cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Formation of Ring A in the Biosynthesis of Hopanoids from Squalene. A Density Functional Study

Density functional calculations were carried out on the ring closure of the 2,6-dimethyloct-6-en-2-yl cation to a chair conformer of the 1,2,3,3-tetramethylcyclohexyl cation as a model for the first step in the biosynthetic cyclization of squalene to the triterpene hopanoids. The concerted reaction was found to have an activation energy of 4.6 kcal/mol and to be exothermic by 11.5 kcal/mol.
Use of single‐isomer, multiply charged chiral resolving agents for the continuous, preparative‐scale electrophoretic separation of enantiomers based on the principle of equal‐but‐opposite analyte mobilities

A novel approach to continuous, preparative-scale electrophoretic enantiomer separations has been developed based on the observation that stable, equal-but-opposite effective mobilities can be created for the enantiomers of a single-charged analyte by complexing them with a single-isomer, multiply charged resolving agent, provided that the charge of the resolving agent is opposite in sign to that of the uncomplexed analyte enantiomers. When such an analyte-resolving agent system is fed into a continuous, free-flow electrophoretic apparatus, stable, steady-state operating conditions can be established which permit the continuous feeding of the racemic analyte and the collection of pure enantiomers at the opposite sides of the feed stream. This concept is demonstrated via the separation of the enantiomers of terbutaline using heptakis-6-sulfato beta-cyclodextrin as resolving agent, affording production rates as high as 2.8 mg/h in the general-purpose, continuous free-flow electrophoretic system, the Octopus.
The anatomy of the arteries and veins of the breast

Textbook accounts of this subject are inadequate. This review considers the work of Cooper and Salmon and reproduces some of their figures. Applications in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer are discussed. The largest mammary arteries are the lateral (from the axillary) and the anterior medial and posterior medial (from the internal thoracis). The branches of these arteries do not follow the duct system, but instead form a plexus in the anterior fat layer. Normally there are no hypervascular or hypovascular areas. The contribution of the mammary branches of the posterior (aortic) intercostal arteries is minor. There are superficial and deep sets of veins, the latter associated with arteries. Mammary vessels of living women are demonstrated by infrared photography, thermography, and mammography. In the diagnostic use of these methods there is a tendency to rely upon the concept of normal vascular symmetry, but this is a fallacy.
Binding properties of neuroligin 1 and neurexin 1beta reveal function as heterophilic cell adhesion molecules

Abstract β-Neurexins and neuroligins are plasma membrane proteins that are displayed on the neuronal cell surface. We have now investigated the interaction of neurexin 1β with neuroligin 1 to evaluate their potential to function as heterophilic cell adhesion molecules. Using detergent-solubilized neuroligins and secreted neurexin 1β-IgG fusion protein, we observed binding of these proteins to each other only in the presence of Ca2+ and in no other divalent cation tested. Only neurexin 1β lacking an insert in splice site 4 bound neuroligins, whereas neurexin 1β containing an insert was inactive. Half-maximal binding required 1–3 μm free Ca2+, which probably acts by binding to neuroligin 1 but not to neurexin 1β. To determine if neurexin 1β and neuroligin 1 can also interact with each other when present in a native membrane environment on the cell surface, we generated transfected cell lines expressing neuroligin 1 and neurexin 1β. Upon mixing different cell populations, we found that cells aggregate only if cells expressing neurexin 1β are mixed with cells expressing neuroligin 1. Aggregation was dependent on Ca2+ and was inhibited by the addition of soluble neurexin 1β lacking an insert in splice site 4 but not by the addition of neurexin 1β containing an insert in splice site 4. We conclude that neurexin 1β and neuroligin 1 (and, by extension, other β-neurexins and neuroligins) function as heterophilic cell adhesion molecules in a Ca2+-dependent reaction that is regulated by alternative splicing of β-neurexins.
Cultural Dynamics of Corporate Fraud

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between cultural heritage and attitudes toward fraud. The data indicates that the culturalisation process is complex, with no apparent absolutes. People claiming different cultural heritage do differ in how they approve of fraud in general, but what is equally significant is how these same people universally evaluated specific types of fraud. A comprehensive analysis of the results, taking into consideration all the potential correlates – cultural heritage as well as age, education, gender and occupation – indicates that the respondents may have been influenced by an overarching “corporate culture” that tends to assimilate diverse attitudes into a more universal standard of behaviour.
Recent developments in finance

Abstract This paper selects examples from a number of major areas of finance, e.g. monetary policy, capital asset pricing, financial institutions and markets and corporate finance, to illustrate the absence of or questionable nature of much of the ‘knowledge’ in these areas, the problems involved in present methodology, and the need for a changed emphasis in methodology. It pays particular attention to the present status of the Sharpe-Lintner capital asset pricing model, including the past and more recent attempts to reconcile that theory with the empirical facts.
Genotoxic Exposure during Juvenile Growth of Mammary Gland Depletes Stem Cell Activity and Inhibits Wnt Signaling

Various types of somatic stem cell have been tested for their response to genotoxic exposure, since these cells are likely to be important to regeneration, aging and cancer. In this study, we evaluated the response of mammary stem cells to genotoxic exposure during ductal growth in juveniles. Exposure to the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (DMBA; 7,12 dimethylbenz[a]anthracene) had no gross effect on outgrowth and morphogenesis of the ductal tree, or upon lobuloalveolar growth during pregnancy. However, by fat pad assay, we found that mammary stem cell activity was reduced by 80% in glands from adults that were exposed to genotoxins as juveniles. The associated basal cell lineage was depleted. Both basal and luminal cells showed a robust response to genotoxic exposure (including γH2AX phosphorylation, pS(15)p53 and pT(68)Chk2), with durable hyperproliferation, but little cytotoxicity. Since the phenotype of these glands (low basal cell fraction, low stem cell activity) phenocopies mammary glands with loss of function for Wnt signaling, we measured Wnt signaling in genotoxin-exposed glands, and found a durable reduction in the activation of the canonical signaling Wnt receptors, Lrp5/6. Furthermore, when mammary epithelial cells were treated with Wnt3a, DMBA exposure reduced the basal cell population and Lrp activation was ablated. We conclude that during active ductal growth, Wnt-dependent mammary stem cells are sensitized to cell death by genotoxin exposure. Our conclusion may be important for other tissues, since all solid tumor stem cell activities have been shown to be Wnt-dependent to date.
Purification and characterization of the RecA protein from Neisseria gonorrhoeae.

The strict human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae is the only causative agent of the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea. The recA gene from N. gonorrhoeae is essential for DNA repair, natural DNA transformation, and pilin antigenic variation, all processes that are important for the pathogenesis and persistence of N. gonorrhoeae in the human population. To understand the biochemical features of N. gonorrhoeae RecA (RecANg), we overexpressed and purified the RecANg and SSBNg proteins and compared their activities to those of the well-characterized E. coli RecA and SSB proteins in vitro. We observed that RecANg promoted more strand exchange at early time points than RecAEc through DNA homologous substrates, and exhibited the highest ATPase activity of any RecA protein characterized to date. Further analysis of this robust ATPase activity revealed that RecANg is more efficient at displacing SSB from ssDNA and that RecANg shows higher ATPase activity during strand exchange than RecAEc. Using substrates created to mimic the cellular processes of DNA transformation and pilin antigenic variation we observed that RecAEc catalyzed more strand exchange through a 100 bp heterologous insert, but that RecANg catalyzed more strand exchange through regions of microheterology. Together, these data suggest that the processes of ATP hydrolysis and DNA strand exchange may be coupled differently in RecANg than in RecAEc. This difference may explain the unusually high ATPase activity observed for RecANg with the strand exchange activity between RecANg and RecAEc being more similar.
Software requirements and specifications: A survey of needs and languages

This paper surveys techniques for the expression of software requirements and specifications. A distinction is developed between requirements and two types of specifications. Summaries are provided of existing languages. Although the concepts surveyed apply, for the most part, to systems in general, the primary focus is on software systems. An appendix discusses the use of the terms ''requirements'' and ''specification'' in the Department of Defense. Primary findings are as follows: 1.(1) In the continuum of possible ways of describing systems, the software engineering community has focused on three distinct classes of description: requirements, system specification, and abstract program specification; 2.(2) each form of description serves distinct needs and focuses on distinct aspects of the system described as requirements; properties needed for a system to be a solution to a problem, generally presented in terms of the anticipated environment and user needs; system specification; what a system does-its externally visible behavioral characteristics; and abstract program specification; mathematically formal and verifiable specifications; and 3.(3) each form of description is represented in the literature by a distinct type of description language. Table 1 summarizes the capabilities of the various language classes.
Ontology-guided feature engineering for clinical text classification

Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted Highlights? Leveraged the structure of the UMLS to rank concepts for text classification. ? Used document class labels to define a context-sensitive semantic similarity measure. ? Classified clinical text with SVMs using a semantic kernel. ? Improved the top machine-learning system from I2B2 2008 challenge. In this study we present novel feature engineering techniques that leverage the biomedical domain knowledge encoded in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) to improve machine-learning based clinical text classification. Critical steps in clinical text classification include identification of features and passages relevant to the classification task, and representation of clinical text to enable discrimination between documents of different classes. We developed novel information-theoretic techniques that utilize the taxonomical structure of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) to improve feature ranking, and we developed a semantic similarity measure that projects clinical text into a feature space that improves classification. We evaluated these methods on the 2008 Integrating Informatics with Biology and the Bedside (I2B2) obesity challenge. The methods we developed improve upon the results of this challenge's top machine-learning based system, and may improve the performance of other machine-learning based clinical text classification systems. We have released all tools developed as part of this study as open source, available at http://code.google.com/p/ytex.
Higher Education Collaboration in Kenya: Challenges and Perspectives

Higher education in developing countries presents an opportunity both for investment and development, if specific challenges can be overcome. This article looks at the opportunities for higher education in a developing country, Kenya, and how these experiences have enabled an identification of issues that must be dealt with for higher education to grow both as an investment and capacity-building opportunity for developing countries. It offers a brief narrative on the history of higher education in Kenya, and the types of higher education collaborations. Using a case study of a long established transnational education collaborative partnership between INtel College, Kenya, and the University of Sunderland, UK, it explores the framework for such operations and challenges and perspectives of the partnership. Finally, it presents a view of the future of transnational education in a nation which indeed may have relevance in any developing country.
Three-dimensional reconstruction of the fibres of sickle cell haemoglobin

Three-dimensional reconstruction of electron micrographs of the 20-nm diameter fibres of HbS reveals an inner helical core of four strands surrounded by an outer helix of 10 strands to give a total of 14 strands. The strands are arranged with roughly hexagonal packing to produce an unusual helical structure which features a variety of intermolecular contacts and a non-circular cross section.
Auld lang Syne: Success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year's resolvers and nonresolvers

New Year's resolvers (n = 159) and comparable nonresolvers interested in changing a problem later (n = 123) were followed for six months via telephone interviews to determine their self-reported outcomes, predictors of success, and change processes. The two groups did not differ in terms of demographic characteristics, problem histories, or behavioral goals (weight loss, exercise program, and smoking cessation being the most prevalent). Resolvers reported higher rates of success than nonresolvers; at six months, 46% of the resolvers were continuously successful compared to 4% of the nonresolvers. Self-efficacy, skills to change, and readiness to change assessed before January 1 all predicted positive outcome for resolvers. Once into the new year, successful resolvers employed more cognitive-behavioral processes but fewer awareness-generating and emotion-enhancing processes than nonsuccessful resolvers. Discussion centers on the research and intervention opportunities afforded by the annual tradition of resolutions.
A study on optimally co-scheduling jobs of different lengths on chip multiprocessors

Cache sharing in Chip Multiprocessors brings cache contention among corunning processes, which often causes considerable degradation of program performance and system fairness. Recent studies have seen the effectiveness of job co-scheduling in alleviating the contention. But finding optimal schedules is challenging. Previous explorations tackle the problem under highly constrained settings. In this work, we show that relaxing those constraints, particularly the assumptions on job lengths and reschedulings, increases the complexity of the problem significantly. Subsequently, we propose a series of algorithms to compute or approximate the optimal schedules in the more general setting.Specifically, we propose an A*-based approach to accelerating the search for optimal schedules by as much as several orders of magnitude. For large problems, we design and evaluate two approximation algorithms, A*-cluster and local-matching algorithms, to effectively approximate the optimal schedules with good accuracy and high scalability. This study contributes better understanding to the optimal co-scheduling problem, facilitates the evaluation of co-scheduling systems, and offers insights and techniques for the development of practical co-scheduling algorithms.
Fall-grazing management effects on production and persistence of tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, and prairie grass

Extending the grazing season for livestock into late fall or early winter can substantially reduce production costs compared with ending the grazing season in October. Most of the published research about fall or early-winter production of grasses was derived from simulated grazing studies (i.e., frequent mechanical harvesting) and may not be indicative of results obtained with actual grazing. The objective of this research was to evaluate the whole-year production of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.), prairie grass [Bromus unioloides (Willd.) H.B.K.; syn. B. willdenowii Kunth], and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) under different fall grazing management schemes. In 1994, 1995, and 1996 fall grazing treatments consisting of: 1. stockpile (accumulation forage in the field after the August grazing and then grazing once in November); 2. lax (grazing once in September and then not grazing again until spring); and 3. intensive (continue grazing on approximately 30 d schedule through November) were imposed on established stands of 'Barcel' tall fescue, 'Citadel' perennial ryegrass, and 'Grasslands Matua' prairie grass at the Haller Livestock and Forage Research Center near State College, PA. Perennial ryegrass and tall fescue responded similarly within and across grazing treatments. Total season yield (averaged 7490 Ib/acre per year) and persistence of perennial ryegrass were equal to tall fescue regardless of the fall grazing management. During the first year after implementing the grazing treatments, prairie grass survival was only 15% in the stockpile treatment and by the second year, prairie grass had not survived in any of the grazing treatments. Fall grazing and stockpiling tall fescue or perennial ryegrass lengthened the grazing season. However, this increased fall production resulted in 15% less forage production the following spring than pastures not grazed in the fall. A combination of lax, intensive, and stockpile grazing in separate paddocks may be most desirable. Intensive and stockpile grazing would allow continued grazing into the fall and early winter, respectively, and lax grazing would permit early spring grazing while the fall-grazed pastures recover.
Nanophase oxide formation by intraparticle reaction

Abstract We have generated 0.1–0.5 μm aggregates that consist of nanocrystalline P d O and V 2 O 5 . The particles were generated by reacting aerosol particles that are composed of metal nitrates in a hot flowing gas stream. The microstructure of the particles was controlled by varying the temperature. Nanophase materials were formed at temperatures low enough to avoid grain growth in each particle, but sufficiently high to fully react the precursors. This process allows reasonable production rates of nanophase materials. Generation of multicomponent materials is also possible.
The relationship between gay identity development and hope, optimism, and life engagement

ABSTRACT The role that wellness constructs such as hope play in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and questioning persons' identity development has not been adequately researched. A sample of 77 mostly female and European American participants completed measures of (a) LGBQ identity development, (b) internalized homo-negativity, (c) hope, (d) optimism, and (e) life engagement. MANCOVA results show that participants differed in levels of hope, optimism, and life engagement by level of LGBQ identity development. Only hope was shown to reliably predict level of LGBQ identity development. Implications and recommendations are presented. Hope, optimism, and life engagement appear to be related to LGBQ identity development.
The effects of prostaglandins on the intraocular pressure of the rabbit.

Abstract 1. The effects of intracameral injections of prostaglandins E1, E2, F1a, F2a, and A1 were studied on the intraocular pressure (IOP) of rabbits anaesthetized with urethane. 2. With the exception of prostaglandin F1a, all the prostaglandins studied were found to be capable of producing a large, sustained rise in IOP, accompanied in many cases by miosis. 3. A marked decrease in response to repeated injections was found with all the prostaglandins studied; this effect was more pronounced following a large initial response to the prostaglandin. 4. The descending order of potency in their ability to raise IOP was as follows: prostaglandin E1≈E2>F2a>A1>F1a. 5. Intracameral injections of prostaglandins E1 and E2 resulted in an increase in the protein content of the aqueous humour, which was related to the magnitude of the sustained increase in IOP. 6. Stabilization of the blood-aqueous barrier with polyphloretin phosphate markedly reduced both the IOP response and the effect of prostaglandin E2 on the protein content of the aqueous humour. 7. It is concluded that the production of local vasodilatation and increased permeability of the blood-aqueous barrier play an important part in the effect of prostaglandins on the IOP. The involvement of prostaglandins in the response of the rabbit eye to irritation is discussed.
Ozone inhalation modifies the rat liver proteome

Ozone (O3) is a serious public health concern. Recent findings indicate that the damaging health effects of O3 extend to multiple systemic organ systems. Herein, we hypothesize that O3 inhalation will cause downstream alterations to the liver. To test this, male Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to 0.5 ppm O3 for 8 h/day for 5 days. Plasma liver enzyme measurements showed that 5 day O3 exposure did not cause liver cell death. Proteomic and mass spectrometry analysis identified 10 proteins in the liver that were significantly altered in abundance following short-term O3 exposure and these included several stress responsive proteins. Glucose-regulated protein 78 and protein disulfide isomerase increased, whereas glutathione S-transferase M1 was significantly decreased by O3 inhalation. In contrast, no significant changes were detected for the stress response protein heme oxygenase-1 or cytochrome P450 2E1 and 2B in liver of O3 exposed rats compared to controls. In summary, these results show that an environmentally-relevant exposure to inhaled O3 can alter the expression of select proteins in the liver. We propose that O3 inhalation may represent an important unrecognized factor that can modulate hepatic metabolic functions.
Equipment for HPLC. VI

Presentation de materiel, et tableau comparatif des performances. Dans cet article on passe en revue: les reservoirs a solvant, les pompes, les injecteurs, les fours et les colonnes, les detecteurs, les enregistreurs et systemes de traitement de donnees
A case for the multithreaded processor architecture

As cache based shared-memory multiprocessors are scaled (the number of processors are increased), there will be an increase in the network latency, due to cache coherence and synchronization delays. These parameters can cause a significant drop in processor utilization. Once a process has remote procedure call or need data from remote side, the processor has to be idle or make context switch to load the next process in which the CPU (Central Processing Unit) time is wasted.By maintaining the multiple threads in the hardware, and switching among them, the multithreaded processor can overlap the waiting time for the synchronization delay so that it decreases the processor idle time.This correspondence describes the multithreaded processor architecture, in which there are a number of hardware contexts per processor. It uses coarsegrain method to schedule threads and two-phase waiting algorithm to synchronize the waiting threads. From this architecture, we can study how many hardware contexts are needed, so the processor utilization can be increased. Moreover, we can study the effect on the utilization by changing the cache miss ratio.
Performance Characteristics of 6 Third-Generation Assays for Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone Dr. Roberts responds

We appreciate the information provided by Waskiewicz et al. in their letter. They are correct that the study by Ognibene et al. (1) refers to a second-generation thyrotropin (TSH) assay on the ADVIA Centaur and not to a third-generation TSH assay. We regret this error. The study by Vogeser et al., cited as Ref. 4 by Waskiewicz et al., did not actually include an estimate of the functional sensitivity, but rather imprecision was 22.3% at a …
Social behavior in a group of orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus abelii) in a zoo setting

Abstract A group of orang-utans ( Pongo pygmaeus abelii ), consisting of one adult male, three females and two young, were observed at the Sedgwick County Zoo (Wichita, KS). A quick, reliable, time-sampling technique was used throughout the day under conditions of public exhibition. Social interactions were defined and recorded as associations based on contact between and among animals, and in terms of close spatial relationships without contact (non-contact association). The activities of the two offspring, of one of the adult females and the adult male were primarily responsible for social groupings with different animals which were not constrained by the conditions of captivity. The data gathered by this non-intrusive technique corroborated observations under other conditions reported in the literature including those of one of our animals in another zoo setting.
Psychometric properties of the Doloplus-2 observational pain assessment scale and comparison to self-assessment in hospitalized elderly.

OBJECTIVES: Self-report is the "gold standard" for pain assessment, however, observational pain scales, such as Doloplus-2 must be used for patients who cannot communicate. In this follow-up study, we report the psychometric properties of the observational Doloplus-2 scale using the visual analog scale (VAS) pain score as a gold standard and evaluate its performance. METHOD: Prospective clinical study of 180 hospitalized older patients who demonstrated good comprehension and reliable use of the VAS: 131 participants with dementia and 49 without. All participants assessed their chronic pain using the VAS. Doloplus-2 was independently completed by the nursing team. RESULTS: Mean age of patients (133 women, 47 men) was 83.7+/-6.5. Median mini-mental state examination of patients with diagnosis of dementia was 18.0+/-7.7. Nearly half of the patients (49%) reported that they experienced pain in response to a direct question. The administration of Doloplus-2 was possible in all 180 patients. Doloplus-2 correlated moderately with self-assessment (Spearman coefficient: 0.46). In a multiple regression model, Doloplus-2 predicted 41% of the variability in pain intensity measured by VAS. The somatic dimension alone explained 36% of the variance, the psychosocial bloc 5% with no better contribution of the psychomotor bloc. To shorten Doloplus-2, we constructed a version with only the 5 items that were significantly associated with the VAS score in the multiple regression models. DISCUSSION: The observational Doloplus-2 scale correlates moderately with self-assessment pain score and has adequate internal consistency. Our data also suggest that Doloplus-2 could be substantially shortened as the brief version performed similarly to the complete Doloplus-2.
A STUDY OF SATISFACTIONS AND STRESSES OF SINGLE WOMEN IN MIDLIFE

Sixty single women 35 to 65 years old, previously married or never married, were interviewed about the satisfactions and stresses of the single status. Respondents were categorized as having high, medium, or low life satisfaction. Life satisfaction was found to be significantly correlated to such factors as good health, not being lonely, living with a female housemate, having many casual friends, and being invested in work. Half the women mentioned having sexual needs, which were or were not fulfilled. The other half stated that they did not have sexual needs. These two groups did not differ in life satisfaction. Regrets about not having had children occurred in one-quarter of the childless women, without necessarily implying low life satisfaction. Only 15% of the entire sample had low life satisfaction, a percentage similar to that found in the general population.
Passive transfer of human atopic allergies into lemurs, lorises, pottos, and galagos: Possible primate-ordinal specificity of acceptance of passive sensitization by human atopic reagin

Abstract Reaginic sera from patients with atopic allergy to various atopens were shown to confer passive sensitivity upon the skins of higher primates (Anthropoidea) and upon the lorisiforme and lemuriforme Prosimii. Of the Prosimii, Galago crassicaudatus was found to be most suitable for allergic serum transfer studies. Human allergic sera failed to sensitize the skin of the primate-like insectivore, Tupaia glis (tree shrew). Representative species of orders Carnivora, Ungulata, Lagomorpha, Rodentia, Marsupialia, and Microchiroptera failed to accept passive sensitization by human reaginic sera. Acceptance of passive skin sensitization by human atopic reagin may be an ordinally specific characteristic limited to the primates.
Fine-grained power management using process-level profiling

Abstract Low-power hardware design itself is not enough to solve the power problem of computer systems. Operating system level power saving strategies have been proved as effective complement to hardware methods. However, most of these strategies work on system level, and some of them may severely influence performance. In order to balance between performance and energy consumption, fine-grained methods, such as process-level power management, were proposed. These methods usually require realtime power information to make critical power-saving decisions, but most power profiling tools only supply component level power information. In this paper, we first propose a process-level power profiling tool called pTopW, which runs on Windows platform. pTopW supplies a group of APIs for power-aware system modules to acquire realtime power profiles and make power-aware decisions based on these information. In addition, we introduce a power-aware system module called EnergyGuard, which can eliminate energy wasted by abnormal-behavior applications. Through experiments, we found that the energy model we proposed have very good responsiveness. In addition, EnergyGuard is helpful to distinguish applications’ abnormal power behaviors.
Abdominal epilepsy—a reappraisal

The syndrome of abdominal-visceral epilepsy is reviewed and reappraised. It is concluded that the syndrome does exist. Criteria for its diagnosis are emphasized with special reference being made to associated alteration of awareness. The diagnosis should be made only on positive rather than negative grounds. The rigid criteria used for the diagnosis of other forms of epilepsy should also apply in this condition. These criteria include adequate historical data regarding paroxysmal pain, alteration of awareness, postictal symptoms, electroencephalographic abnormalities, and good response to anticonvulsant medication.
A Time to Die: A Study of the Relationship of Birthdays and Time of Death

Using data from several sources, the authors found that almost half of all deaths occur during the first quarter after one's birthday, while less than 10 per cent occur in the quarter just prior to the birthday. This finding obtained for deaths of several types included long illnesses, accidental death, suicide, and natural causes. Death did not follow this pattern in the case of war casualties and homicide victims, however. The data supported the Durkheimian explanation of the integrative effect of the birthday.
Effects of temperature on the darkness survival of marine microplanktonic algae.

Thirty-seven species of marine microplanktonic algae from 10 taxonomic classes were tested for their viability in axenic culture after prolonged exposure to darkness at 2°, 10°, and 20°C. The darkness test periods were prolonged in weekly installments up to a maximum of 1 year, and viability retention (survival) was judged from the capability for resuming growth after replacement in light. The 2°C-tests showed 32% of the species reaching the limits of survival with 5–6 months of darkness exposure, but another similar percentage continued to tolerate darkness for double this period. These darkness toleration limits were considerably shorter at 20°C for the strains known to be isolated from cold marine regions, whereas the warm-water strains showed the reverse temperature effect in surviving significantly longer at 10°–20°C than at 2°C. Irrespective of temperature or algal class, the bulk of the more resistant survivors was formed by the strains qualifying as benthic types, about 70% of which tolerated 11–12 months and the rest at least 5–6 months of darkness. A few randomly chosen benthic strains extended this toleration to 3 years of darkness. It was concluded that phytoplankters retain darkness-endurance capacity determined by their ecological origin and with no obvious taxonomic correspondence. The concept of ecological races, characterized by temperature control of darkness survival, is discussed.
AN ESTIMATE OF THE EFFECTIVE SIZES OF CHLOROPHYLL A AGGREGATES IN VIVO AS DETERMINED FROM EMISSION SPECTRA.

Abstract Low temperature fluorescence spectrum of Euglena gracilis is observed to shift toward longer wavelengths during the greening process. This shift is assumed to arise from the formation of increasing larger aggregates of chlorophyll a . The effective size and absorption maximum are calculated for the aggregate.
Neuropsychologic test performance in amateur boxers

Cognitive functions of 23 amateur boxers were assessed immediately before and after an amateur boxing event. A range of cognitive measures were employed including tasks of verbal, figural, and incidental memory, motor functions, attention and concentration, and information processing speed. Compared to their prefight performance, boxers demonstrated impairments in verbal and incidental memory, but enhanced executive and motor functions postfight. There were no observed differences between winners and losers on any of the measures. The results are compared to other studies that have shown only minor changes in cognitive functions in amateur boxers compared to controls.
Dynamic boundary evaluation method for approximate optimal lunar trajectories

Introduction R ESEARCH into low-thrust Earth-moon trajectories has increased recently." The time and effort required to obtain an optimal low-thrust lunar trajectory depends greatly on the initial estimate of the trajectory used in the optimizing process. Pierson and Kluever present an effective method for finding an initial estimate for a class of Earth-moon trajectories. However, their method requires the setup of tabular data before the initial estimate can be found. This data table must be recomputed for each new initial thrust-to-weight ratio, radius of the initial low Earth orbit (LEO), or radius of the final low lunar orbit (LLO). This Note describes a dynamic boundary evaluation (DBE) method that replaces the data table construction and subsequent interpolation with an on-line iterative numerical process. The optimal low-thrust lunar trajectory problem treated here involves a planar transfer from a circular LEO to a circular LLO. A specified thrust-coast-thrust sequence is assumed using constant thrust. The spacecraft thrusts away from the LEO, in an increasing spiral, until enough energy is gained to make the lunar rendezvous. The spacecraft then coasts to the vicinity of the lunar sphere of influence, where the spacecraft thrusts, in a decreasing spiral, to the desired LLO. The minimum-fuel solution is the one that accomplishes this transfer with the minimum time spent in the two thrusting periods, because the assumed constant thrust implies a constant mass flow. The Pierson-Kluever method uses maximum-energy spirals, described later, to approximate both the Earth-departure and the lunar-capture thrusting arcs. This composite trajectory, consisting of the maximum-energy spirals plus an optimal translunar coast, is then used to estimate the fully minimum-fuel transfer from a circular LEO to a circular LLO. This estimate is very accurate in terms of performance; i.e., the fuel spent is very close to that for the fully optimal case, and the control time histories for the thrust-steering angle are adequate to ensure convergence to a solution of the full problem.
Variability in the Framing of Risk Issues

Decision making about environmental and public health risks has become a frequent source of social conflict in society, often resulting in major obstacles to effective risk management and disruptions in the policy process. Individuals vary not only in policy preferences and responses to environmental hazards, but also in underlying belief and value systems that influence several aspects of the environmental decision-making process. In particular, variability in the framing of risk issues can exacerbate conflict, leading to differences in which perspectives are judged legitimate or valid, what solutions are seen as reasonable, and what type of information is seen as useful or relevant. In many controversies, groups have differed systematically in framing risk issues: as scientific or economic vs. fairness and equity questions, in terms of what at-risk population is highlighted, and in focusing primarily on potential gain or loss as the result of a decision.
A 2(2)/(3) superstring approximation algorithm

Abstract Given a collection of strings ifS = s1, …, sn over an alphabet ∑, a superstring α of S is a string containing each si, as a substring; that is, for each i, 1⩽ i ⩽n, α contains a block of ¦s i ¦ consecutive characters that match si exactly. The shortest superstring problem is the problem of finding a superstring α of minimum length. The shortest superstring problem has applications in both data compression and computational biology. It was shown by Blum et al. (1994) to be MAX SNP-hard. The first O(1)-approximation algorithm also appeared in Blum et al. (1994), which returns a superstring no more than 3 times the length of an optimal solution. Prior to the algorithm described in this paper, there were several published results that improved on the approximation ratio; of these, the best was our algorithm ShortString , a 2 3 4 - approximation Armen and Stein (1995). We present our new algorithm, G-ShortString , which achieves an approximation ratio of 2 2 3 . Our approach builds on the work in Armen and Stein (1995) in which we identified classes of strings that have a nested periodic structure, and which must be present in the worst case for our algorithms. We introduced machinery to describe these strings and proved strong structural properties about them. In this paper we extend this study to strings that exhibit a more relaxed form of the same structure, and we use this understanding to obtain our improved result.
Efficacy of sildenafil citrate in prostate brachytherapy patients with erectile dysfunction.

Abstract Objectives. To ascertain the efficacy of sildenafil citrate (Viagra) in patients with erectile dysfunction (ED) either before or after prostate brachytherapy by an open-label, nonrandomized study. Methods. Sixty-two patients who underwent prostate brachytherapy between March 1995 and July 1998, had ED either before or after brachytherapy, and were interested in treatment with sildenafil comprised the patient population. Clinical and treatment parameters evaluated for medication efficacy included patient age at brachytherapy and at medication administration, hypertension, diabetes, smoking history, onset of ED, potency status before implant, frequency of intercourse before brachytherapy (if potent), use of neoadjuvant hormonal manipulation, use of moderate dose external beam radiation therapy before implantation, choice of isotope, V100 (the percentage of the prostate volume receiving at least 100% of the prescribed minimal peripheral dose), and sildenafil dose. Results. Fifty (80.6%) of 62 patients responded favorably to sildenafil. None of the treatment parameters predicted medication failure, and among the clinical parameters, only diabetes predicted failure (3 of 5) and only with borderline statistical validity ( P = 0.046). Conclusions. Our results suggest brachytherapy-induced impotence is as amenable to sildenafil treatment as ED from other causes. In addition, our 80.6% success rate is comparable to reported results for patients who underwent bilateral nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy and significantly better than patients who underwent unilateral nerve-sparing or non-nerve-sparing approaches.
American foreign policy at the crossroads: Between idealism and realism, informal and formal empire, unilateralism and multilateralism

This article compares and contrasts current U.S. "war on terrorism" and proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons (NBC’s) with the general U.S. foreign policy during the Cold-War and post-Cold War eras. The focus is primarily on a growing dilemma - "informal" or "formal" American empire - that rises from unprecedented asymmetry in military power between the United States and its closest followers. Also, this article analyzes the role of non-material elements of power (so-called soft power) and reviews recent views regarding the "unilateralism-multilateralism dichotomy" in American foreign policy. The author demonstrates that the "war on terrorism" and proliferation of NBC’s weapons show that U.S. status as the only super-power is not simply a matter of resource availability and relative power. Military muscle is an essential requirement, but it does not itself secure that position. This is especially true for the status of an empire either "informal" or "formal.".
Factors of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory Criterion-Related Validity and Relationship to the BIS/BAS and Five-Factor Models of Personality

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that includes interpersonal-affective and antisocial deviance features. The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) contains two underlying factors (fearless dominance and impulsive antisociality) that may differentially tap these two sets of features. In a mixed-gender sample of undergraduates and prisoners, we found that PPI fearless dominance was related to low Behavioral Inhibition System activity, high Behavioral Activation System (BAS) activity, expert prototype psychopathy scores, and primary psychopathy. Impulsive antisociality was related to high BAS activity and all psychopathy measures. High Extraversion and Openness and low Neuroticism and Agreeableness predicted fearless dominance, whereas high Neuroticism and low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness predicted impulsive antisociality. Although low levels of Agreeableness predicted both PPI factors, their differential relations with other five-factor model traits highlight differences in the way psychopathy manifests itself. Consistent with movements toward assessing personality disorder using the five-factor model, the authors report regression-based equations for the clinical assessment of these psychopathy dimensions using the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R).
Tertiary Structure of Thiopurine Methyltransferase from Pseudomonas syringae, a Bacterial Orthologue of a Polymorphic, Drug-metabolizing Enzyme

In humans, the enzyme thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT) metabolizes 6-thiopurine (6-TP) medications, including 6-thioguanine, 6-mercaptopurine and azathioprine, commonly used for immune suppression and for the treatment of hematopoietic malignancies. S-Methylation by TPMT prevents the intracellular conversion of these drugs into active 6-thioguanine nucleotides (6-TGNs). Genetic polymorphisms in the TPMT protein sequence have been associated with decreased tissue enzymatic activities and an increased risk of life-threatening myelo-suppression from standard doses of 6-TP medications. Biochemical studies have demonstrated that TPMT deficiency is primarily associated with increased degradation of the polymorphic proteins through an ubiquitylation and proteasomal-dependent pathway. We have now determined the tertiary structure of the bacterial orthologue of TPMT from Pseudomonas syringae using NMR spectroscopy. Bacterial TPMT similarly catalyzes the S-adenosylmethionine (SAM)-dependent transmethylation of 6-TPs and shares 45% similarity (33% identity) with the human enzyme. Initial studies revealed an unstructured N terminus, which was removed for structural studies and subsequently determined to be required for enzymatic activity. Despite lacking sequence similarity to any protein of known three-dimensional structure, the tertiary structure of bacterial TPMT reveals a classical SAM-dependent methyltransferase topology, consisting of a seven-stranded beta-sheet flanked by alpha-helices on both sides. However, some deviations from the consensus topology, along with multiple insertions of structural elements, are evident. A review of the many experimentally determined tertiary structures of SAM-dependent methyltransferases demonstrates that such structural deviations from the consensus topology are common and often functionally important.
Transgenic mice with SCA10 pentanucleotide repeats show motor phenotype and susceptibility to seizure: A toxic RNA gain-of-function model

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 10 (SCA10) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder manifested by ataxia and seizure. SCA10 is caused by a large expansion of an intronic ATTCT pentanucleotide repeat in the ATXN10 gene. We have recently postulated a toxic RNA-mediated gain of function in the pathogenesis of spinal cerebellar ataxia type 10 (SCA10). The spliced intron-9 RNA containing the expanded AUUCU repeat aggregates in SCA10 cells and sequesters hnRNP K. hnRNP K sequestration triggers the translocation of protein kinase Cδ (PKCδ) to mitochondria, leading to activation of caspase-3 and apoptosis. To confirm the toxic RNA-mediated gain of function, we generated a new transgenic mouse model in which the expanded pentanucleotide repeats are constructed in the 3'-untranslated region (3'UTR) to ensure transcription without translation of the repeat. We constructed an artificial transgene containing the SCA10 (ATTCT)(500) track within the 3'UTR of the LacZ gene driven by the rat prion promoter (PrP) and used this to generate a new transgenic mouse model for SCA10. We then examined these mice for neurological phenotypes and histopathological, molecular, and cellular changes. The transgenic mice showed irregular gait and increased seizure susceptibility at the age of 6 months, resembling the clinical phenotype of SCA10. The cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and pontine nuclei showed neuronal loss. The brains of these animals also showed molecular and cellular changes similar to those previously found in an SCA10 cell model. Expression of the expanded SCA10 AUUCU repeat within the 3'UTR of a gene results in neuronal loss with associated gait abnormalities and increased seizure susceptibility phenotypes, which resemble those seen in SCA10 patients. Moreover, these results bolster the idea that the SCA10 disease mechanism is mediated by a toxic RNA gain-of-function mutation of the expanded AUUCU repeat.
Pyrrolizidine Alkaloid-Induced Depletion of Taurine from Rat Liver In Vivo and In Vitro

Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) are a group of plant hepatotoxins13,19. Certain PAs can also cause toxicity in extra-hepatic organs, including heart, lung, kidney and the CNS. PAs produce hepatotoxicity as a result of bioactivation to the corresponding dehydroalkaloids. Dehydroalkaloids are highly reactive molecules, with half-lives of a few seconds in water7. It has been suggested that alkylation of cell macromolecules by electrophilic dehydroalkaloids is the biochemical basis of toxicity7,25. Dehydroalkaloids can also conjugate with glutathione to form 7-glutathionyl-6,7-dihydroxymethyl-5H-pyrrolizine (GSDHP), a polar detoxification product released in high concentration into the bile20. Taurine has been shown to protect against toxic exposures in liver8,23, lung5,10,16,18,31–33 and heart2–4,9. We have reported that pretreatment with taurine reduced the cardiac toxicity of the PA, monocrotaline, in rats and reduced the LD50 from 80 mg/kg to 120 mg/kg40. In this study, we report the effect of PA exposures on hepatic taurine concentration in acute, subacute and pair-feeding studies in vivo, and perfused liver and liver slice incubations in vitro.