cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Increased Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) in Central European Streams is Driven by Reductions in Ionic Strength Rather than Climate Change or Decreasing Acidity

Temporal trends in DOC concentration and flux were investigated at two geochemically distinct forested catchments in western Czech Republic. Mean discharge-weighted DOC concentrations averaged 18.8 mg L(-1) at the acidic Lysina catchment, and 20.2 mg L(-1) at base-rich and well-buffered Pluhuv Bor. Between 1993 and 2007 DOC in streamwater increased significantly in both catchments: the mean annual increase was 0.42 mg L(-1) yr(-1) (p < 0.001) at Lysina and 0.43 mg L(-1) yr(-1) (p < 0.001) at Pluhuv Bor, resulting in cumulative increases of 64 and 65%, respectively. These long-term increases in streamwater DOC were correlated with only modest increases in stream pH in both catchments, but large declines in ionic strength (IS), that resulted from declining atmospheric deposition. Neither catchment has undergone changes in soil-water pH, yet DOC concentrations tripled in the soil-water of both catchments. We conclude that changes in ionic strength of soil-water and streamwater, rather than acidity, are the primary drivers of changes in streamwater DOC in this region. Temperature, precipitation and discharge show no statistically significant trends during the study period, suggesting that climate change has played no role in the changes in DOC that we have observed.
Airway smooth muscle: a potential target for asthma therapy.

Purpose of reviewAsthma is a major public health problem that afflicts nearly one in 20 people worldwide. Despite available treatments, asthma symptoms remain poorly controlled in a significant minority of asthma patients, especially those with severe disease. Accordingly, much ongoing effort has be
A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE APPROACH TO PARAMETRIC CAD DATA EXCHANGE

Data exchange between different computer-aided design (CAD) systems is a major problem inhibiting information integration in collaborative engineering environments. Existing CAD data format standards such as STEP and IGES enable geometric data exchange. However, they ignore construction history, features, constraints, and other parametric-based CAD data. As a result, they are inadequate for supporting modification, extension and other important higher-level functionality when accessing an imported CAD model from another CAD system. Achieving such higher-level functionality therefore often requires a time-consuming, error-prone, tedious process of manually recreating the model in the target CAD system. Based on techniques adapted from programming language research, this paper presents an approach to exchanging parametric data between CAD systems using formally-defined conversion semantics. We have demonstrated the utility of our approach by developing a prototype implementation that automates the conversion of 2D sketches between two popular CAD systems: Pro/ENGINEER and SolidWorks. We present examples showing that our approach is able to accurately convert parametric CAD data even in cases where models were constructed using operations from the source CAD system that have no direct counterpart in the target CAD system. Although the case study focuses on 2D interoperability, our approach provides formal foundations for supporting 3D and semantic interoperability between CAD systems.Copyright © 2011 by ASME
Postmodern Representation. Truth, Power, and Mimesis in the Human Sciences and Public Culture

Postmodern Representation. Truth, Power, and Mimesis in the Human Sciences and Public Culture. Richard Harvey Brown. ed Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995. xvi. 246 pp., notes, references, contributors, index.
Design of Cooled Tubular Reactor Systems

Tubular reactors in which exothermic reactions take place sometimes are operated adiabatically and sometimes are cooled. Adiabatic operation makes reactor design easier because tube geometry can be selected simply on the basis of pressure drop considerations. Steady-state temperature profiles in adiabatic reactors increase monotonically. The design of cooled tubular reactors, however, involves complex tradeoffs between tube geometry, pressure drop, and heat-transfer area. Temperature profiles typically exhibit a peak at some axial position. This paper considers the impact of these interacting parameters on the optimum steady-state economic design of the entire plantwide process. The system studied has an exothermic, irreversible, gas-phase reaction A + B → C occurring inside the tubes of a packed plug-flow tubular reactor. Steam is generated on the shell side to remove heat. The process consists of a reactor, feed-effluent heat exchanger, furnace, partial condenser, separator, and recycle compressor. Pres...
Pyrolysis of Propyne/2-Methylbut-1-ene-3-yne mixtures between 350 and 450°C

2-Methylbut-1-ene-3-yne and Propyne mixtures were pyrolyzed at 350–450°C in the absence and presence of O2 and NO. The major product of the reaction is a polymer, but m-xylene and p-xylene are also produced and were studied as the species of interest. The C8H10 formation rate is first-order in C3H4 and C5H6. The rate coefficient is best fitted by though it is not inconsistent with where R is the ideal gas constant in kJ/mol-K. Experiments in the presence of NO show that m-xylene and p-xylene formation occur by two processes: a concerted molecular mechanism (≃ 41%) and a singlet diradical mechanism (≃ 59%).
Optimal antenna pattern design for MIMO systems

It has been well-established that good diversity or multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) performance requires the use of antennas whose patterns (phase, magnitude, and or polarization) are nearly orthogonal [1]. While this general observation is helpful when considering the design of multi-antenna systems, effective antenna synthesis requires a more explicit mathematical formulation of the optimal antenna radiation patterns for a given scenario. The goal of this paper is to provide such a formulation, taking into account issues such as limited antenna aperture and limits on allowable array superdirectivity. Computational results demonstrate implementation of the approach and quantify the performance achieved with the radiation from practical geometries relative to that of the optimal radiation patterns.
HETEROMORPHIC LIFE‐HISTORY STRATEGIES IN THE BROWN ALGA SCYTOSIPHON LOMENTARIA (LYNGB.) LINK1

The adaptive significance of a life-history strategy, expressed as divergent morphological forms, was examined for the heteromorphic alga Scytosiphon lomentaria. Successional studies were performed by physically clearing mature, temporally-constant intertidal communities on San Clemente I., California. At week six, after clearing, complanate thalli dominated the successional plots (mean cover = 23.5%) and began to decline as the cylindrical form became abundant. The latter attained its peak cover (82.3%) at week 13, whereupon it too began a precipitous reduction. The crustose ralfsioid form appeared surprisingly early (4–13 wks) in trace amounts but did not achieve its greatest cover (85.0%) until week 43. The ranking from high to low primary productivity (cylindrical form = 8.1 mg C · g dry. wt-1·h-1, complanate form = 6.5 mg, crustose form = 0.5 mg) corresponded closely with the data for photosynthetic vs. structural components (cylindrical = 92.3% pigmented, complanate = 65.3%, crustose = 32.0%). This finding indicates that selection in the crust form, which is more readily accessible to epilithic grazers, has tended to increase allocation of materials to nonpigmented structural tissue at the expense of photosynthetic tissue and reduced production rates. The results for thallus losses to urchin grazing over 48 h were complanate form = 82.7% lost, cylindrical = 81.4% and crustose = 16.2%, which correlates with the calorific contents of the three forms (i.e. complanate = 4.97 kcal · ash-free g dry wt.-1, cylindrical = 4.46 kcal and crustose = 3.55 kcal). The crustose form had tougher thalli (26 g · mm-2 to penetrate thallus) than either the complanate form (12 g) or the cylindrical form (15 g). It is likely that opposing selective factors have resulted in the evolutionary divergences observed in algae with heteromorphic life histories. Previous work may have overemphasized the selective role of grazing because the crustose form is also adapted to withstand physical forces (sand-scouring, burial and wave-shearing) or as an overwintering stage under physiologically stressful conditions.
Dynamic sensor collaboration via sequential Monte Carlo

We consider the application of sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods for Bayesian inference to the problem of information-driven dynamic sensor collaboration in clutter environments for sensor networks. The dynamics of the system under consideration are described by nonlinear sensing models within randomly deployed sensor nodes. The exact solution to this problem is prohibitively complex due to the nonlinear nature of the system. The SMC methods are, therefore, employed to track the probabilistic dynamics of the system and to make the corresponding Bayesian estimates and predictions. To meet the specific requirements inherent in sensor network, such as low-power consumption and collaborative information processing, we propose a novel SMC solution that makes use of the auxiliary particle filter technique for data fusion at densely deployed sensor nodes, and the collapsed kernel representation of the a posteriori distribution for information exchange between sensor nodes. Furthermore, an efficient numerical method is proposed for approximating the entropy-based information utility in sensor selection. It is seen that under the SMC framework, the optimal sensor selection and collaboration can be implemented naturally, and significant improvement is achieved over existing methods in terms of localizing and tracking accuracies.
STRA6: role in cellular retinol uptake and efflux

Distribution of vitamin A throughout the body is important to maintain retinoid function in peripheral tissues and to ensure optimal vision. A critical step of this process is the transport of vitamin A across cell membranes. Increasing evidence indicates that this process is mediated by a multidomian membrane protein that is encoded by the stimulated by retinoic acid 6 (STRA6) gene. Biochemical studies revealed that STRA6 is a transmembrane pore which transports vitamin A bidirectionally between extra- and intracellular retinoid binding proteins. Vitamin A accumulation in cells is driven by coupling of transport with vitamin A esterification. Loss-of-function studies in zebrafish and mouse models have unraveled the critical importance of STRA6 for vitamin A homeostasis of peripheral tissues. Impairment in vitamin A transport and uptake homeostasis are associated with diseases including type 2 diabetes and a microphthalmic syndrome known as Matthew Wood Syndrome. This review will discuss the advanced state of knowledge about STRA6's biochemistry, biology and association with disease.
Stimulating Public Health Improvement in Complex and Constrained Delivery Systems: Findings from the Public Health PBRNs

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Practice-Based Research Networks Program sponsored a series of studies to examine how public health decision-makers are responding to accreditation, quality improvement, and public reporting initiatives amid the ongoing fiscal pressures. Overall, the evidence to date indicates that these initiatives represent promising strategies for strengthening evidence-based decision-making and expanding the delivery of evidence-tested programs and policies in local public health settings. Continued, comparative research and evaluation activities are needed to provide more definitive evidence about which combination of strategies work best, for which population groups, in which community and organizational settings, and why.
Data and telecommunication system wiring

As a result of the breakup of AT&T, corporations are now responsible for installing their own plant telephone networks and telephone and data systems wiring. The authors describe the effort associated with this task at two locations. At one site, 450000 ft of telephone and data cable were installed. Telephone system procurement, installation, and wiring as well as the wiring for data communication networks are reviewed. >
Missed iatrogenic partial dysruption of the male urethra, caused by catheterization

This 37-year-old male presented at the emergency room with shortness of breath (SOB), a distended abdomen and a history of anuria for 2 days. Clinical examination revealed a left pleural effusion, cardiomegaly and ascites. An abdominal ultrasound confirmed the presence of massive ascites. The bladder appeared to be distended on ultrasound. The abdomen was not tender to palpation. The admission temperature was 37.6 C, BP 134/58, PR 86, and RR 20. Blood-chemistries showed the RBC 4.2 mil, WBC 6800, BUN 32, creatinine 2.6, glucose 106, K 4.2.In view of the anuric status and apparently distended bladder, retrograde placement of a Foley catheter was attempted by the nurse. When she failed, a junior resident made a second attempt, but failed likewise. He did not introduce a parallel micro-catheter, which could have been used to inject contrast-laced jell to further outline the path of the urethra. A scout film of the abdomen revealed an ominous deviation of the tip of the catheter to the left (Figure-1 arrow), which was not appreciated. Urologic consult was requested. After a 6 hour delay the urologist noted the penile shaft to be swollen, the scrotum to be distended with fluid. The patient’s temperature was now 38.4oC, and he complained of vague prepubic pain.A computed tomogram of the pelvis with sagittal reconstruction was performed, demonstrating a distended bladder and significant fluid accumulation with interspersed gas in the pre- and retrourethal space (Figure-2 arrow). The tip of the catheter (Figure-2 dotted arrow) appeared to be outside the urethra and angled posteriorly. A suprapubic catheter was then inserted, decompressing the bladder. Prior to removal of the Foley catheter a small amount of dilute non-ionic contrast medium was injected to delineate the urethra. The urethra was noted (Figure-3 arrow) to be displaced downward and posteriorly by massive urine extravasation in the anterior peri-urethral space (Figure-3 arrow-heads). Furthermore, note the subcutaneous air delineating the corpora cavernosa in the penile shaft (Figure-3 curved arrow). Finally an 8 French catheter was passed with an antegrade approach, via the suprapubic access site
Magnetic Cellular Automata Wire Architectures

Magnetic cellular automata (MCA) is an unconventional approach to implement Boolean logic machines. Not only it has been able to prototypically demonstrate successful operation of logical gates at room temperature, but has also realized all the key components necessary to implement any Boolean function. This moves the viability of the technology ahead of other implementations of CA and solicits researchers to examine the various aspects of MCA. Here, we investigate a critical facet of the MCA system, the interconnecting wire. We present this research further reducing the size of the single-domain nanomagnet, approximately 100 × 50 × 30 nm3 and physically implement two types of MCA wire architectures: ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic. We provided external magnetic fields to the systems and investigated the architectures ability to mitigate frustrations. By providing fields in the in-plane easy axis, in-plane hard axis, out of plane hard axis, and a spinning field, we have experimentally concluded that for conventional data propagation between logical networks, ferromagnetic wires provide extremely stable operation. The high order of coupling found under various directions of saturating magnetic fields demonstrates the flexible clocking nature of ferromagnetic wires and inches the technology closer to implementing complex circuitry.
Regulatory capital and earnings management in banks : the case of loan sales and securitizations

In this paper, I investigate whether banks use loan sales and securitizations (loan transfers) to manage regulatory capital and earnings. My analysis suggests that banks use gains from loan transfers to influence both reported earnings and regulatory capital after controlling for other economic motivations. The gains can be attributed both to cherry-picking of loans whose market values exceed their book values and also to overvaluation of the retained interests that are carried at fair market value in the case of securitizations. In addition, the use of securitizations for financial statement management is positively associated with the degree of financial reporting discretion available to managers. Finally, regulatory capital considerations seem to play a significant role in the decision to transfer loans, while earnings management considerations are more important in the calculation of reported gains conditional on performing a transfer, particularly in the case of securitizations.
How monkeys see a forest: genetic variation and population genetic structure of two forest primates

The biological traits of different species usually predispose them to dissimilar levels of extinction risk. Accordingly, we analysed genetic variation and population genetic structure of two endangered forest monkeys to determine how they were influenced by habitat change. The Tana River red colobus and mangabey are of similar body size, are sympatric and endemic to forests in Kenya. The mangabey is frugivorous, terrestrial and exhibits female philopatry but the colobus is folivorous, arboreal and both sexes exhibit natal dispersal. We predicted that both species would have low genetic variation due to high genetic drift, and possible inbreeding, because their populations are relatively small and subdivided in forest fragments. Nevertheless, we expected the mangabeys to have a higher genetic variation because they have a larger population, and their higher vagility would enhance gene flow. Thus, we expected a stronger population genetic structure in the colobus because lower vagility would constrain dispersal and increase genetic differentiation. Finally, we expected both species to exhibit isolation by distance due to greater gene flow among populations in close geographic proximity. We genotyped 146 colobus and 76 mangabeys with nine microsatellite markers and found that both species had relatively high heterozygosities but low allelic richness. Furthermore, allelic richness, heterozygosity and genetic differentiation were all higher in the mangabey and only the mangabey exhibited isolation by distance. Taken together, our results suggest that species with divergent behavioral ecologies may exhibit differential vulnerabilities to genetic erosion due to habitat change.
A continuous fluorescence assay for the characterization of Nudix hydrolases

The common substrate structure for the functionally diverse Nudix protein superfamily is nucleotide-diphosphate-X, where X is a large variety of leaving groups. The substrate specificity is known for less than 1% of the 29,400 known members. Most activities result in the release of an inorganic phosphate ion or of a product bearing a terminal phosphate moiety. Reactions have typically been monitored by a modification of the discontinuous Fiske-SubbaRow assay, which is relatively insensitive and slow. We report here the development of a continuous fluorescence assay that enables the rapid and accurate determination of substrate specificities in a 96-well format. We used this novel assay to confirm the reported substrate characterizations of MutT and NudD of Escherichia coli and to characterize DR_1025 of Deinococcus radiodurans and MM_0920 of Methanosarcina mazei. Novel findings enabled by the new assay include the following. First, in addition to the well-characterized hydrolysis of 8-oxo-dGTP at the α-β position, MutT cleaves at the β-γ phosphate bond at a rate of 3% of that recorded for hydrolysis at the α-β position. Second, MutT also catalyzes the hydrolysis of 5-methyl-dCTP. Third, 8-oxo-dGTP was observed to be the best substrate for DR_1025 of the 41 compounds screened.
Embeddings in hypercubes

One important aspect of efficient use of a hypercube computer to solve a given problem is the assignment of subtasks to processors in such a way that the communication overhead is low. The subtasks and their inter-communication requirements can be modeled by a graph, and the assignment of subtasks to processors viewed as an embedding of the task graph into the graph of the hypercube network. We survey the known results concerning such embeddings, including expansion/dilation tradeoffs for general graphs, embeddings of meshes and trees, packings of multiple copies of a graph, the complexity of finding good embeddings, and critical graphs which are minimal with respect to some property. In addition, we describe several open problems.
IDENTIFICATION IN TRIANGULAR SYSTEMS USING CONTROL FUNCTIONS

This note discusses identification in nonparametric, continuous triangular systems. It provides conditions that are both necessary and sufficient for the existence of control functions satisfying conditional independence and support requirements. Confirming a commonly noticed pattern, these conditions restrict the admissible dimensionality of unobserved heterogeneity in the first-stage structural relation, or more generally the dimensionality of the family of conditional distributions of second-stage heterogeneity given explanatory variables and instruments. These conditions imply that no such control function exists without assumptions that seem hard to justify in most applications. In particular, none exists in the context of a generic random coefficient model.
Primary bladder adenocarcinoma versus metastatic colorectal adenocarcinoma: a persisting diagnostic challenge

Aim: This study attempted to distinguish primary bladder adenocarcinoma (PBA) from metastatic colonic adenocarcinomas (MCA), which is a difficult diagnostic and clinical problem. Methods: Twenty-four cases of bladder adenocarcinomas (12 primary & 12 metastatic colorectal) were included in the study with urothelial carcinoma (UC) and colonic adenocarcinoma (CA) as controls. A panel of immunohistochemical (IHC) stains along with fluorescence in-situ hybridization (FISH), using the UroVysion probe set, was performed. Results: The majority of the PBAs presented with advanced disease. Enteric histologic subtype was the most common morphological variant. Strong nuclear with cytoplasmic-membranous staining of β-catenin was seen in 75% of MCA and only 16.7% PBA (<10% staining cells). Although abnormal nuclear staining with E-cadherin was seen in both PBA and MCA, it was more frequent in former. CK-7, CK-20, villin and CDX-2 stains were not helpful in distinguishing the two entities. FISH did not reveal any unique differences in chromosomal abnormality between the two groups. Conclusion: Although there was a statistically significant difference in β-catenin and E-cadherin staining between two groups, we did not find any IHC or FISH marker that was specific for PBA. Distinction between PBA and MCA remains a diagnostic problem and clinical correlation is vital before rendering a diagnosis. Virtual slides: The virtual slides for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/ 1393156268152357
An Efficient and Portable Scheduler for RTOS Simulation and its Certified Integration to SystemC

We propose a new task scheduling algorithm for timed-functional simulation of concurrent software tasks. It attains efficiency by reducing the frequency of context-switching between concurrent tasks. It also provides a high-degree of portability in the sense that it only needs the underlying system to support a very small number of primitives. We provide a concrete implementation built on top of the SystemC scheduler and show some results of preliminary evaluation.
A Performance Study of Alternative Object Faulting and Pointer Swizzling Strategies

This paper presents a portable, efficient method for accessing memory resident persistent objects in virtual memory in the context of the E programming language. Under the approach, objects are copied from the buffer pool of the underlying object manager into virtual memory on demand, as they are accessed by an E program. The cumulative effects of updates to a persistent object are then propagated back to the object manager via a single write operation at the end of each transaction. The method incorporates a comprehensive pointer swizzling mechanism to enhance performance. Swizzling is done a pointer-at-a-time and software checks are used to detect the use of swizzled pointers. The paper also presents the results of a performance study comparing the method presented here with several alternative software architectures including ObjectStore V1.2, a commercially available OODBMS. The results highlight the tradeoffs between providing software vs. memory-mapped support for pointer swizzling and quantify the effects of pointer swizzling on overall performance. In addition, the significant performance impact of pointer swizzling on the generation of recovery information is examined. The experimental results show that in many situations a software approach can outperform the memory-mapped approach.
Effects of catecholamines and atropine on cardiovascular response to exercise in the dog.

The manner in which the administration of epinephrine, norepinephrine, isoproterenol, and atrophic modifies the cardiovascular response to exercise has been studied in 12 dogs. In control observations, exercise increased the cardiac output by 116 per cent, the heart rate by 102 per cent, and the stroke volume by 8 per cent. When epinephrine was infused during identical exercise, the cardiac output was similar; however, the stroke volume was increased by 50 per cent. During infusion of norepinephrine, the cardiac output was reduced by 11 per cent compared with that during control exercise, and the stroke volume was increased by 25 per cent. With isoproterenol, the cardiac output exceeded that during control exercise, but the stroke volume was unchanged. Prior to administration of atropine, the cardiac output at rest averaged 4.2 L. per minute. After injection of atropine, the cardiac output averaged 3.7 L. per minute, the heart rate increased from 121 to 249 beats per minute, and the stroke volume decrease...
Non-Profit Organisation websites and fundraising

This three-phase research study (a) assessed the level and purpose of internet presence by the US Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs), (b) compared web-technology implementation with organisation revenue and (c) identified attitudes of NPOs toward their own and others' websites. Results of Phase I research indicated that slightly more than 50% of the sampled NPOs had an internet presence. A variance in website use was demonstrated across sites within each category of use and across each of the US Standard Industrial Classification category. Results of Phase II indicated that two web-based technologies were associated with significantly higher reported revenue among NPOs: (a) ability to make online donations and other transactions and (b) access to a secure login to additional membership benefits. Results of Phase III indicated that the primary perceived use of NPO websites was to distribute information and support two-way communication rather than to raise organisation-sustaining funds.
Work in progress - Introducing information technology through game design

There is general agreement that the need for computing professionals in the near term will continue to increase, while enrollment in computer science degree programs is decreasing. Many middle school and high school students want to know how to construct their own computer games. The enabling technologies that support game design include many fundamental areas of information technology. The authors offered two summer game camps to attract pre-college students to study computer science at the collegiate level. Middle school and high school aged participants used a game development environment to create original multimedia computer games. Participants experienced the complete game development life cycle. Participants completed an established attitude scale was administered before and after camp attendance to assess the impact of camp activities on student attitudes toward computing and their plans to take future information technology courses. Initial data analyses indicate significant positive student attitude changes toward the study of computing technology.
DNA hybridization sensor based on AlGaN/GaN HEMT

AlGaN/GaN based heterostructures are used to fabricate high electron mobility transistors for the purpose of a DNA hybridization sensor. Photodefinable PDMS is used to encapsulate the entire device except the gold sputtered gate area. The gold coated gate contacts are functionalized with thiolated ssDNA. The fabricated device is used to detect DNA hybridization of Salmonella DNA of two different concentrations of 1 μM and 4 μM. There is a higher drop in drain current when a higher DNA concentration is used. The device is also checked for reusability, thereby confirming the stability of the device and the encapsulation. The measurements are carried out at zero gate bias. (© 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Modulation of small G protein isoprenylation by anticancer monoterpenes in in situ mammary gland epithelial cells

Monoterpenes have been shown to both prevent and treat mammary cancer in animal models and are currently in clinical testing in advanced cancer patients. In this study, we investigated a biochemical modulation associated with the antitumor activity of monoterpenes, the inhibition of protein isoprenylation in monoterpene chemoprevention target tissue, i.e. the in situ mammary gland epithelial cells. We first developed a new methodology that for the first time permitted the study of protein isoprenylation and other products in the mevalonate pathway in in situ mammary cells. Using this approach, we found that chronically feeding rats with an anticancer dose of perillyl alcohol resulted in a 22% inhibition of coenzyme Q synthesis and a 19% inhibition of small G protein isoprenylation in mammary gland epithelial cells in situ. The greatest inhibition of small G protein isoprenylation observed was the 28% inhibition of isoprenylation of RhoA by type I geranylgeranyl protein transferase (GGPTase). Given that some substrates of type I GGPTase, such as RhoA and Rac1, have transforming properties, the possibility that the inhibition of type I GGPTase will change the cellular location and functionality of these proteins and thus contribute to the chemoprevention activity of monoterpenes, is discussed.
A Neural Network Trained to Identify the Presence of Myocardial Infarction Bases Some Decisions on Clinical Associations That Differ from Accepted Clinical Teaching

An artificial neural network trained to identify the presence of myocardial infarction has been shown to function with a high degree of accuracy. The effects on network diagnosis of some of the clinical input variables used by this network have previously been shown to be distributed over two distinct maxima. Analysis of the basis for this distribution by studying the specific patterns in which these variables had significantly different impacts on network diagnosis revealed that the differential impacts were due to the contexts in which the variables whose effects were bimodally distributed were placed. These contexts were defined by the values of the other input data used by the network. In a number of instances, the clinical relationships implied by these associations were divergent from prior knowledge about factors predictive of myocardial infarction. One implication of these findings is that this network, which has been shown to perform with a high degree of diagnostic accuracy, may be doing so by identifying relationships between inputted information that are divergent from accepted teaching.
Growth of Cu-Ni-Sn Alloys in Pb Free CuSnAg Solder/Au-Ni Metallization Reactions

Diffusion and phase formation were monitored in solder joints consisting of flip chips with Ni(V) under-bump metallizations bumped with Ag3.8Cu1.85Sn94.35 (atomic percentage) solder reflowed on printed circuit boards with Cu/Ni/Au metallizations. A ternary alloy, (CuNi)6Sn5, was observed to form during reflow at solder/Ni interfaces in these Ag3.8Cu1.85Sn94.35/Au/Ni solder joints. After extended thermal aging at 150 oC, a second ternary compound, (CuNi)3Sn4 forms at the Ni/(CuNi)6Sn5 interface. The growth of these alloys depletes the solder of essentially all Cu, changing its mechanical properties and melting temperature.
Opting in or Opting Out: The Conditions for Developing Consensus

In legal, political, and social settings, people must reach a consensus before particular outcomes can be achieved and failing to reach a consensus may be costly. Although many scholars identify conditions that make consensus more or less likely, they typically ignore key features of communication that may affect a group’s ability to reach a consensus. In this paper, we conduct experiments that take into account the costs associated with communicating, as well as the difficulty of the decisions that groups make. We find that when there is even a small cost (relative to the potential benefit) associated with speaking and/or listening, groups are much less likely to reach a consensus, primarily because they are less willing to communicate with one another. We also find that difficult problems significantly reduce group members’ willingness to communicate with one another and, therefore, hinder their ability to reach a consensus.
Vitamin D receptor signaling is required for heart development in zebrafish embryo.

Vitamin D has been found to be associated with cardiovascular diseases. However, the role of vitamin D in heart development during embryonic period is largely unknown. Vitamin D induces its genomic effects through its nuclear receptor, the vitamin D receptor (VDR). The present study investigated the role of VDR on heart development by antisense-mediated knockdown approaches in zebrafish model system. In zebrafish embryos, two distinct VDR genes (vdra and vdrb) have been identified. Knockdown of vdra has little effect on heart development, whereas disrupting vdrb gene causes various cardiac phenotypes, characterized by pericardial edema, slower heart rate and laterality defects. Depletion of both vdra and vdrb (vdra/b) produce additive, but not synergistic effects. To determine whether atrioventricular (AV) cardiomyocytes are properly organized in these embryos, the expression of bmp4, which marks the developing AV boundary at 48 h post-fertilization, was examined. Notably, vdra/b-deficient embryos display ectopic expression of bmp4 towards the ventricle or throughout atrial and ventricular chambers. Taken together, these results suggest that VDR signaling plays an essential role in heart development.
Buffer and Queue Protection in High-Speed Network Routers

A key threat to network applications in enterprise networks is buffer and queue exhaustion from high rate non-adaptive flows, that we call belligerent flows. There is normally more than enough bandwidth for well-behaving applications. Belligerent flows use as much bandwidth as they can grab, and they do not respond correctly to network congestion signals. If not limited, belligerent flows increase queueing delay and cause packet drops by filling network switch buffers. Once switch runs out of queue space, incoming packets are dropped, causing denial of service to other well-behaving flows. A fast response buffer and queue protection mechanism that is implementable in high speed switch hardware is needed. First, we describe a queue buffer management scheme, Dynamic Buffer Limiting (DBL), that is designed to protect the switch queue buffers from belligerent flows. Our results demonstrate that DBL detects and limits belligerent flows quickly while providing reasonable treatment to well-behaving flows and protecting low-rate, drop- and latency-sensitive fragile flows, without relying on trust in the network. Second, we show that the algorithm is implementable in high speed switch hardware at a cost competitive with alternative solutions. In this thesis, we focus on high-speed enterprise Ethernet switches. Finally, we discuss extensions to the basic algorithm to provide rate control (rate-DBL) and active queue selection (AQS). We demonstrate that Rate-DBL provides self-regulation of high priority and low-rate traffic, such as voice-over-IP traffic, preventing misuse of scheduling priority by a misbehaving flow. We show AQS segregates belligerent flows from well-behaving flows, providing higher goodput and lower delay to well-behaving flows. We implemented DBL in a commercial high-speed Ethernet switch, in the widely deployed Cisco Catalyst 4000/4500 switch. In this hardware implementation, DBL handles 102 Million packets per second.
Role of suction stress on service state behavior of geosynthetic-reinforced soil structures

Abstract Several design guidelines adopt limit state methods (e.g., earth pressure or limit equilibrium slope stability methods) to estimate the reinforcement loads for geosynthetic-reinforced soil structures (GRSSs). Field measurements usually reveal lower tensile loads in the reinforcements than that predicted by conventional design methods. Consequently, limit state methods have been criticized for being conservative or inaccurate. However, these lower-than-expected loads are primarily due to redundancy in design, attributed to several factors such as toe resistance, soil volumetric dilation, underestimation of soil shear strength, and the effect of suction stress. While these factors commonly contribute to the performance of the GRSSs, they are not accounted for in design procedures. This disregard is accredited to complexities and uncertainties associated with reliable quantification of these factors during the life span of the structure. By properly quantifying the role of suction stress, this study aims to quantitatively explain a part of the discrepancy which exists between the tensile loads in the reinforcement, which are estimated by working-condition design methods versus those by limit state design methods. A suction stress-based formulation is presented for calculating the active earth pressures coefficient ( K a ) of unsaturated backfill under unsaturated steady flow conditions. The formulation is derived by implementing an analytical solution of one-dimensional steady flow into a limit equilibrium-based effective stress analysis. The proposed formulation is used in conjunction with the earth pressure method to illustrate the effect of suction stress on predicted reinforcement loads. Two backfills, referred to as marginal and high quality backfill, along with three representative annual rain events are examined. The results are compared with two classical earth pressure methods as well as two empirical methods. The results show that the suction stress contribution can lead to significantly lower reinforcement loads than that predicted by classic earth pressure methods for backfill types. Empirical methods lead to lower loads in some cases and higher predicted loads in others. The proposed formulation provides a mechanics-based approach to explain a part of the discrepancy which exists between the measured tensile loads in the reinforcement in the field versus those by limit state design methods.
The effects of repeated intravenous injections of India ink on the blood picture in rabbits.

The following investigation was undertaken in order to study the effects of the repeated intravenous injection of India ink upon the blood picture in rabbits.Higgins' waterproof India ink was used. It was filtered and suspended in physiological salt solution in the proportion of one part of ink to three parts of salt solution. The suspensions were sterilized before each injection. With few exceptions, ten cubic centimeters of the ink suspension were injected into the ear veins of the rabbits, at intervals of forty-eight hours. The number of injections varied between seventeen and fifty-six. The rabbits weighed between two and one-half and three kilos.The following constituents of the blood were studied: erythrocytes, hemoglobin, leucocytes and reticulated cells. Examinations were made immediately preceding injections. Similar examinations were made on a series of normal control rabbits kept under the same conditions.In all the rabbits, as a result of the injections, there was a gradual fall in the number ...
Laterality, hand preference, and human spatial ability.

6 left-handed females scored significantly below 60 right-handed females on a test of spatial visualization (p < .005). 13 left-handed males showed a higher mean score than 33 right-handed males on...
Congenital Orotic Aciduria: Demonstration of an Enzyme Defect in Leukocytes and Comparison with Drug-induced Orotic Aciduria

1. Leukocytes from presumed heterozygotes of congenital orotic aciduria have been found to exhibit a partial defect in the metabolism of orotic acid. In disrupted cell preparations, orotidylic decarboxylase activity was reduced. Assay of orotidylic pyrophosphorylase activity proved to be unsatisfactory in leukocyte preparations. 2. Orotic aciduria and orotidinuria were produced by the administration of 6-azauridine to patients with chronic myelocytic leukemia. This drug-induced impairment of pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis has been compared to the genetically determined disorder. 3. A summary of enzymatic defects previously demonstrated in hemic cells in human genetic disorders has been presented.
System model for laser-scanning photoacoustic microscopy

In this work we derive a system model for a laser-scanning, optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy system. We use the model to derive a simple image reconstruction algorithm and then analyze the depth resolution achievable by this algorithm. There has recently been development of high-frequency photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) systems with the ability to image biological tissue at a microscopic scale. The imaging depths achievable (a few mm) are shallower than in photoacoustic tomography (which has lower spatial resolution), but deeper than conventional optical microscopy. PAM usually employs a focused single-element high-frequency ultrasonic transducer and a spatially overlapped optical illumination. These existing PAMs require mechanical scanning of the ultrasonic-optical assembly, which is relatively slow and also not compatible with other optical microscopic modalities such as confocal microscopy, two-photon microscopy, and optical coherence tomography. Recently one of us (H.Z.) has developed a laser-scanning OR-PAM (LSOR-PAM) to demonstrate the feasibility of employing optical scanning in PAM. In LSOR-PAM, the ultrasonic detector is kept stationary and only the laser light is raster-scanned within the FOV during data acquisition. Further improvements in image quality and the development of image quality metrics will benefit from the system model derived in this work.
Bioequivalence evaluation of sparse sampling pharmacokinetics data using bootstrap resampling method

ABSTRACTBioequivalence studies are an essential part of the evaluation of generic drugs. The most common in vivo bioequivalence study design is the two-period two-treatment crossover design. The observed drug concentration–time profile for each subject from each treatment under each sequence can be obtained. AUC (the area under the concentration–time curve) and Cmax (the maximum concentration) are obtained from the observed drug concentration–time profiles for each subject from each treatment under each sequence. However, such a drug concentration–time profile for each subject from each treatment under each sequence cannot possibly be available during the development of generic ophthalmic products since there is only one-time point measured drug concentration of aqueous humor for each eye. Instead, many subjects will be assigned to each of several prespecified sampling times. Then, the mean concentration at each sampling time can be obtained by the simple average of these subjects’ observed concentration....
Safety and Efficacy of Cytotoxic Chemotherapy after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation for Relapsed Hematologic Malignancy.

Relapse of hematologic malignancy is a major problem after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (alloHSCT), with limited treatment options of proven benefit other than donor lymphocyte infusions (DLI). Additionally, toxicity from treatment with cytotoxic chemotherapy after alloHSCT may differ from conventional treatments, and could include graft-versus-host disease, allograft failure, or increased risk of infection. We retrospectively reviewed treatment outcomes of 25 patients who received cytotoxic chemotherapy as treatment for relapsed hematologic malignancies after reduced-intensity, matched-sibling donor alloHSCT. Combination therapies included: EPOCH+/− rituximab (n=12 patients); “7&3” AML induction (ida/ara-c) (n=2); FLAG (n=2); asparaginase/6-MP/vincristine (n=1); R-ICE (n=1); MIME (n=1); BVP (n=1); and bortezomib/doxorubicin/dexamethasone (n=1). Single-agent therapies included: bortezomib (n=6); gemcitabine (n=4), vinorelbine (n=3); vincristine (n=1); methotrexate (n=1); and intrathecal methotrexate and/or cytarabine (n=5). A total of 133 cycles or doses were administered, of which 20 were supported with donor stem cell boosts, and another 9 were followed by nonmobilized DLI. There were 52 Grade 3 or higher toxicity episodes recorded, most commonly: neutropenia (10 episodes); infection with neutropenia (5 episodes); thrombocytopenia (6 episodes); and anemia (3 episodes). There were 12 episodes of CMV reactivation in 8 of 15 patients at risk, including 2 cases of pneumonitis and 1 case of colitis. GVHD flares were considered definitely chemotherapy-induced (2), possibly chemotherapy-induced (7), and unlikely chemotherapy-induced (2). Unusual events after treatment included culture-negative sepsis-like illness after bortezomib (n=2), secondary (11q23) AML of donor origin after one cycle of EPOCH (n=1) and diffuse alveolar hemorrhage after EPOCH (n=1). Seven patients achieved CR with therapy for post-transplant relapse, including three durable remissions. Four patients achieved PR and seven achieved disease stabilization. Median survival after starting cytotoxic therapy was 263 days. Timing of relapse appeared to be associated with survival, with median overall survival of 95 days for patients requiring therapy before Day 100 vs. 508 days for patients after Day 100 (p=0.0008). Treatment of relapse with cytotoxic chemotherapy after alloSCT is feasible and can result in durable remissions in a minority of patients. However, administration of cytotoxic therapy after alloHSCT requires monitoring and support for hematologic toxicities, GVHD and CMV reactivation; selected patients may benefit from prophylactic stem cell boosts or immune suppression.