cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Review of explosive-driven iodine lasers in the U.S.

High-explosive charges were used in the early 1980's at Los Alamos National Laboratory to pump high-energy atomic-iodine lasers. Laser outputs at the kilojoule level were measured in a series of experiments. Two techniques were used to convert the high-explosive (HE) energy release to optical radiation for the photolysis of the perfluoroalkyliodide fuel. One technique used strong shockwaves propagating through argon gas and driven by the detonation as an intense optical pump source. The second approach used exploding metal films driven by megampere-level current pulses from explosive-driven magnetic flux compression generators. The optical extraction system for both types of single-pulse lasers was a power oscillator configuration using a stable resonator. The purpose of these experiments was to evaluate the scaling potential of HE-driven lasers for a number of applications including inertial confinement fusion. The HE field experiments were supported by a number of laboratory laser experiments. Exploding wires were used to pump 100-J atomic-iodine lasers (and 20-J molecular iodine lasers). Atomic-iodine lasers were also pumped with exploding metal films. In support of this work, several types of optical pump sources were characterized. These included HE-driven shockwaves in a variety of rare gases, exploding metal wires and films, surface discharges, ablating-wall flashlamps, and xenon flashlamps. Equivalent blackbody temperatures as a function of various parameters were measured for each source using absolutely calibrated photodetectors equipped with optical bandpass filters.© (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer

Nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSCs), including basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), are the most common types of human malignancy. The growth of NMSCs is influenced by several genetic and environmental factors; ultraviolet (UV)-irradiation and immunosuppression are among the most important pathogenic factors. Treatment approaches vary and depend on the patient's co-morbidities, age, and whether the NMSC is a low-risk or a high-risk lesion. Invasive squamous cell cancers (SCCs) and BCCs other than superficial variants are recommended to be surgically excised, with Mohs micrographic surgery representing the standard of care for high-risk NMSCs. Superficial BCCs or SCCs in situ can be treated with topical medical treatments, cryo-therapy, or with curettage and electrodesicca-tion with good cure rates. Prevention and regular post-treatment follow-up examinations are essential to reduce the overall incidence of primary or recurrent NMSCs.
Conceptual design of a dual-use radar/communication system based on OFDM

The paper describes a novel system which can be used interchangeably as a radar sensor and communication device. The system is being developed at Miami University using COTS components and its digital part is based on OFDM architecture. Arbitrary waveform generator with high-speed DSP capabilities is being used to create either random or deterministic OFDM waveforms and a high-speed ADC board is used in the receiverpsilas baseband portion to recover the incoming signals. OFDM technique is already widely used in broadband communications; however it is shown that system architecture based on this method of data coding and modulation can also be used in radar with minimum modifications. Indeed, modeling study shows that OFDM radar signals perform well in presence of jamming and interference and possess noise-like qualities making them good candidates for low probability of detect/intercept (LPI/LPD) system implementation. The system concept and design are discussed and LPI/LPD features of OFDM signals are illustrated via spectrogram. Experimental data from a baseband radar/communication digital system transceiver link operating at 300 MHz bandwidth are presented.
A placebo-controlled study of sildenafil effects on cognition in schizophrenia

Background Phosphodiesterase 5 (PDE5) inhibitors increase cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) concentrations in the intracellular pathway activated by N-methyl-d-aspartic acid receptors which is believed to mediate long-term potentiation and memory consolidation. The PDE5 inhibitor sildenafil has been shown to enhance memory in animal models. In addition, neuronal nitric oxide synthase, another component of the NMDA/nitric oxide/cGMP intracellular pathway, has been reported to be dysregulated in schizophrenia patients.
Joint study of genetic regulators for expression traits related to breast cancer

Background The mRNA expression levels of genes have been shown to have discriminating power for the classification of breast cancer. Studying the heritability of gene expression levels on breast cancer related transcripts can lead to the identification of shared common regulators and inter-regulation patterns, which would be important for dissecting the etiology of breast cancer.
Modeling Subsurface Reactive Flows Using Leadership-Class Computing

We describe our experiences running PFLOTRAN–a code for simulation of coupled hydro-thermal-chemical processes in variably saturated, non-isothermal, porous media– on leadership-class supercomputers, including initial experiences running on the petaflop incarnation of Jaguar, the Cray XT5 at the National Center for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. PFLOTRAN utilizes fully implicit time-stepping and is built on top of the Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation (PETSc). We discuss some of the hurdles to at scale performance with PFLOTRAN and the progress we have made in overcoming them on leadership-class computer architectures.
Anomalous diffusion of vapors through solid polymers. Part I: Irreversible thermodynamics of diffusion and solution processes

The solubility and diffusivity of vapors in polymers below and in the vicinity of glass transition temperature are known to be explicitly time-dependent. It is assumed here that the polymers are in nonequilibrium states, characterized by an internal order. The latter relaxes with time and moves towards equilibrium. The changes in the internal order bring about changes in the properties of the polymer-solute system. The time dependence of diffusivity and solubility has been derived for isothermal processes not far from equilibrium. Well-known procedures for analyzing relaxing systems are used to obtain the above results, and the knowledge of how the internal order is related to the molecular properties is not required.
Cell death localization in situ in laboratory reared honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) larvae treated with pesticides

In this study, cell death detected by DNA fragmentation labeling and phosphatidylserine (PS) localization was investigated in the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) midgut, salivary glands and ovaries after treating larvae with different pesticides offered via an artificial diet. To do this, honey bee larvae reared in an incubator were exposed to one of nine pesticides: chlorpyrifos, imidacloprid, amitraz, fluvalinate, coumaphos, myclobutanil, chlorothalonil, glyphosate and simazine. Following this, larvae were fixed and prepared for immunohistologically detected cellular death using two TUNEL techniques for DNA fragmentation labeling and Annexin V to detect the localization of exposed PS specific in situ binding to apoptotic cells. Untreated larvae experienced ∼10% midgut apoptotic cell death under controlled conditions. All applied pesticides triggered an increase in apoptosis in treated compared to untreated larvae. The level of cell death in the midgut of simazine-treated larvae was highest at 77% mortality and statistically similar to the level of cell death for chlorpyrifos (65%), imidacloprid (61%), myclobutanil (69%), and glyphosate (69%) treated larvae. Larvae exposed to fluvalinate had the lowest midgut columnar apoptotic cell death (30%) of any pesticide-treated larvae. Indications of elevated apoptotic cell death in salivary glands and ovaries after pesticide application were detected. Annexin V localization, indicative of apoptotic cell deletion, had an extensive distribution in the midgut, salivary glands and ovaries of pesticide-treated larvae. The data suggest that the tested pesticides induced apoptosis in tissues of honey bee larvae at the tested concentrations. Cell death localization as a tool for a monitoring the subclinical and sub-lethal effects of external influences on honey bee larval tissues is discussed.
Liver carcinogenesis is not a predicted outcome of chemically induced hepatocyte proliferation.

Cell proliferation has long been recognized as a basic component of multistage carcinogenesis. Based largely on the finding that certain nongenoloxic chemical carcinogens induce cell proliferation ...
The Motivational Bases of Political Behavior: A New Concept and Measurement Procedure

COMMON-SENSE observation suggests that different individuals often perform the same political behavior for different psychological reasons. For example, one individual might file his tax return because he is afraid of governmental reprisal, while another might do so because he feels a citizen has a duty to pay his taxes. Or one individual might sign a protest petition because he/she believes in the position presented in the petition, while another individual might not care one way or another about the issue but signs because he/she wants to look good in the eyes of neighbors or coworkers and feels that signing the petition is a means to that end. The observation that individuals can have different psychological reasons for performing the same behavior has several useful implications for the prediction and analysis of behavior. First, if we know the underlying psychological basis of a behavior, we will know something about the conditions under which he/she will perform the behavior. This knowledge will enhance our ability to predict the occurrence of
Pharmacotherapy of childhood obesity: an evidence-based, conceptual approach.

This review provides a comparative analysis of the benefits of lifestyle intervention and pharmacotherapy in adults and children using previously published meta-analyses, as well as new data published within the past 2 years. The manuscript critically summarizes the potential risks of various established (orlistat, sibutramine, and metformin) and new (rimonabant) pharmacologic agents and presents a conceptual approach to selection of patients for pharmacotherapy, tailored drug selection, and timing of intervention. Forty-five years after an amphetamine was approved for the treatment of obesity in adults, an expert in the field characterized a new therapeutic formulation as being effective and long-lasting, posing “little risk” (1). Four years later, others (2) “confirmed the weight-reducing efficacy and good tolerability” of the drug and noted that adverse effects were “generally mild and transient.” The drug in question was dexfenfluramine, which was removed from the commercial market 18 months after its subsequent U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval owing to the development of valvular heart disease and primary pulmonary hypertension in a subset of patients (3,4). This experience and many others (5) have forced us to think long and hard before making sweeping recommendations about the use of behavior-modifying drugs for the treatment of obesity. Yet, the pediatric community confronts a serious problem: the surge of metabolic complications in obese adolescents, including impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, ovarian hyperandrogenism, hepatic steatosis, and sleep apnea (6). Two recent studies highlight the concern. First (7), despite regular lifestyle counseling in a university-based clinic, one-third of obese teenagers with profound insulin resistance and IGT developed type 2 diabetes during a follow-up period of 21 months. Second (8), among Pima-Indian children and adolescents with type 2 diabetes, the rate of development of end-stage renal disease was proportional to the duration of diabetes, …
Quantitative evaluation of the octadecylamine-assisted bulk separation of semiconducting and metallic single-wall carbon nanotubes by resonance Raman spectroscopy

The selective stabilization of octadecylamine (ODA) on semiconducting (S) single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) has been reported to provide a means for the bulk separation of S from metallic (M) SWNTs. Utilizing resonance Raman spectroscopy and, in particular, the relative changes in the integrated intensities of the radial-breathing mode region, a generic method has been developed to provide quantitative evaluation of the separation efficiency between M and S SWNTs along with diameter separation. The ODA-assisted separation is shown to provide S enrichment by a factor of 5 for SWNTs prepared by high pressure CO decomposition and greater S enrichment for SWNTs with diameters below 1nm.
Recursive mode star identification algorithms

Star identification can be accomplished by several different available algorithms that identify the stars observed by a star tracker. However, efficiency and reliability remain key issues and the availability of new active pixel cameras requires new approaches. Two novel algorithms for recursive mode star identification are presented here. The first approach is derived by the spherical polygon search (SP-search) algorithm, it was used to access all the cataloged stars observed by the sensor field-of-view (FOV) and recursively add/remove candidate cataloged stars according to the predicted image motion induced by camera attitude dynamics. Star identification is then accomplished by a star pattern matching technique which identifies the observed stars in the reference catalog. The second method uses star neighborhood information and a catalog neighborhood pointer matrix to access the star catalog. In the recursive star identification process, and under the assumption of "slow" attitude dynamics, only the stars in the neighborhood of previously identified stars are considered for star identification in the succeeding frames. Numerical tests are performed to validate the absolute and relative efficiency of the proposed methods.
Immunosuppression in Trauma Patients

An immunosuppressed state develops following traumatic injury, which makes patients more prone to develop infection. A variety of disturbances accompany injury that affect both specific and nonspecific components of host defense. Many clinical studies have attempted to evaluate the many deficits that follow injury and place the patient at a higher risk for infection. Several components of host defense are affected simultaneously and include (1) cellular changes (decreased activation of T-lymphocyte subsets with decreased helper cells, increased suppressor T-cell function, increased but abnormal activity of macrophages, activation of polymorphonuclear leukocytes with depressed chemotaxis and killing); (2) depressed nonspecific and specific serum immunity (e.g., depressed fibronectin and immunoglobulin levels); (3) the presence of altered cytokine levels (interleukin-1 [IL-1], IL-2, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor) levels; (4) ongoing serum proteolytic activity; and (5) the generation of serum suppressive pepti...
Child versus adult research: the gap in high-quality study design.

OBJECTIVE. The objective of this study was to determine whether there were differences in study design and purpose between published child- and adult-focused clinical research. METHODS. We reviewed all articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Archives of Internal Medicine, and Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine during the first 3 months of 2005 and assessed each study9s design and purpose. We compared articles focused on adults with those focused on children. RESULTS. We included 370 original research reports in our analysis (New England Journal of Medicine, n = 46; Journal of the American Medical Association, n = 60; Annals of Internal Medicine, n = 27; Pediatrics, n = 130; Archives of Internal Medicine, n = 73; Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine, n = 34), of which 189 included only adults as subjects and 181 only children. Among adult studies, compared with child studies, there were more randomized, controlled trials (23.8% vs 8.8%) and systematic reviews (10.6% vs 1.7%) and fewer cross sectional studies (16.9% vs 40.9%). Study purposes also varied, with studies of therapies constituting 38.1% of adult studies, compared with 17.7% of child studies. In contrast, epidemiological studies, defined as studies describing the prevalence or incidence of diseases or risk factors or showing associations between risk factors and diseases, constituted 6.4% of adult studies, compared with 26.5% of child studies. CONCLUSIONS. In 6 leading generalist and specialist journals, studies involving adults were significantly more likely than child studies to be randomized, controlled trials, systematic reviews, or studies of therapies. If such studies are to be viewed as the highest possible quality of evidence, then this difference has implications for quality of care for children and for funding and future directions in clinical research involving children.
Compensatory feeding in response to variable food quality by Melanoplus differentialis

Abstract. The behavioural mechanisms driving compensatory food consumption in response to dietary dilution as well as the relationship between feeding time and food residence time (i.e. digesta retention time in the gut) were studied using the non-diapausing strain of the grasshopper Melanoplus differentialis (Thomas) (Orthoptera: Acrididae). 3-day-old, sixth-instar nymphs and 3-day-old adults were fed artificial diets containing 1%, 3% and 5% total nitrogen (N) at 30dC, LD 14:10h; the feeding behaviour was recorded using electronic monitoring devices connected to microcomputers for 24 h. The percentage of time spent feeding increased linearly as diets were diluted using non-digestible cellulose from 5% to 1% N. This response was due to an increase in the number of meals while the meal duration of a feeding bout was unaltered. Sixth-instar nymphs spent about 40% more time feeding than the larger adults. The increased feeding time in nymphs resulted from both more frequent feeding bouts and longer meal duration. Feeding time and food residence time were highly negatively related.
Violations of Palestinian Human Rights: South African Parallels

(1981). Violations of Palestinian Human Rights: South African Parallels. Journal of Palestine Studies: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 14-36.
A mobile platform to constrain regional estimates of evapotranspiration

Regional estimates of evapotranspiration (ET) are needed for environmental analysis and management purposes, yet can be difficult to obtain. Current methods for determining regional ET have spatial, temporal, methodological, and/or logistical limitations that affect their usefulness. To address these gaps, we developed a surface mobile measurement technique, the Regional Evaporative Fraction Energy Balance platform (REFEB), which measures evaporative fraction (EF) and water use efficiency (WUE) using a truck operating on a public right of way. REFEB can measure EF and WUE at 25 or more locations per day, which allows for rapid, dense, and spatially distributed sampling of fields across a region. We assessed the accuracy of the field measurements of EF and WUE with REFEB by comparing them to an Eddy covariance (EC) and Bowen ratio energy balance (BREB) tower. This site validation showed that REFEB has error and uncertainty similar to previous BREB approaches. We then used empirical relationships between field measurements and remote sensing vegetation indices to derive regional maps of EF. We combined these EF maps with satellite observations of net radiation to derive monthly and annual calculations of ET at a 250 m resolution during calendar year 2004 in the Imperial Valley, California, a major agricultural region that is dependent upon irrigation and which has a well constrained water budget. We then summed ET for the Imperial Valley and compared the result to a surface water budget based on irrigation and drainage measurements, which showed good annual and seasonal agreement. These results indicate REFEB produces accurate field measurements of EF and WUE, which can be scaled to estimate regional ET at time scales ranging from less than a week to annual sums.
Chemosynthetic, photosynthetic, and cyanobacterial ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase.

There are compelling reasons to believe that the initial atmosphere of the earth after its formation about 4.7 × 109 years ago was a reducing one consisting chiefly of methane, ammonia, water, and hydrogen (1). In the last two decades considerable research has been described in which numerous organic precursors of biopolymers have been synthesized under conditions simulating the primitive earth and its atmosphere (for a review see ref. 2). Formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide are known to be formed so readily under a variety of these conditions that they are considered not only as products of ancient chemical evolution but as likely precursors of a variety of important components of the prebiotic soup, including sugars, amino acids, and purine bases (2).
Conventions’ Revenge: Davidson, Derangement, and Dormativity

AbstractDavidson advocates a radical and powerful form of anti-conventionalism, on which the scope of a semantic theory is restricted to the most local of contexts: a particular utterance by a particular speaker. I argue that this hyper-localism undercuts the explanatory grounds for his assumption that semantic meaning is systematic, which is central, among other things, to his holism. More importantly, it threatens to undercut the distinction between word meaning and speaker’s meaning, which he takes to be essential to semantics. I argue that a moderate form of conventionalism can restore systematicity and the word/speaker distinction while accommodating Davidson’s insights about the complexities and contextual variability of language use.
Examining Electronic Learning Communities through the Communities of Practice Framework.

This qualitative interpretive case study used Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice (CoP) framework to analyze how the electronic learning community (eLC) process at an established state virtual high school operated like a community of practice. Components of the eLC process were analyzed according to elements of the CoP framework, which provided a theoretical lens through which to analyze data gathered through interviews, observations, and document collection. Findings revealed several areas of alignment between the eLC process and the CoP framework, particularly with Wenger’s notion of practice within a CoP as a duality between participation and reification.
Data-driven computational mechanics

We develop a new computing paradigm, which we refer to as data-driven computing, according to which calculations are carried out directly from experimental material data and pertinent constraints and conservation laws, such as compatibility and equilibrium, thus bypassing the empirical material modeling step of conventional computing altogether. Data-driven solvers seek to assign to each material point the state from a prespecified data set that is closest to satisfying the conservation laws. Equivalently, data-driven solvers aim to find the state satisfying the conservation laws that is closest to the data set. The resulting data-driven problem thus consists of the minimization of a distance function to the data set in phase space subject to constraints introduced by the conservation laws. We motivate the data-driven paradigm and investigate the performance of data-driven solvers by means of two examples of application, namely, the static equilibrium of nonlinear three-dimensional trusses and linear elasticity. In these tests, the data-driven solvers exhibit good convergence properties both with respect to the number of data points and with regard to local data assignment. The variational structure of the data-driven problem also renders it amenable to analysis. We show that, as the data set approximates increasingly closely a classical material law in phase space, the data-driven solutions converge to the classical solution. We also illustrate the robustness of data-driven solvers with respect to spatial discretization. In particular, we show that the data-driven solutions of finite-element discretizations of linear elasticity converge jointly with respect to mesh size and approximation by the data set.
A Linear Regression Approach for Evaluating the Decline in Chartered Designations with the Effect of Economic Determinants.

The research tries to explore the decline in the number of CPCU society members and tries to evaluate the effects of economic determinants on the decline. The study takes into account various economic factors including the factor of number of CPCU society members, membership fees, number of total industry insurance underwriters and inflation and estimates the role of each factor in the decline. The study uses a quantitative method to evaluate the decline. The dependent variable taken into consideration is number of CPCU society members and the independent variables are the economic factors. The study uses a regression analysis to estimate the effects of the independent variable on dependent variable. Simple linear regression analysis is used to estimate effect of each independent variable on dependent variable. Also a multiple linear regression analysis is used to estimate the overall effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. Overall the study concludes by evaluating each factor and exploring quantitative effects.
Inhibition of Akt Enhances the Chemopreventive Effects of Topical Rapamycin in Mouse Skin

The PI3Kinase/Akt/mTOR pathway has important roles in cancer development for multiple tumor types, including UV-induced nonmelanoma skin cancer. Immunosuppressed populations are at increased risk of aggressive cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Individuals who are treated with rapamycin (sirolimus, a classical mTOR inhibitor) have significantly decreased rates of developing new cutaneous SCCs compared with those that receive traditional immunosuppression. However, systemic rapamycin use can lead to significant adverse events. Here, we explored the use of topical rapamycin as a chemopreventive agent in the context of solar-simulated light (SSL)-induced skin carcinogenesis. In SKH-1 mice, topical rapamycin treatment decreased tumor yields when applied after completion of 15 weeks of SSL exposure compared with controls. However, applying rapamycin during SSL exposure for 15 weeks, and continuing for 10 weeks after UV treatment, increased tumor yields. We also examined whether a combinatorial approach might result in more significant tumor suppression by rapamycin. We validated that rapamycin causes increased Akt (S473) phosphorylation in the epidermis after SSL, and show for the first time that this dysregulation can be inhibited in vivo by a selective PDK1/Akt inhibitor, PHT-427. Combining rapamycin with PHT-427 on tumor prone skin additively caused a significant reduction of tumor multiplicity compared with vehicle controls. Our findings indicate that patients taking rapamycin should avoid sun exposure, and that combining topical mTOR inhibitors and Akt inhibitors may be a viable chemoprevention option for individuals at high risk for cutaneous SCC.
Military Social Work as an Exemplar in Teaching Social Work Competencies

This article is for social work educators unfamiliar with military social work and receptive to a number of exemplars to enhance teaching strategies within their courses. Because examples of military social work are directly tied to the Council on Social Work Education competencies, this article offers a number of suggested teaching strategies regarding those competencies. By incorporating the exemplars into a range of courses as discussion points, students and faculty will become more aware of issues faced by military service members, veterans, and their families. The goal of this article is to alert social work faculty to the actuality that military social work is a rich teaching resource that can be mined to assist in most social work classes.
Attribution of cause of end-stage renal disease among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: the Georgia Lupus Registry.

Objective Whether using provider-attributed end-stage renal disease (ESRD) cause of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in national surveillance data captures the entire population of patients with SLE and ESRD remains uncertain. Our goal was to examine attributed cause of ESRD in US surveillance data among patients with SLE who have developed ESRD. Methods Data from a national registry of treated ESRD (United States Renal Data System (USRDS)) were linked to the population-based Georgia Lupus Registry (GLR). The provider-attributed cause of ESRD was extracted from the USRDS for each validated patient with SLE in the GLR (diagnosed through 2004) who initiated treatment for ESRD through 2012. The percentage of these patients with SLE whose ESRD was subsequently attributed to SLE in the USRDS was calculated, overall and by patient characteristics. Results Among 251 patients with SLE who progressed to ESRD, 78.9% had SLE as their attributed cause of ESRD. Of the remaining 53 patients, 43.4%, 18.9% and 15.6% had ESRD attributed to hypertension, diabetes mellitus type II and non-SLE-related glomerulonephritis, respectively. Attribution of ESRD to SLE was higher among patients aged ≤30 (87.9–93.9%) vs >30 (52.6%; p Conclusions These estimates indicate that USRDS-based studies may underreport ESRD among US patients with SLE. However, observed patterns of differential attribution of ESRD cause, particularly by age, suggest that providers may be correctly attributing ESRD to causes other than SLE among some patients with SLE.
Balances of Na+ and K+ in Normal and Bluecomb Diseased Turkeys

Abstract IT HAS been found by several workers responsible for the health of turkey flocks in some areas of Minnesota that during bluecomb disease in turkeys a reduction in severity of signs and reduced mortality occur when milk replacer and KCl are added to the drinking water. Previously, it had been shown that bluecomb-infected turkeys had a negative balance for both Na+ and K+; however, no comparable data were collected from control-fasted turkeys (Dziuk et al., 1969 b). Additionally, plasma [Na+], [K+], [Cl–], and osmolality were significantly reduced in bluecomb-infected turkeys but were not reduced in control-fasted turkeys. It was shown that many of the signs of bluecomb disease are related to lack of food intake (Dziuk et al., 1969 b) and to abnormal gastrointestinal function (Duke et al, 1969; Dziuk et al., 1969 a). The object of the present study, therefore, was to determine whether negative balances for Na+ and
Interleukin-1 receptor antagonist prevents sepsis-induced inhibition of protein synthesis

To understand the role of interleukin-1 (IL-1) as a mediator of the sepsis-induced skeletal muscle catabolism, we investigated the effects of a specific IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra) on skeletal muscle protein metabolism in a rodent model of chronic abdominal sepsis. A constant infusion of IL-1ra (2 mg.kg-1.h-1) or saline was begun immediately after the induction of sepsis and continued for 5 days. The effect of IL-1ra on protein metabolism was examined in individual muscles (gastrocnemius, soleus, heart) containing different fiber types. Infusion of IL-1ra in control animals did not alter protein metabolism in any of the muscles examined. Muscle weight, protein content, and the rate of protein synthesis in gastrocnemius were reduced by sepsis, whereas none of these parameters were affected in soleus or heart. Infusion of IL-1ra prevented the sepsis-induced loss of muscle protein and inhibition of protein synthesis in gastrocnemius but was without effect in soleus or heart. IL-1ra infusion restored translational efficiency in the gastrocnemius of septic rats and was without effect on the RNA content. These results provide evidence for a role of IL-1 as a mediator of the sepsis-induced abnormalities in skeletal muscle protein metabolism.
Method for Demarcating through-well Seismic Profile with Diplog and Design of A Microcomputer Software

Demarcating through-well seismic profile with diplog is one of the important ways to improve the quality of seismic interpretation. Its basic principles are introduced and its implementation on the microcomputer includes that, ①well logging data are used to synthesize seismic records;②accurate time-depth relationships are obtained by demarcating seismic horizons with the synthesized seismic records;③a stick plot of the diplog is demarcated onto the seismic profile; ④interpreter interactively.
Terahertz intersubband photodetectors based on semi-polar GaN/AlGaN heterostructures

Terahertz intersubband photodetectors are developed based on GaN/AlGaN quantum wells grown on a free-standing semi-polar (202¯1¯) GaN substrate. These quantum wells are nearly free of the polarization-induced internal electric fields that severely complicate the design of nitride intersubband devices on traditional c-plane substrates. As a result, a promising bound-to-quasi-bound THz photodetector design can be implemented. Pronounced photocurrent peaks at the design frequency near 10 THz are measured, covering frequencies that are fundamentally inaccessible to existing arsenide intersubband devices due to reststrahlen absorption. This materials system provides a favorable platform to utilize the intrinsic advantages of nitride semiconductors for THz optoelectronics.
Artificial Receptors for Chemosensors

Publisher Summary Chemosensors are molecules of abiotic origin that signal the presence of matter that can be used to measure the concentrations of analytes in a solution. This chapter discusses the artificial receptors for chemosensors. Chemosensors consist of artificial receptors tailored to reversibly bind the analyte with sufficient affinity and selectivity, a chromophore or fluorophore, and a mechanism for communicating between binding and optical signaling. This chapter additionally details chemosensor design considerations, gives historical background, and provides examples of chemosensors for neutral organic molecules and various anions. Chemosensors for biologically important analytes are particularly emphasized in this chapter.
4 – Voltage and Calcium Imaging of Brain Activity: Examples from the Turtle and the Mouse

This chapter discusses measurements of population signals with examples from two in vivo preparations: the olfactory bulb of the turtle and of the mouse. It begins with a general discussion of optical recording methods, including the choice of dyes, light sources, optics, cameras, and minimizing noise; and is followed by a more detailed description of voltage-sensitive dye measurements in the turtle and calcium dye measurements in the mouse. Because the light-measuring apparatus is already reasonably optimized, any improvement in the sensitivity of the optical measurements of neuron activity would need to come from the development of better dyes and/or investigating signals from additional optical properties of the dyes. However, because one of the chromophores must be hydrophobic and does not penetrate into brain tissue, it has not been possible to measure signals with a fast pair of dyes in intact tissues. An important new direction is the development of methods for neuron-type-specific staining. Three quite different approaches have been tried. First, the use of retrograde staining procedures has recently been investigated in the embryonic chick and lamprey spinal cords. The second approach is based on the use of cell-type-specific staining. Third approach is to construct a genetically encoded combination of a potassium channel and green fluorescent protein.
Facing the Other: The Role of the “White-Faced” Soldier in Walt Whitman's RECONCILIATION

Walt Whitman's poem “Reconciliation,”1 first published in the 1865–1866 Sequel to Drum-Taps, opens with the self-referential statement, “Word over all, beautiful as the sky, / Beautiful that war an...
Using fisheries modeling to assess candidate species for marine fisheries enhancement

Selecting target species or stocks in which releases of hatchery fish can contribute effectively to fisheries management goals is a key challenge in many fisheries enhancement programs. Here we show how fisheries modeling informed by stock assessments can be used to evaluate contributions of stocked fish to fisheries and how these contributions are influenced by life history and fishery attributes including regulatory policies and angler effort. We built an age-structured population model to quantitatively assess enhancement contributions to multiple fisheries management objectives: predicted catch, predicted harvest, abundance of catchable fish, abundance of harvestable fish and total spawning biomass. We used this model to evaluate candidate species for marine fisheries enhancement in Florida, where hatchery production capacity is scheduled to expand over the next decade yet it is unclear how fisheries managers can best use this capacity to achieve management objectives. We evaluated five candidate marine fishes in Florida: red drum Sciaenops ocellatus, spotted seatrout Cynoscion nebulosus, common snook Centropomus undecimalis, southern flounder Paralichthys lethostigma and red snapper Lutjanus campechanus. Comparative analysis shows that contribution of released fish to fisheries outcomes tend to decline with increasing time between release and capture or harvest. Enhancement of red drum, a species targeted by anglers during sub-adult life stages, is predicted to yield lower numbers of stocked fish entering the recruited population compared to alternative species but to contribute more to catch and harvest objectives. Our results demonstrate how commonly available biological information can be integrated with quantitative modeling approaches to provide useful information to managers tasked with identifying best uses of increasing enhancement capacity.
Sex-specific linkage scans in opioid dependence.

Sex influences risk for opioid dependence (OD). We hypothesized that sex might interact with genetic loci that influence the risk for OD. Therefore we performed an analysis to identify sex-specific genomic susceptibility regions for OD using linkage. Over 6,000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers were genotyped for 1,758 African- and European-American (AA and EA) individuals from 739 families, ascertained via affected sib-pairs with OD and/or cocaine dependence. Autosomewide non-parametric linkage scans, stratified by sex and population, were performed. We identified one significant linkage region, segregating with OD in EA men, at 71.1 cM on chromosome 4 (LOD = 3.29; point-wise P = 0.00005; empirical autosome-wide P = 0.042), which significantly differed from the linkage signal at the same location in EA women (empirical P = 0.002). Three suggestive linkage signals were identified at 181.3 cM on chromosome 7 (LOD = 2.18), 104 cM on chromosome 11 (LOD = 1.85), and 60.9 cM on chromosome 16 (LOD = 1.93) in EA women. In AA men, four suggestive linkage signals were detected at 201.1 cM on chromosome 3 (LOD = 2.32), 152.9 cM on chromosome 6 (LOD = 1.86), 16.8 cM on chromosome 7 (LOD = 1.95), and 36.1 cM on chromosome 17 (LOD = 1.99). The significant region, mapping to 4q12-4q13.1, harbors several OD candidate genes with interconnected functionality, including VEGFR, CLOCK, PDCL2, NMU, NRSF, and IGFBP7. In conclusion, these results provide an evidence for the existence of sex-specific and population-specific differences in OD. Furthermore, these results provide positional information that will facilitate the use of targeted next-generation sequencing to search for genes that contribute to sex-specific differences in OD. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Buffalo, bakeries, and tractors : cases in rural leasing from Pakistan, Uganda, And Mexico

This paper is neither a comparative study of the three companies nor a performance assessment of the case-firms. This paper also does not aim to present a comprehensive analysis of policy factors that enable or constrain leasing in the countries where the case-firms are located. The limited objective of the paper is to present, in more detail than was possible in the original Discussion Paper discussing the topic ( see report no. 31371), the experiences of three firms that are able to profitably provide leasing services in rural areas and to draw lessons from their experiences. Given the limited scope of the paper, the lessons drawn are preliminary. The report is organized as follows: Sections 2, 3, and 4 present the cases. The case studies present information on three dimensions: (1) an overview of the company, including legal structure, volume of business, sources of financing, and profitability, and the regulatory framework for leasing in the country; (2) lease terms and processes; and (3) performance of the firm, both overall and performance of rural operations. The case studies also include profiles of lessees, who represent a cross?section of the company's clients. Section 5 discusses lessons from the case studies and draws conclusions.
The microfoundations of diaspora politics: unpacking the state and disaggregating the diaspora

Recognising the need to unpack ‌the ‘state’ and‌ ‌problematise‌ the term‌ ‘diaspora’, in this special issue we examine the various actors within (and beyond) the state that participate in the desig...
Bewusstsein und der zweigleisige Verstand

Das Bewusstsein ist manchmal eine komische Sache. Es beschert uns seltsame Erlebnisse – z. B. kurz vor dem Einschlafen oder Aufwachen – und manchmal fragen wir uns, wer wirklich die Kontrolle uber unsere Gedanken hat.
Quantitative and molecular characterization of heat tolerance in hexaploid wheat

Understanding the genetic basis of tolerance to high temperature is important for improving the productivity of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in regions where the stress occurs. The objective of this study was to estimate inheritance of heat tolerance and the minimum number of genes for the trait in bread wheat by combining quantitative genetic estimates and molecular marker analyses. Two cultivars, Ventnor (heat-tolerant) and Karl92 (heat-susceptible), were crossed to produce F1, F2, and F3populations, and their grain-filling duration (GFD) at 30/25 °C 16/8 h day/night was determined as a measure of heat tolerance. Distribution of GFD in the F1 and F2 populations followed the normal model (χ2, p > 0.10). A minimum of 1.4 genes with both additive and dominance effects, broad-sense heritability of 80%, and realized heritability of 96%for GFD were determined from F2 and F3 populations. Products from 59primer pairs among 232 simple sequence repeat (SSR) pairs were polymorphic between the parents. Two markers, Xgwm11 andXgwm293, were linked to GFD by quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis of the F2 population. The Xgwm11-linked QTL had only additive gene action and contributed 11% to the total phenotypic variation in GFD in the F2population, whereas the Xgwm293-linked QTL had both additive and dominance action and contributed 12% to the total variation in GFD. The results demonstrated that heat tolerance of common wheat is controlled by multiple genes and suggested that marker-assisted selection with microsatellite primers might be useful for developing improved cultivars.
The Philosophy of Arithmetic: Frege and Husserl

The work of Frege and Husserl on logic and mathematics might, from a modern perspective, be compared under three main headings: mathematical logic, philosophical logic, and the foundations of mathematics. Under the first heading there is little room for comparison. Frege surpassed nearly everyone in the history of logic, to say nothing of Husserl, in his technical achievements and discoveries. Husserl contributed virtually no technical work to the development of mathematical logic. Under the second heading, however, there is a great deal of room for comparison. Many of the issues raised by Frege and Husserl involving language, meaning, reference, judgment, platonism about logic, and other matters are still actively debated in research in philosophical logic.
Incidental Renal Lesions on Lumbar Spine MRI: Who Needs Follow-Up?

OBJECTIVE. Incidentally discovered renal lesions on lumbar spine MRI are a common occurrence. Many follow-up recommendations are generated by radiologists encountering renal lesions to help charact...
An AC-AC Modular Multilevel Converter-Based Partially-Rated Solid-State Transformer for Power Flow Control

Increasing penetration rate of the renewable energy resources in conjunction with emergence of new dynamic loads such as electric vehicles, necessitate more flexible, efficient, and economical operation of the power grid. To maximize utilization of the power system infrastructure in an efficient and economical way, partially-rated solid-state transformer (PSST) has been proposed to control the power flow. In this paper, new PSSTs based on the AC-AC modular multilevel converter (MMC) are proposed. The proposed PSSTs borrow the salient features of the MMC and are capable of controlling power flow of the grid. Simulation studies in the PSCAD/EMTDC software environment are carried out to validate the performance and effectiveness of the proposed MMC-based PSSTs and the supporting control methods.
A Novel Rigid-Flex Aperture Coupled Patch Antenna Array

This paper presents the integration of a flex liquid crystal polymer (LCP) and rigid 3D printed structures to form a bendable antenna array. Photolithography is used to pattern the fine features of a power divider on LCP and 3D printing is utilized to fabricate patches that are directly attached to the LCP substrate. Individual patch antennas are aperture- coupled to the power divider through a slot in the ground plane. A single element rigid-flex patch was measured to have a maximum gain of 7.5 dBi and a $2\text{x}2$ array design shows a gain of 10.8 dBi at 15.2 GHz. The rigid-flex structure allows for conformal mounting and an array with a +90-degree bend is demonstrated that shows a 200-degree 3 dB beamwidth. Simulated and measured results are presented, and a close match was achieved.