cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Sex-Specific Cross Tissue Meta-Analysis Identifies Immune Dysregulation in Women With Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder and the most common cause of dementia in the United States. In spite of evidence of females having a greater lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and greater apolipoprotein E4-related (APOE e4) AD risk compared to males, molecular signatures underlying these differences remain elusive. Methods: We took a meta-analysis approach to study gene expression in the brains of 1,084 AD patients and age-matched controls and whole blood from 645 AD patients and age-matched controls in seven independent datasets. Sex-specific gene expression patterns were investigated through use of gene-based, pathway-based and network-based approaches. The ability of a sex-specific AD gene expression signature to distinguish Alzheimer's disease from healthy controls was assessed using a linear support vector machine model. Cell type deconvolution from whole blood gene expression data was performed to identify differentially regulated cells in males and females with AD. Results: Strikingly gene-expression, network-based analysis and cell type deconvolution approaches revealed a consistent immune signature in the brain and blood of female AD patients that was absent in males. In females, network-based analysis revealed a coordinated program of gene expression involving several zinc finger nuclease genes related to Herpes simplex viral infection whose expression was modulated by the presence of the APOE e4 allele. Interestingly, this gene expression program was missing in the brains of male AD patients. Cell type deconvolution identified an increase in neutrophils and naive B cells and a decrease in M2 macrophages, memory B cells, and CD8+ T cells in AD samples compared to controls in females. Interestingly, among males with AD, no significant differences in immune cell proportions compared to controls were observed. Machine learning-based classification of AD using gene expression from whole blood in addition to clinical features produced an improvement in classification accuracy upon stratifying by sex, achieving an AUROC of 0.91 for females and 0.80 for males. Conclusion: These results help identify sex and APOE e4 genotype-specific transcriptomic signatures of AD and underscore the importance of considering sex in the development of biomarkers and therapeutic strategies for AD.
Alignment of Tractography Streamlines Using Deformation Transfer via Parallel Transport

We present a geometric framework for aligning white matter fiber tracts. By registering fiber tracts between brains, one expects to see overlap of anatomical structures that often provide meaningful comparisons across subjects. However, the geometry of white matter tracts is highly heterogeneous, and finding direct tract-correspondence across multiple individuals remains a challenging problem. We present a novel deformation metric between tracts that allows one to compare tracts while simultaneously obtaining a registration. To accomplish this, fiber tracts are represented by an intrinsic mean along with the deformation fields represented by tangent vectors from the mean. In this setting, one can determine a parallel transport between tracts and then register corresponding tangent vectors. We present the results of bundle alignment on a population of 43 healthy adult subjects.
Impedance Eduction in Sound Fields with Peripherally Varying Liners and Flow

A two-dimensional impedance eduction theory is extended to three-dimensional sound fields and peripherally varying duct liners. The approach is to first measure the acoustic pressure field at a series of flush-mounted wall microphones located around the periphery of the flow duct. The numerical solution for the acoustic pressure field at these microphones is also obtained by solving the three-dimensional convected Helmholtz equation using the finite element method. A quadratic objective function based on the difference between the measured and finite element solution is constructed and the unknown impedance function is obtained by minimizing this objective function. Impedance spectra educed for two uniform-structure liners (a wire-mesh and a conventional liner) and a hard-soft-hard peripherally varying liner (for which the soft segment is that of the conventional liner) are presented. Results are presented at three mean flow Mach numbers and fourteen sound source frequencies. The impedance spectra of the uniform-structure liners are also computed using a two-dimensional impedance eduction theory. The primary conclusions of the study are: 1) when measured data is used with the uniform-structure liners, the three-dimensional theory reproduces the same impedance spectra as the two-dimensional theory except for frequencies corresponding to very low or very high liner attenuation; and 2) good agreement between the educed impedance spectra of the uniform structure conventional liner and the soft segment of the peripherally varying liner is obtained.
Acoustic Liner Drag: A Parametric Study of Conventional Configurations

Interest in the characterization of the aerodynamic drag performance of acoustic liners has increased in the past several years. This paper details experiments in NASA Langley's Grazing Flow Impedance Tube to quantify the relative drag of several conventional perforate-over-honeycomb liner configurations. For a fixed porosity, facesheet hole diameter and cavity depth are varied to study the effect of each. These configurations are selected to span the range of conventional liner geometries used in commercial aircraft engines. Detailed static pressure and acoustic measurements are made for grazing flows up to M=0.5 at 140 dB SPL for tones between 400 and 2800 Hz. These measurements are used to calculate a resistance factor (λ) for each configuration. Analysis shows a correlation between perforate hole size and the resistance factor but cavity depth seems to have little influence. Acoustic effects on liner drag are observed to be limited to the lower Mach numbers included in this investigation.
Ab initio simulations on the pure Cr lattice stability at 0K: Verification with the Fe-Cr and Ni-Cr binary systems

Abstract Significant discrepancies have been observed and discussed on the lattice stability of Cr between the predictions from the ab initio calculations and the CALPHAD approach. In the current work, we carefully examined the possible structures for pure Cr and reviewed the history back from how Kaufman originally determined the Gibbs energy of FCC-Cr in the 1970s. The reliability of Cr lattice stability derived by the CALPHAD and ab initio approaches was systematically discussed. It is concluded that the Cr lattice stability based on the CALPHAD approach has large uncertainty. Meanwhile, we cannot claim that the ab initio HFCC-Cr is error-free as FCC-Cr is an unstable phase under ambient conditions. The present work shows that the ab initio HFCC-Cr can be a viable scientific approach. As both approaches have their limitations, the present work propose to integrate the ab initio results into the CALPHAD platform for the development of the next generation CALPHAD database. The Fe-Cr and Ni-Cr binary systems were chosen as two case studies demonstrating the capability to adopt the ab initio Cr lattice stability directly into the current CALPHAD database framework.
Cyberspace Back to the Classroom: Taking Lessons Learned from Teaching Street Law During the Pandemic Back to In-Person Instruction

In spring 2020, when schools around the world were compelled to close their physical doors, educators, administrators and students were forced to re-invent what it meant to teach and to learn. For fifty years, Street Law programs have been dedicated to hands-on, student centered, interactive teaching strategies. Law students, lawyers and teachers have devoted countless hours to creating fun, practical lessons designed to teach young people about practical law that affects their daily lives and also develop the skills they need to use their newly found legal knowledge to improve their lives and their communities. Remote learning upended all the best practices Street Law practitioners had spent half a century building. We had no choice but to adapt and so we did. Law students and Street Law professors re-imagined their programs. Some practitioners immediately converted their programs to distance learning. That fall, I wrote a practice report detailing the experiences of my law students teaching high school asynchronously in spring 2020 and synchronously during that summer and fall and asking whether it was possible to teach interactive Street Law lessons remotely. In that article, I included the best practices that we had developed for our programs in New York City. I wanted to know if practitioners in other parts of the United States and abroad were having similar experiences and results. This paper examines comprehensive reflections from eight law school-based Street Law programs teaching remotely during the pandemic. The reflections include which suggestions worked for them in practice and which ones did not. In addition, as we look to a return to in-person instruction in the fall of 2021, this paper will examine whether there is anything we have learned from emergency remote instruction that we may want to keep. Is it possible that some of our virtual teaching experiences will strengthen our return to the classroom?
Auditory hypersensitivity and processing deficits in a rat model of fragile X syndrome.

Abstract Fragile X (FX) syndrome is one of the leading inherited causes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A majority of FX and ASD patients exhibit sensory hypersensitivity, including auditory hypersensitivity or hyperacusis, a condition in which everyday sounds are perceived as much louder than normal. Auditory processing deficits in FX and ASD also afford the opportunity to develop objective and quantifiable outcome measures that are likely to translate between humans and animal models due to the well-conserved nature of the auditory system and well-developed behavioral read-outs of sound perception. Therefore, in this study we characterized auditory hypersensitivity in a Fmr1 knockout (KO) transgenic rat model of FX using an operant conditioning task to assess sound detection thresholds and suprathreshold auditory reaction time-intensity (RT-I) functions, a reliable psychoacoustic measure of loudness growth, at a variety of stimulus frequencies, bandwidths, and durations. Male Fmr1 KO and littermate WT rats both learned the task at the same rate and exhibited normal hearing thresholds. However, Fmr1 KO rats had faster auditory RTs over a broad range of intensities and steeper RT-I slopes than WT controls, perceptual evidence of excessive loudness growth in Fmr1 KO rats. Furthermore, we found that Fmr1 KO animals exhibited abnormal perceptual integration of sound duration and bandwidth, with diminished temporal but enhanced spectral integration of sound intensity. Because temporal and spectral integration of sound stimuli were altered in opposite directions in Fmr1 KO rats, this suggests that abnormal RTs in these animals are evidence of aberrant auditory processing rather than generalized hyperactivity or altered motor responses. Together, these results are indicative of fundamental changes to low-level auditory processing in Fmr1 KO animals. Finally, we demonstrated that antagonism of metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGlu5) selectively and dose-dependently restored normal loudness growth in Fmr1 KO rats, suggesting a pharmacologic approach for alleviating sensory hypersensitivity associated with FX. This study leverages the tractable nature of the auditory system and the unique behavioral advantages of rats to provide important insights into the nature of a centrally important yet understudied aspect of FX and ASD.
Accelerating complex modeling workflows in CyberWater using on-demand HPC/Cloud resources

Workflow management systems (WMSs) are commonly used to organize/automate sequences of tasks as workflows to accelerate scientific discoveries. During complex workflow modeling, a local interactive workflow environment is desirable, as users usually rely on their rich, local environments for fast prototyping and refinements before they consider using more powerful computing resources. However, existing WMSs do not simultaneously support local interactive workflow environments and HPC resources. In this paper, we present an on-demand access mechanism to remote HPC resources from desktop/laptop-based workflow management software to compose, monitor and analyze scientific workflows in the CyberWater project. Cyber-Water is an open-data and open-modeling software framework for environmental and water communities. In this work, we extend the open-model, open-data design of CyberWater with on-demand HPC accessing capacity. In particular, we design and implement the LaunchAgent library, which can be integrated into the local desktop environment to allow on-demand usage of remote resources for hydrology-related workflows. LaunchAgent manages authentication to remote resources, prepares the computationally-intensive or data-intensive tasks as batch jobs, submits jobs to remote resources, and monitors the quality of services for the users. LaunchAgent interacts seamlessly with other existing components in CyberWater, which is now able to provide advantages of both feature-rich desktop software experience and increased computation power through on-demand HPC/Cloud usage. In our evaluations, we demonstrate how a hydrology workflow that consists of both local and remote tasks can be constructed and show that the added on-demand HPC/Cloud usage helps speeding up hydrology workflows while allowing intuitive workflow configurations and execution using a desktop graphical user interface.
Compression, Transduction, and Creation: A Unified Framework for Evaluating Natural Language Generation

Natural language generation (NLG) spans a broad range of tasks, each of which serves for specific objectives and desires different properties of generated text. The complexity makes automatic evaluation of NLG particularly challenging. Previous work has typically focused on a single task and developed individual evaluation metrics based on specific intuitions. In this paper, we propose a unifying perspective based on the nature of information change in NLG tasks, including compression (e.g., summarization), transduction (e.g., text rewriting), and creation (e.g., dialog). _Information alignment_ between input, context, and output text plays a common central role in characterizing the generation. With automatic alignment prediction models, we develop a family of interpretable metrics that are suitable for evaluating key aspects of different NLG tasks, often without need of gold reference data. Experiments show the uniformly designed metrics achieve stronger or comparable correlations with human judgement compared to state-of-the-art metrics in each of diverse tasks, including text summarization, style transfer, and knowledge-grounded dialog.
Understanding the Origin of the Low Cure Shrinkage of Polybenzoxazine Resin by Computational Simulation

Thermoset resin-based composite materials are widely used in the aerospace industry, mainly due to their high stiffness-to-weight and strength-to-weight ratios. A major issue with the use of thermoset resins in fiber composites is the process-induced residual stresses that are formed from resin chemical shrinkage during the curing process. These residual stresses within the composite material ultimately result in reduced durability and residual deformations of the final product. Polybenzoxazine (PBZ) polymer resins have demonstrated near-zero volumetric shrinkage during the curing process. Although the low shrinkage of PBZ is promising in terms of reduced process-induced residual stresses, little is known about the physical causes. In this work, Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations are performed with a reactive force field to predict physical properties (gelation point, evolution of network, mass density, volumetric shrinkage) and mechanical properties (Bulk modulus, Shear modulus, Young's modulus, Poisson's ratio, Yield strength) as a function of crosslinking density. The MD modeling procedure is validated herein using experimental measurements of the modeled PBZ resin. The results of this study are used to provide a physical understanding of the zero-shrinkage phenomenon of PBZ. This information is also a critical input to future process modeling efforts for PBZ composites.
On the Holt–Klee property for oriented matroid programming

Abstract The Holt–Klee theorem says that the graph of a d -polytope, with edges oriented by a linear function on P that is not constant on any edge, admits d independent monotone paths from the source to the sink. We prove that the digraphs obtained from oriented matroid programs of rank d + 1 on n + 2 elements, which include those from d -polytopes with n facets, admit d independent monotone paths from source to sink if d ≤ 4 . This was previously only known to hold for d ≤ 3 and n ≤ 6 .
Scaling Vision with Sparse Mixture of Experts

Sparsely-gated Mixture of Experts networks (MoEs) have demonstrated excellent scalability in Natural Language Processing. In Computer Vision, however, almost all performant networks are "dense", that is, every input is processed by every parameter. We present a Vision MoE (V-MoE), a sparse version of the Vision Transformer, that is scalable and competitive with the largest dense networks. When applied to image recognition, V-MoE matches the performance of state-of-the-art networks, while requiring as little as half of the compute at inference time. Further, we propose an extension to the routing algorithm that can prioritize subsets of each input across the entire batch, leading to adaptive per-image compute. This allows V-MoE to trade-off performance and compute smoothly at test-time. Finally, we demonstrate the potential of V-MoE to scale vision models, and train a 15B parameter model that attains 90.35% on ImageNet.
Tissue fixation effects on human retinal lipid analysis by MALDI imaging and LC-MS/MS technologies

Imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) allows the location and abundance of lipids to be mapped across tissue sections of human retina. For reproducible and accurate information, sample preparation methods need to be optimized. Paraformaldehyde fixation of a delicate multilayer structure like human retina facilitates the preservation of tissue morphology by forming methylene bridge cross-links between formaldehyde and amine/ thiols in biomolecules; however, retina sections analyzed by IMS are typically fresh-frozen. To determine if clinically significant inferences could be reliably based on fixed tissue, we evaluated the effect of fixation on analyte detection, spatial localization, and introduction of artefactual signals. Hence, we assessed the molecular identity of lipids generated by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI-IMS) and liquid chromatography coupled tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) for fixed and fresh-frozen retina tissues in positive and negative ion modes. Based on MALDI-IMS analysis, more lipid signals were observed in fixed compared to fresh-frozen retina. More potassium adducts were observed in fresh-frozen tissues than fixed as the fixation process caused displacement of potassium adducts to protonated and sodiated species in ion positive ion mode. LC-MS/MS analysis revealed an overall decrease in lipid signals due to fixation that reduced glycerophospholipids and glycerolipids and conserved most sphingolipids and cholesteryl esters. The high quality and reproducible information from untargeted lipidomics analysis of fixed retina informs on all major lipid classes, similar to fresh-frozen retina, and serves as a steppingstone towards understanding of lipid alterations in retinal diseases.
An Adaptive Open Hypermedia System on the Web

A prototype of an open and adaptive hypertext learning environment on the Web is presented. The nodes of the hypertext system are sorted in clusters which are ordered on a map by a self organizing neural network. This map represents the Information Domain Model on which an overlay model of the learning goal and of the user knowledge is built up. The User Model is made up of a user knowledge model and a preference model that takes into account the user's attitude to approaching the information necessary to achieve the learning goal. The Information Domain Model allows users to add new documents to the system that are ordered by the neural network in the appropriate clusters. This maintains the consistency of the User Model and of the learning goal when the number of documents grows.
Seven Theses in Grudging Defense of the Exclusionary Rule

Much has been written about the rule that prevents the use of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure. The quantity of the literature, however, threatens to obscure important areas of emerging agreement. This paper, part of a symposium in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law to appear for the 100th anniversary of Weeks v. United States, presents seven theses. The first four enjoy widespread support, with considerable justification: 1) the exclusionary rule is not constitutionally required; 2) history does not resolve the propriety of the exclusionary rule; 3) the Fourth Amendment requires an effective deterrent to unreasonable search and seizure; and 4) the exclusionary rule offers some meaningful deterrence of unreasonable search and seizure because of the political costs of exclusion. Although the remaining theses are somewhat more controversial, the general acceptance of the first four and, in particular, the recognition that exclusionary imposes political rather than economic costs, I will contend, powerfully suggests the soundness of the final three: 5) exclusion of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment is not invariably required to preserve its deterrent efficacy; 6) exclusion is sometimes required to achieve constitutionally sufficient deterrence even in the absence of culpable misconduct; and 7) alternatives to exclusion are of uncertain efficacy because they rest on problematic theories of deterrence. Collectively, the seven theses amount to a grudging defense of the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule has many defects, but there are great difficulties identifying a superior alternative.
Nanoimprinted Hybrid Metal-Semiconductor Plasmonic Multilayers with Controlled Surface Nano Architecture for Applications in NIR Detectors

We present a proof of concept for tunable plasmon resonance frequencies in a core shell nano-architectured hybrid metal-semiconductor multilayer structure, with Ag as the active shell and ITO as the dielectric modulation media. Our method relies on the collective change in the dielectric function within the metal semiconductor interface to control the surface. Here we report fabrication and optical spectroscopy studies of large-area, nanostructured, hybrid silver and indium tin oxide (ITO) structures, with feature sizes below 100 nm and a controlled surface architecture. The optical and electrical properties of these core shell electrodes, including the surface plasmon frequency, can be tuned by suitably changing the order and thickness of the dielectric layers. By varying the dimensions of the nanopillars, the surface plasmon wavelength of the nanopillar Ag can be tuned from 650 to 690 nm. Adding layers of ITO to the structure further shifts the resonance wavelength toward the IR region and, depending on the sequence and thickness of the layers within the structure, we show that such structures can be applied in sensing devices including enhancing silicon as a photodetection material.
A dopamine- and protein kinase A-dependent mechanism for network adaptation in retinal ganglion cells.

Vertebrates can detect light intensity changes in vastly different photic environments, in part, because postreceptoral neurons undergo “network adaptation.” Previous data implicated dopaminergic, cAMP-dependent inhibition of retinal ganglion cells in this process yet left unclear how this occurs and whether this occurs in darkness versus light. To test for light- and dopamine-dependent changes in ganglion cell cAMP levels in situ , we immunostained dark- and light-adapted retinas with anti-cAMP antisera in the presence and absence of various dopamine receptor ligands. To test for direct effects of dopamine receptor ligands and membrane-permeable protein kinase ligands on ganglion cell excitability, we recorded spikes from isolated ganglion cells in perforated-patch whole-cell mode before and during application of these agents by microperfusion. Our immunostainings show that light, endogenous dopamine, and exogenous dopamine elevate ganglion cell cAMP levels in situ by activating D1-type dopamine receptors. Our spike recordings show that D1-type agonists and 8-bromo cAMP reduce spike frequency and curtail sustained spike firing and that these effects entail protein kinase A activation. These effects resemble those of background light on ganglion cell responses to light flashes. Network adaptation could thus be produced, to some extent, by dopaminergic modulation of ganglion cell spike generation, a mechanism distinct from modulation of transmitter release onto ganglion cells or of transmitter-gated currents in ganglion cells. Combining these observations with results obtained in studies of photoreceptor, bipolar, and horizontal cells indicates that all three layers of neurons in the retina are equipped with mechanisms for adaptation to ambient light intensity.
Ceftaroline: A New Cephalosporin with Activity Against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)

Microbial resistance has reached alarming levels, threatening to outpace the ability to counter with more potent antimicrobial agents. In particular, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has become a leading cause of skin and soft-tissue infections and PVL-positive strains have been associated with necrotizing pneumonia. Increasing reports of growing resistance to glycopeptides have been noted, further limiting the efficacy of standard antibiotics, such as vancomycin. Ceftaroline is a novel fifth-generation cephalosporin, which exhibits broad-spectrum activity against Gram-positive bacteria, including MRSA and extensively-resistant strains, such as vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA), heteroresistant VISA (hVISA), and vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA). In addition to being an exciting new agent in the anti-MRSA armamentarium, ceftaroline provides efficacy against many respiratory pathogens including Streptococcus pneumoniae, Haemophilus influenzae, and Moraxella catarrhalis. Ceftaroline (600 mg intravenously every 12 hours) has been shown effective in phase III studies in the treatment of complicated skin and soft tissue infections and community-acquired pneumonia. To date, this unique antibiotic exhibits a low propensity for inducing resistance and has a good safety profile, although further post-marketing data and clinical experience are needed. In summary, ceftaroline provides an additional option for the management of complex multidrug resistant infections, including MRSA.
Endometriosis and pregnancy

Abstract The literature has been briefly reviewed to show the prevalence of endometriosis in women of child-bearing age. The concurrence of endometriosis and pregnancy in our cases, as well as in the literature, has been emphasized. Thirteen cases have been presented in which pregnancy occurred in women with endometriosis. In twelve of these, pregnancy occurred after conservative surgical procedures. In the remaining case, endometriosis, without symptoms, was observed at the time of cesarean section. Conservative surgical treatment, with preservation of the child-bearing function in young women and those without children, is recommended whenever possible in cases of endometriosis.
practical methods of solution

Unlike Chapters 4 and 5, which were devoted to statements about the nature of the solution of an equation y = f(x) for x given y, this chapter is devoted to methods of actually solving equations y = f(x) for x given y. The phrase ‘actually solving’ will be interpreted to mean ‘describing a numerical process for determining the solution to any prescribed degree of accuracy’.
Now You See It and Now You Don't: Consequences of Veiling Relational Work

This paper offers findings from a study of relationship formation in Information Technology (I.T.) outsourcing services and explores the conditions in which relational practices are veiled by the work designs, tools, business lingo, and even media representations of Information Technology outsourcing services. Veiling describes the way the language and focus of these elements have taken over and permeated organizations to levels where the aspects of relational work are obscured. As a result, relational skills are delegitimized, work is slowed down, conflict results from incorrect assumptions, and inefficient technology is tolerated. We identify intended and unintended consequences, on individuals and organizations, of relational veiling as a strategy that emerges in response to the everyday realities of the workplace.
Bioinspired Stimuli‐Responsive and Antifreeze‐Secreting Anti‐Icing Coatings

The detrimental impacts of icing on transportation and power industries are well-known. Inspired by natural systems that secrete a functional liquid in response to stimuli, this work introduces an anti-icing coating that responds to surface icing by releasing antifreeze liquid. It consists of an outer porous superhydrophobic epidermis and a wick-like underlying dermis that is infused with antifreeze liquid. The functionality of the new coating is validated through condensation frosting, simulated freezing fog, and freezing rain experiments. In the tested conditions, the introduced anti-icing skin delays onset of frost, rime, and glaze accumulation at least ten times longer than anti-icing superhydrophobic and lubricant impregnated surfaces. Furthermore, the coating delays onset of glaze formation ten times longer than surfaces flooded with a thin film of antifreeze. In each of the icing scenarios, the fundamental mechanisms responsible for antifreeze release and their relation to required antifreeze replenishment rates are described.
Carbon-14 activities in recently fallen meteorites and Antarctic meteorites

This paper reports C-14 measurements in meteorites using an extraction method which employs RF melting of samples as small as 0.1 g. A study of extraction of cosmic-ray-produced C-14 in samples of Bruderheim gave C-14 levels between 38 and 60 dpm/kg for samples which had been preheated in air between 250 and 700 C, with a mean value of 46.8 + or - 1.4 dpm/kg. A range of values between 35 and 59 dpm/kg was found for other falls of saturated meteorites preheated to 500 C. The preheating step is shown to be effective in removing terrestrial carbon contamination. A series of samples previously dated by Kr-81 as having ages of 120-310 kyr gave C-14 levels of between less than 0.16 and 0.37 + or - 0.10 dpm/kg. These levels are consistent with levels of in situ production by cosmic rays at the earth's surface.
Addiction Severity Index composite scores: Contribution of objective vs. subjective items to post‐treatment change

Aims: This study evaluated the generalizability of findings by Wertz, Cleaveland, and Stephens (Journal of Substance Abuse, 1995, 7, 175–188) that reductions in the Addiction Severity Index's (ASI) alcohol and drug composite scores (CSs) following treatment were largely associated with reductions in subjective ratings of “being bothered/troubled” or “need for treatment” rather than more objective frequency of behaviors/problems.Design and participants: The data from three independent studies/groups of substance dependent patients—alcohol dependent (n=165), cocaine dependent (n=155), and opioid dependent (n=288)—were evaluated to determine whether positive changes in the ASI's CSs following treatment were driven by “objective” or “subjective” items, or both.Findings: An analysis of the drug and alcohol sections revealed that CSs in these two problem areas were significantly lower at 6 months post‐treatment entry and that both types of items showed significant reductions. Both types of items also generally ...
Species Interactions Reverse Grassland Responses to Changing Climate

Predictions of ecological response to climate change are based largely on direct climatic effects on species. We show that, in a California grassland, species interactions strongly influence responses to changing climate, overturning direct climatic effects within 5 years. We manipulated the seasonality and intensity of rainfall over large, replicate plots in accordance with projections of leading climate models and examined responses across several trophic levels. Changes in seasonal water availability had pronounced effects on individual species, but as precipitation regimes were sustained across years, feedbacks and species interactions overrode autecological responses to water and reversed community trajectories. Conditions that sharply increased production and diversity through 2 years caused simplification of the food web and deep reductions in consumer abundance after 5 years. Changes in these natural grassland communities suggest a prominent role for species interactions in ecosystem response to climate change.
Protein Diffusion in the E. coli Cytoplasm and Periplasm under Osmotic Stress

The E. coli cytoplasm contains the nucleoid, ribosomes, mRNA and tRNA, and numerous globular proteins. Much of the water is associated with biopolymer surfaces. Facile diffusion of globular proteins within this complex medium is essential to normal cellular biochemical activity and growth. Remarkably, E. coli grows in minimal medium over a wide range of external osmolalities (0.03-1.8 Osm). The mean cytoplasmic biopolymer volume fraction for such adapted cells varies from phi = 0.16 at 0.10 Osm to phi = 0.36 at 1.45 Osm. For cells grown at 0.28 Osm, a similar range of is obtained by plasmolysis (sudden osmotic upshift) using NaCl as the external osmolyte, after which the cellular response is passive loss of cytoplasmic water. Using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP), we measure the effective axial diffusion coefficient DGFP of green fluorescent protein in the cytoplasm of live E. coli cells as a function of for both plasmolyzed and adapted cells. For adapted cells the median diffusion coefficient DGFPm decreases by only a factor of 2.1 as phi increases from 0.16 to 0.36. In sharp contrast, for plasmolyzed cells DGFPm decreases by a factor of 70 as phi increases from 0.16 to 0.33. Clearly GFP diffusion is not determined by phi alone. By comparison with quantitative models, we show that the plasmolysis data cannot be explained by simple crowding theory in a homogeneous medium. We will also report on measurements of time-resolved fluorescence anisotropy of GFP in the cytoplasm, diffusion of RNA polymerase in the cytoplasm, and diffusion of GFP in the periplasm of E. coli. Time lapse measurements monitor the recovery of cell volume and GFP diffusion after plasmolysis, which may be a key determinant of the time scale of the recovery of growth.
From the forehead of Zeus: the ontogeny of the immune response.

Many of the most important developments that result in a fully functioning vertebrate immune system take place in the developing fetus. From a variety of gene segments there is assembled in B cells a congeries of antibody combining sites, one to a cell, which form the greater part of the large repertoire of immunological specificities that characterise the system. This capability is further expanded later by somatic mutations. Just as immunoglobulin isotypes are produced sequentially (IgM, IgD, IgG, IgE, IgA) as they are read along the chromosome, so does the fetus and neonate manifest immunological competence sequentially to different antigens by employing variable region germline genes as they appear along the chromosome. The generation of T cell receptor diversity is accomplished by a similar mechanism of gene segment translocations. Each stage in the lineage of T and B cells is associated with the appearance of unique combinations of surface molecular markers, which in T cells characterise also the specialised functions of different subsets. If the immune system does not spring forth quite fully formed from the evolved vertebrate genome, as Athena did from the forehead of Zeus, ontogenetic mechanisms have made it very nearly complete
An investigation of dynamic group scheduling heuristics in a job shop manufacturing cell

SUMMARY The objective of this study is to develop dynamic scheduling heuristics for cellular manufacturing environments (group scheduling or family heuristics) and compare them with existing family heuristics under various shop floor conditions. The proposed family heuristics stress good due date performance while reducing overall set-up time. Computer simulation is used to test three queue selection rules in conjunction with three dispatching rules under eight experimental conditions in a job shop cell. The results indicate that several of the proposed heuristics substantially improve the performance of the cell over the best previously suggested family heuristic under all experimental conditions.
Development of the Yale Children’s Global Stress Index (YCGSI) and Its Application in Children and Adolescents With Tourette’s Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

ABSTRACT Objective The Yale Children's Global Stress Index (YCGSI) is a new clinical rating instrument designed to provide objective global clinician ratings of psychosocial stress in studies of children and adolescents. This study was designed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the YCGSI. Method Independent ratings of clinical severity and psychosocial stress were obtained at two time points separated by 4 months from 33 subjects with Tourette's syndrome (TS) and/or early-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), aged 7 to 17 years, and 25 age-matched control subjects. Parents and children were interviewed separately. Multiple measures of stress were obtained including the YCGSI and the Daily Life Stressors Scale (DLSS). Results Data support the interrater reliability and convergent and divergent validity of the YCGSI. At both time points, children and adolescents with TS and OCD had, on average, experienced significantly more psychosocial stress than did the controls. Cross-sectional ratings of tic and obsessive-compulsive symptom severity did not correlate with the YCGSI, but did correlate with self-report ratings of stress on the DLSS. In contrast, ratings on the YCGSI were associated with clinician ratings of depression. Conclusions The YCGSI has acceptable psychometric properties. Children and adolescents with TS and OCD appear to be at increased risk of experiencing higher levels of psychosocial stress and adversities compared with their peers in the community. Future studies need to examine the possible differential contributions of distinctive forms of stress on the intramorbid course of these disorders.
Sodium dodecyl sulfate disc-gel electrophoresis pattern of protease-free chicken liver fatty acid synthetase

Abstract Homogeneous preparations of fatty acid synthetase of chicken liver isolated by the procedure of Hsu and Yun ((1970) Biochemistry , 9 , 239) do not digest albumin and are therefore not contaminated by the protease activity reported by Stoops and his collaborators ((1975) Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 72 , 1940). The protease-free synthetase is dissociated into polypeptides smaller than half-size subcomplexes by treatment with sodium dodecyl sulfate and urea, as evidenced by disc-gel electrophoresis in a medium containing these reagents. The gel pattern is unaffected by additional measures undertaken to prevent proteolysis, such as heat inactivation or the use of protease inhibitors. These findings support a structure comprised of individual peptide components responsible for partial reactions of fatty acid synthetase. The protease-free synthetase preparation obtained by our procedure is suitable as starting material for further structural studies on this highly organized multienzyme complex.
Coal-Fueled Diesels: Systems Development

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy has sponsored research in the area of coal-fueled diesel engines since the late 1970s. The program began as an exploratory effort and has grown into a proof-of-concept program that includes several major medium-speed diesel engine manufacturers. Those manufacturers have identified the utility, industrial cogeneration, and transportation markets as areas in which expensive clean distillate fuel may be displaced by low-cost, domestically abundant coal. The development of a coal-fueled diesel engine system will require the parallel development of coal fuels, engine components, wear and emission control system, and a support infrastructure. Because of notable success in earlier projects of the coal-fueled diesel program, the DOE’s Morgantown Energy Technology Center (METC) recently expanded the program with the award of contracts for two 5-year, proof-of-concept project. These major projects will build on the results of past work to complete development of technology for the commercialization of coal-fueled diesel engines. This paper summarizes progress in the DOE program and planned research to overcome technical and economic barriers to that commercialization.
The response of macroinvertebrate production to a pollution gradient in a headwater stream

Summary 1. This study quantified patterns of macroinvertebrate secondary production and stored benthic organic matter along a gradient of pollution and habitat channelisation over a 3-km reach of Goosefare Brook, a first-order stream in southern Maine (U.S.A.). 2. Whole-community invertebrate production decreased from 26.4 g ash-free dry mass (AFDM) m−2 year−1 at the reference station to 1.1 g AFDM m−2 year−1 at stations with the greatest levels of pollution. Production decreased along the pollution gradient for most taxa, although decreases were partly offset by production increases in tolerant taxa. Biomass turnover rates (P/B) were less affected by the stresses than was production. 3. Differences in functional characteristics of the community were evident at stations with channelised habitat, but overall production declined in a linear pattern that mirrored the pollution gradient. Stored organic matter showed a decline along the gradient, but was also lower at channelised stations. Populations of taxa with documented pollution tolerance were more likely to maintain or increase production and P/B. 4. Decreasing biomass because of decreasing stored organic matter and lethal effects of pollutants resulted in shifts in the pathways of energy flow observed at stations exposed to moderate physical or chemical stress, to the loss of most taxa and an extreme (96%) decrease in production at the stations receiving the highest levels of metal pollution. 5. The shifting prominence of different taxa along a continuum of stress in Goosefare Brook shows that describing the nature of an impairment in a functional context requires consideration of chemical stressors, habitat alterations and food resources.
Glutathione deficiency intensifies ischaemia-reperfusion induced cardiac dysfunction and oxidative stress.

The efficacy of glutathione (GSH) in protecting ischaemia-reperfusion (I-R) induced cardiac dysfunction and myocardial oxidative stress was studied in open-chest, stunned rat heart model. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three experimental groups: (1) GSH-depletion, by injection of buthionine sulphoxamine (BSO, 4 mmol kg(-1), i.p.) 24 h prior to I-R, (2) BSO injection (4 mmol kg(-1), i.p.) in conjunction with acivicin (AT125, 0.05 mmol kg(-1), i.v.) infusion 1 h prior to I-R, and (3) control (C), receiving saline treatment. Each group was further divided into I-R, with surgical occlusion of the main left coronary artery (LCA) for 30 min followed by 20 min reperfusion, and sham. Myocardial GSH content and GSH : glutathione disulphide (GSSG) ratio were decreased by approximately 50% (P 0.05) 87 and 82% (P 0.05) and 25% (P < 0.05) lower in BSO and BSO + AT125, compared with Saline, respectively. BSO and BSO + AT125 rats demonstrated significantly lower liver GSH and heart Mn superoxide dismutase activity than C rats after I-R. These data indicate that GSH depletion by inhibition of its synthesis and transport can exacerbate cardiac dysfunction inflicted by in vivo I-R. Part of the aetiology may involve impaired myocardial antioxidant defenses and whole-body GSH homeostasis.
Raman spectroscopy of vapors at elevated temperatures

The most effective way to obtain high quality vapor-phase Raman spectra is to heat the samples to increase their vapor pressure. Many samples can be heated to 350 °C and higher without decomposition. We have designed a simple Raman cell to allow these high temperature studies to be carried out. The high-temperature Raman spectra of nine molecules will be presented and discussed. Most of these are non-rigid molecules containing aromatic rings for which vibrational potential energy surfaces have been determined from their spectra. Two molecules (p-cresol and 3-methylindole) are model compounds for amino acids and their vapor-phase spectra are characteristic of environments with no hydrogen bonding.
Force Profiles for Parallel Plates Partially Immersed in a Liquid Bath

For two parallel plates held fixed and dipped in an idealized infinite liquid bath in a gravity field, we define the force profile to be the function \({F:(0,\infty)\to \mathbb{R}}\) which assigns to each plate separation distance \({d\in (0,\infty)}\) the signed (horizontal) force density of mutual attraction between the plates (with repulsive forces corresponding to negative values). We show that precisely three nontrivial qualitative profiles are possible depending on the adhesion properties of the plates, namely the contact angles. Results of Finn, Lu, and Bhatnagar in three recent papers which treat this problem originally suggested by Laplace, show that the profiles are well-defined and depend, in a qualitative sense, only on the contact angle pair \({(\gamma_1,\gamma_2)}\) associated with the adhesion properties of the inner facing surfaces of the plates. We also describe symmetry relations satisfied by the quantitative force profiles with respect to \({(\gamma_1,\gamma_2)\in [0,\pi]\times[0,\pi]}\). Taken together, our discussion provides a unified overview of the recent progress on the problem and an alternative approach to several of the main results.
On the limitations of interferometric methods in three-dimensional photoelasticity

The photoelastic response of tinree different epoxy materials was measured. Tensile strips, beams, disks and spheres were loaded and the deformations “frozen in.” Slices from these models were used to calibrate and analyze the absolute retardation of the materials. It was found that the absolute retardation of light vibrating in a given principal direction was directly proportional to the principal strain in that direction and to the deviatoric components of stress in that direction. This result was a consequence of a unique value of the ratio of the absolute-retardation constants and is contrary to published suggestions that absolute-retardation methods could be used to separate normal stresses in the interior of stress-frozen models.