi-linear transformations on l considered as a vector space over the kernel of the plane. Applying results of Hering [5, 6] we can show that a Sylow u-subgroup of Gt, u a prime p-primitive divisor of qd_ 1, is normal in Gt. (It is here that we need the assumption concerning d and q. Most of our results, however, are still true if p=2 and we point out when this is so.) The main results are: (1) If G induces a regular permutation group on one of its orbits on the line Iv, then the only possible translation planes are semifield planes, generalized Andr6 planes, and Desarguesian planes. Moreover, in the case of the semi-field planes they must be rank 3 planes. (Theorems 2, 3, 4 and Corollary 4.1.) (2) If p> 5 and r is odd, then either ~ is a semifield plane, a generalized Andr6 plane, or r~ has an invariant Desarguesian decomposition. For many values ofp and r in the last case, ~ is either Desarguesian or a rank 3 plane. (Corollary 5.1 and the Remark following.)
COMPARISON OF TIME‐INTENSITY WITH CATEGORY SCALING OF BITTERNESS OF ISO‐α‐ACIDS IN MODEL SYSTEMS AND IN BEER*

A 17-point non-numerical category scale indicated a direct, linear relationship between average perceived bitterness and concentration of iso-α-acids in water and in a commercial lager. Time-intensity (T-I) tracings yielded additional information: the rate of increase in bitterness after taking the sample into the mouth; the rate of decrease after reaching maximum intensity; the events associated with swallowing; and total duration, which ranged from 13 to 42 s across judges. The T-I curves revealed a burst of bitterness intensity immediately after swallowing, which was proportional to the concentration of iso-α-acids for water solutions, but not for beer. Addition of 2.6% ethyl alcohol to the lager enhanced bitterness, particularly at low levels of added iso-α-acids, whereas addition of 2.0% glucose reduced bitterness in the control as well as in beer with added iso-α-acids. In water, 20 and 30 ppm of iso-α-acids were more bitter and had a longer duration than in beer. Among judges there were marked differences in the patterns of the T-I tracings, but there was excellent reproducibility within judges across replications.
A Keratolytic Gel Containing Salicylic Acid in Propylene Glycol

Mixtures of propylene glycol and water have been shown to be effective in several types of ichthyosis. A new formulation has been developed which contains a gelling agent, propylene glycol, ethanol, and salicylic acid in distilled water. This gel has been shown to be very effective in removal of thickened stratum corneum in a variety of disorders associated with hyperkeratosis.
Toy-playing behavior, sex-role orientation, spatial ability, and science achievement

The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the possible relationships among children's extracurricular toy-playing habits, sex-role orientations, spatial abilities, and science achievement. Data were gathered from 282 midwestern, suburban, fifth-grade students. It was found that boys had significantly higher spatial skills than girls. No significant differences in spatial ability were found among students with different sex-role orientations. No significant differences in science achievement were found between girls and boys, or among students with the four different sex-role orientations. Students who had high spatial ability also had significantly higher science achievement scores than students with low spatial ability. Femininely oriented boys who reported low playing in the two-dimensional, gross-body-movement, and proportional-arrangement toy categories scored significantly higher on the test of science achievement than girls with the same sex-role and toy-playing behavior.
AUTOMATIC 3D SEGMENTATION OF THE LIVER FROM ABDOMINAL CT IMAGES: A LEVEL-SET APPROACH

Computer-aided surgery requires the accurate registration of tomographic pre-operative images with intra-operative surface points acquired with 3D spatial localizers. Surface-based registration of these tomographic images with the surface points does, in turn, require a precise and accurate surface representation of the structures to be registered. This paper presents a level set technique for the automatic segmentation of the liver in abdominal CT scans. The main difficulty with level set methods is the design of appropriate speed functions for particular applications. Here we propose a novel speed function that is designed to (1) stop the propagating front at organ boundaries with weak edges, and (2) incorporate a-priori information on the relative position of the liver and other structures. We show that the new speed function we have designed to stop the front a weak edges is superior to other approaches proposed in the literature both on simulated images and on CT images. Results obtained with our approach for the segmentation of the liver in several CT scans are compared to contours obtained manually.
Histochemical and ultrastructural features of the aorta of the slug (Limax maximus).

As a part of a continuing study of unusual molluscan tissues, the “chondroid” tissue (Hyman, '67) associated with the anterior and posterior aortae of the slug (Limax maximus) was examined by light and electron microscopy. Unlike the odontophoral tissue of this species (Curtis and Cowden, '77), the “chondroid” tissue comprising the adventitial layer of the aorta consists of large, glycogen-filled cells with characteristic arrays of pores in their plasma membranes resembling those of the “globular” cells (Rogers, '69; Fernandez, '71); “fibrocytes” (Nicaise et al., '66; Baleydier et al., '69; Nicaise, '73); “Blasenzellen” or “Leydig” cells (Wondrak, '69; Stang-Voss, '70; Buchholz et al., '71; Stang-Voss and Staubesand, '71; Wolburg-Buchholz, '72); or “pore” cells (Sminia, '72; Beltz, '77) of other mollusks. The anterior and posterior aortae are very similar in organization, except that the anterior aorta is larger in diameter; its wall is thinner; and it lacks calcification. Both the anterior and posterior aortae possess a loosely organized (incomplete) endothelial layer surrounded by two layers of innervated smooth muscle. The smooth muscle cells possess fibrous surface specializations resembling hemidesmosomes as well as large numbers of tubular or rounded vesicles in association with their plasma membranes. Blood cells (amoebocytes) containing large glycogen deposits and distinctive membrane-enclosed cytoplasmic inclusions can be found occasionally in the walls of the vessels.
Management of older adults with hypercholesterolaemia

Although the strength of total cholesterol levels as a relative risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD) declines with age, the prevalence of CHD increases dramatically with age. Data from cholesterol treatment trials, although sparse in older adults, suggest that dyslipidaemia treatment has the potential to prevent CHD. In particular, dyslipidaemia treatment appears to be most beneficial in older adults with a history of CHD or who have several other CHD risk factors. Dyslipidaemia screening should be selective in the elderly, reserved for those whose health status would be amenable to nutritional or pharmacological therapy, and in whom several CHD risk factors or a history of CHD are present. Since high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) levels retain their inverse association CHD in old age, cholesterol subfractions should be measured in persons being screened in order to adequately assess the severity of dyslipidaemia. Treatment decisions should be guided by the patient's dyslipidaemic class, which is determined by the cholesterol subfractions and serum triglycerides (TG). As in younger persons, nutritional therapy remains the first step in dyslipidaemia management in high risk, nondebilitated older adults. An array of cholesterol modifying medications are available which vary widely in treatment effects, adverse effects and cost. Extra care needs to be taken in prescribing these agents in older adults because of greater potential for adverse effects and interactions with other medications. The cost-effectiveness of pharmacological treatment decreases with age and increases with the severity of dyslipidaemia, a history of CHD, or the presence of multiple CHD risk factors. When comparing elderly to middle-aged adults, the relative cost-effectiveness of different cholesterol-lowering medications may be altered due to age-related changes in therapeutic efficacy and adverse effects.
Crack Initiation in Perforated Propellants under high strain rate impact conditions

The fracture behaviour of gun propellant grains during impact has been measured on a modified Hopkinson Bar which uses a projectile as the input bar. Evidence for the detection of initial minor crack formation in seven-perforated cylindrical specimens of single base, double base and triple base propellant is presented. Under compressive load (pressurization rates of 100 GPa/s-200 GPa/s), minor crack formation does not immediately result in large scale crack propagation or fragmentation of the specimens. The single base and triple base propellant are equally more resistant to crack initiation than the double base propellant when tested in either the end-on or side-on modes. Implications for munition survivability are discussed in terms of mechanical frictional effects caused during compressive loading of cracked propellant or compressive heating in propellant cracks during the ballistic cycle.
Structurally Distinct Modes of Recognition of the KIX Domain of CBP by Jun and CREB

Gene expression is coordinated in part by interactions between transcriptional activators and other transcription factors such as coactivators. The KIX domain of the coactivator and histone acetyltransferase CREB binding protein (CBP) binds numerous mammalian and viral transcriptional activators such as BRCA1, CREB, c-Jun, c-Myb, p53, papillomavirus E2, and HTLV-1 Tax. Formation of the CREB-CBP complex depends on phosphorylation of the KID region of CREB and involves induced folding of KID upon binding a hydrophobic groove of the KIX domain of CBP. Here we investigate the formation of the complex formed by human KIX and the N-terminal activation domain of human c-Jun. The c-Jun activation domain and KID do not share significant sequence similarity. Circular dichroism spectroscopy shows that the Jun N-terminal activation domain is intrinsically disordered in isolation and that KIX binding is independent of Jun phosphorylation. In contrast to the mode of binding exhibited by CREB, NMR chemical shift mapping indicates that the c-Jun activation domain binds to a distinctly different surface of KIX than used by CREB. Moreover, NMR and sedimentation equilibrium studies show that the activation domains of c-Jun and CREB can simultaneously bind the KIX domain of CBP. The results illustrate a new mode of binding and combinatorial recruitment via the KIX domain of CBP by multiple transcriptional activators.
A ras-like protein is required for a post-Golgi event in yeast secretion

Secretion is blocked at the post-Golgi stage within 5 min of a shift of sec4-8 cells from 25 degrees C to 37 degrees C. Analysis of SEC4 predicts a protein product of 23.5 kd molecular weight that shares 32% homology with ras proteins and is essential for growth. The regions of best homology are those involved in the binding and hydrolysis of GTP. Duplication of SEC4 suppresses post-Golgi-blocked mutations in three sec genes. These mutations are lethal when combined with sec4-8 at 25 degrees C. Mutations that block elsewhere on the pathway are not suppressed by the SEC4 duplication and are not lethal when combined with sec4-8. We propose that the SEC4 product is a GTP-binding protein that plays an essential role in controlling a late stage of the secretory pathway.
Synthesis of novel nanostructured γ-Al2O3 by pyrolysis of aluminiumoxyhydride–HAlO

Thermolysis of amorphous nanosized aluminiumoxyhydride, HAlO, at 450 °C led to its decomposition into amorphous Al2O3, finely divided aluminium metal, and H2 gas. Thermolysis at 800–1100 °C afforded γ-Al2O3 nanorods consisting of aggregated nanocrystallites. The size of the nanorods varied between diameters of 30–300 nm and lengths of up to several µm leading to aspect ratios of 3–30. The onset of crystallization was at approximately 800 °C. Yields of up to 40% were obtained by thermolysis at 1100 °C for 6 h. Lower temperatures resulted in lower nanorod yield. The presence of aluminium metal appears to be crucial since no nanorod formation took place in the absence of it. The products were characterized by FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).
The early implementation of failure modes into existing component model libraries

This research addresses a need in systems engineering to verify that a system can meet performance requirements; this is done by integrating failure behavior into the system’s nominal model during the initial stages of design. In general, failure behavior is not used in early assessments, lending toward increased uncertainty in the model’s validity. Current libraries do not model failures and thus cannot confidently address how a design will function in the intended operational environments. Since failures occur from effects on the environment, they should be included during verification and validation efforts. Current approaches capture off-nominal behavior using parameter variation where flow variables and parameters are varied to measure the system-level effect. This approach is ad hoc and does not accurately capture failure mode behavior. To address this limitation, an approach is developed to understand and implement failure mode behavior into nominal models. The Modelica Standard Library (MSL) is used as an example for the component library of nominal models. MSL has a significant amount of basic nominal component behavior and therefore is desirable for this research. Two approaches are developed to implement failure mode behavior; the first uses transfer function and use case graphs, and the second uses existing literature. In addition, complex systems often have a large number of components and an even larger number of failure modes. Since the goal is to limit the development time, we generate an approach to identify high-risk failure modes. This captures an early system-level effect of each failure mode and uses an occurrence to calculate risk. To show the usefulness of each method, two examples are provided including a vehicle drivetrain subsystem with a variety of failures and a diesel engine with fuel injector and valve failures.
Peroral transgastric organ resection: a feasibility study in pigs.

Background The feasibility of peroral transgastric peritoneoscopy, liver biopsy, and tubal ligation has been demonstrated in prior animal studies. This approach has the potential to reduce postoperative morbidity. Objective To explore the technical challenges and complications of performing a transgastric organ resection. Design Two-week animal survival study. Interventions Five female Yorkshire pigs underwent peroral transgastric partial hysterectomy. With the animals under general anesthesia, a sterile esophageal overtube was placed and a gastric antibiotic lavage was performed. Subsequently, a needle-knife and through-the-scope dilating balloon were used to make an anterior gastric wall incision through which a therapeutic gastroscope was advanced into the peritoneal cavity. Endoscopes and instruments previously had been disinfected in a 2.4% glutaraldehyde bath or were disposable. An endoloop and polypectomy snare were used to resect a portion of the uterus, which was removed through the mouth. Gastric incision closure was attempted with endoclips. After 2 weeks of observation, necropsy was performed. Results Transgastric partial hysterectomy was performed on all 5 animals. One animal became lethargic and febrile, so necropsy was performed on day 4. An incompletely closed gastric incision and suppurative peritonitis were found. A second animal developed a fever; necropsy performed on day 14 revealed a gastric abscess at the incision site and scattered abdominal pus. No complications were encountered in the 3 remaining animals, and necropsy revealed well-healed gastric incisions and no evidence of peritonitis. Conclusion Endoscopic transgastric partial hysterectomy is technically feasible in a porcine model. Strict sterility seems mandatory but cannot always be assured. Incomplete closure of the gastric incision may lead to significant complications.
A low cost neutron capture prompt gamma-ray analysis facility at a research reactor

A low cost neutron capture prompt gamma activation analysis facility has been constructed at The University of Michigan's Pheonix Memorial Laboratory. Although the neutron beam used has a fairly large epithermal component (Cd ratio 7.1), background levels are low enough to result in satisfactory measurement of over 16 different elements. For the elements of greatest sensitivity (samarium, boron, gadolinium, and cadmium) minimum detectable levels of 3.6·10−5 to 1.4·10−5 gram for a one hour measurement are possible. The fast neutrons incident to the detector were found to be minimal. Estimates of up to 3 years of continuous operation before measurable damage is expected.
Nutrient Limitation to Nitrogen Fixation in Young Volcanic Sites

I used measures of 15N natural abundance and of nitrogenase activity (acetylene reduction) to examine whether the supply of non-N nutrients limits rates of N2 fixation on young volcanic substrates in Hawaii. Leaves of the dominant tree (Metrosideros polymorpha, a nonfixer) were strongly depleted in 15N in control plots (–10.8 to –11.10/00). More than 5 y of repeated fertilization with P increased δ15N to –8.9 to –9.90/00, and the addition of all other essential plant nutrients (except N) together with P further increased 15N to –8.1 to –9.30/00. This pattern is consistent with enhanced N2 fixation, because newly fixed N would have a δ15N near 00/00. Assays of nitrogenase activity in the experimental plots demonstrated that potential N fixation associated with nonvascular plants and with tree and fern litter were increased significantly by additions of P and by the combined nutrient treatment; when these were added together, the increase in nitrogenase activity was 6- to 11-fold over control plots. The supply of P and other weathering-derived nutrients constrains rates of N2 fixation in these young volcanic sites and thereby contributes to the maintenance of N limitation to primary production and other ecosystem processes.
Habitual Response to Stress in Recovering Adolescent Anorexic Patients

Objective Although previous research has investigated the stress response in acutely anorexic patients, there is currently little research addressing this response in recovering adolescent anorexic girls. Therefore, this study investigated partially and fully weight-restored anorexic adolescent girls’ psychological and physiological response to a standardized stressor. Methods We measured the heart rate and affect of 17 adolescent recovering anorexic patients and 40 healthy age-matched controls during two conditions of the Stress Induced Speech Task (SIST): Free Association and Stress Task. Recovering patients were either partially or fully weight-restored. Results Compared to the controls, the recovering anorexic girls reported greater overall habitual psychological distress and higher levels of negative affect during the standardized stressor. However, recovering patients did not show a muted heart rate response during the stressor. Neither recovering anorexics nor controls demonstrated a correspondence between heart rate and positive or negative affect. Discussion Although the physiological stress response of recovering adolescent anorexic patients was similar to controls, the psychological response of partially and fully weight-restored anorexic adolescents appears similar to that of acutely anorexic adolescents. Treatment implications are discussed in terms of the persistence of negative affect and treatment resistance.
Gifts to Physicians from the Pharmaceutical Industry: An Ethical Analysis

Gifts to physicians by the pharmaceutical industry pose numerous ethical questions. Although individual patients and physicians may benefit financially and educationally from certain gifts, the risk of bias resulting from such gifts makes them ethically challenging. After a brief description of the nature and scope of the practice of gift giving, this article examines major arguments for and against this practice. We then review the development of guidelines by professional societies, trade organizations, and government agencies. We conclude with a list of summary recommendations designed to help individual physicians, educators, and administrators engage in careful reflection and analysis and make sound ethical decisions about acceptance of gifts.
Two political worlds?: The influence of provincial party loyalty federal voting in Canada

Abstract Scholars have known for years that many Canadian voters hold different partisan loyalties at the federal and provincial level. In this paper, I address the question of whether provincial party loyalty has an effect on federal level vote choice above and beyond the effects of federal level party loyalty. I also examine whether provincial party loyalty is enough to explain the persistence of the ‘two-party-plus’ system in Canada. In order to address these questions I construct a series of multinomial logit models of federal vote choice in the 1993 and 2000 Canadian elections. I conclude that provincial party loyalty does have an effect on federal level vote choice, but that this influence is not enough to explain the persistence of the ‘two-party-plus’ system.
Public education and cancer of the skin. What do people need to know about melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer

Cutaneous melanoma (CM) and nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) have a high chance for cure if detected in an early phase of development. Patients who have these tumors may now be treated in the outpatient setting with a minimum of discomfort, inconvenience, and cost. Most skin cancer deaths are caused by CM. Until recently, CM incidence in the United States has been increasing faster than any other potentially lethal cancer, attributable at least in part to aggressive case detection and greater public awareness about the significance of risk factors and early warning signs of evolving tumors, resulting in increased numbers of curable tumors. Most CMs are discovered by patients or close acquaintances. Most CM deaths are related to patient delay in seeking medical care. Patient delay is attributed mostly to lack of knowledge rather than to fear and denial. In the United States, primary prevention of CM and NMSC has focused on encouraging sensible sun-exposure behaviors, while secondary prevention consists of a yearly national campaign that promotes skin awareness and self-examination and free examinations to detect evolving tumors, sponsored by the American Academy of Dermatology and the American Cancer Society. More attention is needed to encourage timely consultation for evolving tumors and predisposing risk factors and to focus screening and surveillance efforts on those people at greatest risk. Public education must continue to promote personal responsibility in the intervention process to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with CM and NMSC
Next generation hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray optic design and implementation

We discuss necessary improvements and further studies relevant to the design and eventual implementation of an accurately modeled multilayer coated X-ray optic operating in the hard X-ray/soft gamma-ray regime. The process improvements are substantiated through lessons learnt from NuSTAR.
Neural processing of auditory signals in the time domain: delay-tuned coincidence detectors in the mustached bat.

Abstract The central auditory system produces combination-sensitive neurons tuned to a specific combination of multiple signal elements. Some of these neurons act as coincidence detectors with delay lines for the extraction of spectro-temporal information from sounds. “Delay-tuned” neurons of mustached bats are tuned to a combination of up to four signal elements with a specific delay between them and form a delay map. They are produced in the inferior colliculus by the coincidence of the rebound response following glycinergic inhibition to the first harmonic of a biosonar pulse with the short-latency response to the 2nd–4th harmonics of its echo. Compared with collicular delay-tuned neurons, thalamic and cortical ones respond more to pulse-echo pairs than individual sounds. Cortical delay-tuned neurons are clustered in the three separate areas. They interact with each other through a circuit mediating positive feedback and lateral inhibition for adjustment and improvement of the delay tuning of cortical and subcortical neurons. The current article reviews the mechanisms for delay tuning and the response properties of collicular, thalamic and cortical delay-tuned neurons in relation to hierarchical signal processing.
Polynomial Learnability and Locality of Formal Grammars

We apply a complexity theoretic notion of feasible learnability called "polynomial learnability" to the evaluation of grammatical formalisms for linguistic description. We show that a novel, nontrivial constraint on the degree of "locality" of grammars allows not only context free languages but also a rich class of mildy context sensitive languages to be polynomially learnable. We discuss possible implications of this result to the theory of natural language acquisition.
Controlling digital signature services using a smartcard

Abstract In this paper a number of requirements for the corporate user of digital signature technology have been identified. These appeared at first sight to be demanding security controls and usability requirements over and above those assumed of normal signature systems. However, once the requirements were fully analyzed, an approach was described which not only met the additional requirements, but did so while at the same time reducing the likely implementation cost, by reducing the burden placed on the smartcard, and increasing the effective performance be delegating signature processing to a shared server. This approach appears therefore to be unique in raising levels of security, usability and performance while at the same time reducing potential implementation costs and adhering to external standards. It should therefore be of extreme interest to all corporate users who wish to enter the world of electronic commerce backed by digital signature and non-repudiation.
Teacher Retention: Teacher Characteristics, School Characteristics, Organizational Characteristics, and Teacher Efficacy.

ABSTRACT The researcher utilized block-entry regression analysis to determine the impacts of teacher characteristics, school characteristics, organizational characteristics, and teacher efficacy on retention in teaching from 782 teacher surveys. Findings indicated that 83.50% of participants planned to teach until retirement. Wald statistics indicated that years teaching experience, socioeconomic status (SES), salary and workload, parent and student, and technology all made statistically significant contributions to the model. Contrary to existing literature, the findings indicated that teachers in the lowest SES schools were more likely to continue teaching until retirement than teachers in the highest SES schools. The data seemed to indicate that schools in this study interested in increasing teacher retention rates should consider increasing salaries, reducing their workloads, and strive to improve parent and student participation and cooperation levels.
Two-dimensional analysis of ion-implanted, bipolar-compatible, long- and short-channel junction field-effect transistors

A two-dimensional analysis of ion-implanted, bipolar-compatible, long- and short-channel JFETs is presented. The two-dimensional device simulator PISCES is used to study the steady-state characteristics. The linear and saturation regions are analyzed, and insight about the transition region between them is obtained. Short-channel JFET behavior deviates considerably from the conventional theory developed based on the gradual channel approximation, because the x-direction electric field in the channel of the short-channel JFET is much stronger than that in the long-channel JFET. The study shows that the short-channel JFET has several properties that were not previously emphasized: (a) no pinch-off in saturation operation: (b) free-carrier drift velocity saturates in saturation operation: and (c) power-law I-V characteristics in the cutoff region. Details regarding the shape of the conducting channel, the electric field vectors, the current vectors, and the current-voltage characteristics are provided. >
A distributed vertex-centric approach for pattern matching in massive graphs

Graph pattern matching is fundamentally important to many applications such as analyzing hyper-links in the World Wide Web, mining associations in online social networks, and substructure search in biochemistry. Most existing graph pattern matching algorithms are highly computation intensive, and do not scale to extremely large graphs that characterize many emerging applications. In recent years, graph processing frameworks such as Pregel have sought to harness shared nothing clusters for processing massive graphs through a vertex-centric, Bulk Synchronous Parallel (BSP) programming model. However, developing scalable and efficient BSP-based algorithms for pattern matching is very challenging because this problem does not naturally align with a vertex-centric programming paradigm. This paper presents novel distributed algorithms based on the vertex-centric programming paradigm for a set of pattern matching models, namely, graph simulation, dual simulation and strong simulation. Our algorithms are fine-tuned to consider the challenges of pattern matching on massive data graphs. Furthermore, we introduce a new pattern matching model, called strict simulation, which outperforms strong simulation in terms of scalability while preserving its important properties. We investigate potential performance bottlenecks and propose several techniques to mitigate them. This paper also presents an extensive set of experiments involving massive graphs (millions of vertices and billions of edges) to study the effects of various parameters on the scalability and performance of the proposed algorithms. The results demonstrate that our techniques are highly effective in alleviating performance bottlenecks and yield significant scalability benefits.
Bilingual health literacy assessment using the Talking Touchscreen/la Pantalla Parlanchina: Development and pilot testing

Abstract Objective Current health literacy measures are too long, imprecise, or have questionable equivalence of English and Spanish versions. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and pilot testing of a new bilingual computer-based health literacy assessment tool. Methods We analyzed literacy data from three large studies. Using a working definition of health literacy, we developed new prose, document and quantitative items in English and Spanish. Items were pilot tested on 97 English- and 134 Spanish-speaking participants to assess item difficulty. Results Items covered topics relevant to primary care patients and providers. English- and Spanish-speaking participants understood the tasks involved in answering each type of question. The English Talking Touchscreen was easy to use and the English and Spanish items provided good coverage of the difficulty continuum. Conclusion Qualitative and quantitative results provided useful information on computer acceptability and initial item difficulty. After the items have been administered on the Talking Touchscreen (la Pantalla Parlanchina) to 600 English-speaking (and 600 Spanish-speaking) primary care patients, we will develop a computer adaptive test. Practice implications This health literacy tool will enable clinicians and researchers to more precisely determine the level at which low health literacy adversely affects health and healthcare utilization.
Rapid localization of point mutations in PCR products by chemical (HOT) modification.

The studies of mutational mechanisms in mammalian cells use the AS52 Chinese hamster ovary cell line. Mutant gpt sequences are amplified using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to distinguish deletions from putative point mutations. PCR is efficiently performed from a few thousand lysed cells or from isolated genomic DNA. Amplified mutant PCR fragments carrying putative point mutations are further characterized by localizing the site of the mutation using chemical modification. A heteroduplex molecule consisting of one wild-type and one mutant DNA strand is generated. A base mismatch will be produced at the site of the mutation. Mismatched cytosine or thymine residues are sensitive to modification by hydroxylamine or osmium tetroxide, respectively. The modified DNA heteroduplex is then sensitive to piperidine cleavage. If one strand is {sup 32}P-end labeled, then the cleavage product can be separated on a denaturing acrylamide sequencing gel and visualized using autoradiography. Thus, the site of a mutation can be localized to a specific region of the gene, thereby simplifying the DNA sequence analysis and facilitating the rapid generation of mutational sequence spectra.
RNA Interference in Protozoan Parasites: Achievements and Challenges

Protozoan parasites that profoundly affect mankind represent an exceptionally diverse group of organisms, including Plasmodium, Toxoplasma, Entamoeba, Giardia, trypanosomes, and Leishmania. Despite the overwhelming impact of these parasites, there remain many aspects to be discovered about mechanisms of pathogenesis and how these organisms survive in the host. Combined with the ever-increasing availability of sequenced genomes, RNA interference (RNAi), discovered a mere 13 years ago, has enormously facilitated the analysis of gene function, especially in organisms that are not amenable to classical genetic approaches. Here we review the current status of RNAi in studies of parasitic protozoa, with special emphasis on its use as a postgenomic tool.
Transmission of light through slit apertures in metallic films

Transmission of polarized light through sub-wavelength slit apertures is studied based on the electromagnetic field distributions obtained in computer simulations. The results show the existence of a cutoff for E|| and a strong transmission (with no cutoff) for E?; here || and ? refer to the direction of the incident E-field relative to the long axis of the slit. These observations are explained by the standard waveguide theory involving inhomogeneous plane waves that bounce back and forth between the interior walls of the slit aperture. We examine the roles played by the slit-width, by the film thickness, and by the real and imaginary parts of the host material's dielectric constant in determining the transmission efficiency. We also show that the slit's sharp edges can be rounded to eliminate highly-localized electric dipoles without significantly affecting the slit's throughput. Finally, interference among the surface charges and currents induced in the vicinity of two adjacent slits is shown to result in enhanced transmission through both slits when the slits are separated by about one half of one wavelength.
The Validity of Self-Reported Drug Use in Non-Treatment Seeking Individuals with Cocaine Dependence: Correlation with Biochemical Assays

Accurate estimate of drug exposure plays an important role in studies of the neurobiology of drug dependence. The validity of self-reported drug use by subjects participating in such studies has not been well established. This study examined the relationship between self-reported drug use and biological markers in 18 non-treatment-seeking cocaine-dependent individuals participating in research on the effects of cocaine on the brain. A significant relationship was found between self-reported frequency of cocaine use and hair cocaine concentration. Frequency of alcohol use correlated significantly with plasma carbohydrate-deficient transferrin and aspartate aminotransferase levels. These results suggest that self-reported substance use in non-treatment seeking research subjects is generally valid.