cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
When Should There Be Vertical Choice in Health Insurance Markets

We study the welfare effects of offering choice over coverage levels––“vertical choice”––in regulated health insurance markets. Though the efficient level of coverage, which trades off the value of risk protection and the social cost from moral hazard, likely varies across consumers, we emphasize that this variation alone is not sufficient to motivate choice. We show that vertical choice is efficient only if consumers with higher willingness to pay for insurance have a higher efficient level of coverage. Using administrative data from a large employer, we find that the welfare gains from vertical choice are either zero or economically small.
Posterior wall fractures

The goal of surgical treatment of posterior wall fractures is to obtain stability of the hip by restoring the normal shape of the acetabulum and to restore the normal pressure distribution within the joint by anatomic reduction of the articular surface. Fractures of the posterior wall are the most common type of acetabular fracture and account for approximately one quarter of all acetabular fractures. These fractures typically occur in young patients as a result of a high-energy trauma, such as motor vehicle collisions. Displaced posterior wall fractures create an incongruity in the articular surface and, in some cases, result in instability of the hip. Diagnosis is made on the anteroposterior pelvis, obturator oblique, and iliac oblique radiographs of the pelvis. Computed tomography (CT) is helpful for identifying subtle marginal impaction and osteochondral fragments. Indications for operative treatment include instability of the hip, marginal impaction, and retained osteochondral fragments. Relative indications include articular fractures that encompass more than 33% of the wall width and minimally displaced fractures that are part of the more complex fracture pattern that require an ilioinguinal approach. Surgical reduction is performed through a Kocher-Langenbeck incision in the prone position with the knee bent to relax the sciatic nerve. Three and one-half mm implants are used for fixation of posterior wall fractures. Good to excellent results can be obtained in up to 80% of fractures that have been anatomically reduced and rigidly fixed. Anatomic reduction is a highly significant predictor of an excellent or a good result. Complications include wound infection, iatrogenic nerve palsy, heterotopic ossification, and thromboembolic complications. Posttraumatic arthritis is the most common late complication that can occur.
Outcomes of surgical versus transcatheter aortic valve replacement in nonagenarians- a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Since the approval of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), nonagenarian group patients are being increasingly considered for TAVR. Therefore, we compared the clinical outcom...
Neurochat: Artistic Affective State Facial Filters in Online Video Communication.

This paper describes “Neurochat”, a novel artistic Brain Computer Interface (aBCI) application that allows users to explore the combination of art and brain activity in a live online chat experience. This new interaction method enables users to video-chat online while expressing themselves using artistic facial filters that represent their real-time affective state, generated from electroencephalogram (EEG) brain activity from a mobile EEG headset. This paper discusses motivations for creating such an application by giving an overview of the current state of the art in aBCI. It also discusses the architecture of the created system, including the associated application components, application flow, design of facial filters with the descriptions of their associated affective state, and classification method that was used. Additionally, a preliminary user study was conducted to investigate the effect of the application combined with an existing online video-chatting method, Google Hangouts, to gain insight on user perspective towards the system.
The “Social” of Crime Prevention: Meaning and Implications of Social Crime Prevention for Police in the Developing World

In Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), seven murders were committed in the first two days of 2014. However, this Eastern Caribbean country was no stranger to violent crime at the time: in 2013, the country had 407 murders with a population of 1.2 million. By January 8th, 2014 the government announced an “all-out attack” on criminal elements in Trinidad and Tobago as the island recorded its 19th murder in just 7 days. Much of this violence was youth-related and attributable to the country’s ongoing struggle with youths and gangs. This crime surge also continued to be concentrated mainly along the East-West corridor in several hot spot communities that are the subject of the most significant interventions: Lebrea, Embarcadero, South, Enterprise, St. James, Laventille, Harper Place (Rasta City), Canada, Africa, and St. Martin.
TQM-ing OMB: Or Why Regulatory Review Under Executive Order 12,291 Works Poorly and What President Clinton Should Do About It

No feature of modem U.S. government has been more controversial over the last decade than review of agency rules by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") and other parts of the Executive Office of the President.1 And yet, despite all the controversy, no president, not Bill Clinton2 and probably not even Ross Perot, would dream of abolishing review of agency actions by the OMB, or some other entity in the Executive branch. Indeed, on October 4, 1993, after this article was presented, President Clinton signed an Executive Order revising the OMB regulatory planning and review process,3 and incorporating some of the suggestions made in this article.4 Clark Clifford explains: "If a President did
Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight: Another Step in the Seemingly Inexorable March Toward Converting Federal Judges (and Juries) Into Labor Arbitrators of Last Resort

This Article, directed to the courts, and especially to the federal bench, carries this message: you are in danger of converting the federal judiciary into a panel of labor arbitrators. The advance sheets of the federal courts are beginning to read like Labor Arbitration Reports. The kinds of disputes that in the past were resolved by private arbitration are beginning to appear at an increasing rate on the dockets of the federal courts: Did the company have just cause when it discharged the grievants for allegedly falsifying their expense accounts? Did the company violate the agreement with the union when it assigned the grievants to night work? Was the employer justified in discharging the grievant for allegedly striking her superior? Did the grievant place the meat on the loading dock, intending it to be picked up by accomplices, and did that constitute grounds for discharge? Was the company justified in discharging the grievant for possessing a bandsaw stolen from the company? Was the grievant, who signed a confession admitting his theft, discharged for cause? Should the company have given credit to the grievant for seniority earned while working in South America? Was the grievant, a truck driver who admittedly sought pay for time not worked, guilty of theft of company time, and thus properly discharged? Was the grievant discharged for cause after he struck a bridge with his truck? Was the grievant's alleged intoxication sufficient cause for his discharge? Did past practice justify paying the grievant a lower rate of pay for piloting a smaller boat? Is alcoholism an illness, entitling the grievant to sick leave under the contract? Was the grievant, who had only one good eye, properly laid off when his job was changed to require him to drive? Was the grievant's job classification proper? Did the company assign the correct seniority date to the grievant? Was the grievant's explanation of why he allowed an unauthorized female passenger on a charter bus believable, or was he discharged for cause? Should the grievant, who while off duty and away from the factory assaulted his foreman, be reinstated with back pay, or was discharge an appropriate penalty? These cases, taken from the reports of the federal courts, involve issues no different from those in the hundreds of reported cases in the CCH Labor Arbitration Awards or in the BNA Labor Arbitration Reports, not to mention the thousands of arbitration decisions that go unreported. If the courts would prefer to handle more of these cases-and there are more where these came from, namely from the daily frictions of the working place-all they need do is give a broad reading to Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight.
The Effect on Meat Quality of Integrating Pasturing Systems into Cattle Finishing Programs

The effect on meat quality of integrating pasturing systems into cattle finishing programs was observed over a two-year period. Year one consisted of 84 fall born calves and 28 spring born calves and year two consisted of 116 fall born calves. The effect of using Rumensinâ for cattle on bromegrass pasture was incorporated into year one. In year two cattle on pasture received bromegrass pasture, and one treatment group received switchgrass during the warm season. In both years there was a control group of calves that went directly to the feedlot with the remaining calves going to pasture for varying periods of time before being finished in drylot. At the conclusion of the feeding trial, cattle were processed into beef, and a ribeye steak was removed from each carcass for sensory evaluation. In year one cattle that were on pasture the longest had the lowest (P<0.05) average quality grades. In year two this trend was reversed, and cattle placed directly into drylot had the lowest (P<0.05) average quality grades. In both years cattle carcasses in all treatments averaged yield grade 2. Warner Bratzler shear force values were not affected by treatments. Sensory panel evaluations indicated tenderness was unaffected by treatments, and in year two flavor and flavor intensity were unaffected by treatments. In year one flavor intensity was lowest (P<0.05) for steaks derived from cattle that were on pasture the longest and received Rumensinâ. Inclusion of Rumensinâ for cattle on pasture did not influence yield and quality grades or affect tenderness, juiciness, and flavor. Results of this study indicate that steer calves placed on cool and warm season pastures prior to being finished in drylot, can produce carcasses with acceptable yield and quality grades and that the meat eating qualities will be largely unaffected by the inclusion of pasture.
On compiling system models for faster and more scalable diagnosis

Knowledge compilation is one of the more traditional approaches to model-based diagnosis, where a compiled system model is obtained in an off-line phase, and then used to efficiently answer diagnostic queries on-line. The choice of a suitable representation for the compiled model is critical to the success of this approach, and two of the main proposals have been Decomposable Negation Normal Form (DNNF) and Ordered Binary Decision Diagram (OBDD). The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we show that in the current state of the art, DNNF dominates OBDD in efficiency and scalability for some typical diagnostic tasks. This result is based on a step-by-step comparison of the complexities of diagnostic algorithms for DNNF and OBDD, together with a known succinctness relation between the two representations. Second, we present a tool for model-based diagnosis, which is based on a state-of-the-art DNNF compiler and our implementations of DNNF diagnostic algorithms. We demonstrate the efficiency of this tool against recent results reported on diagnosis using OBDD.
Adjusting Government Policies for Age Inflation

Government policies that are based on age do not adjust to the fact that a given age is associated with a higher remaining life expectancy and lower mortality risk relative to earlier time periods due to improvements in mortality. We examine four possible methods for adjusting the eligibility ages for Social Security, Medicare, and Individual Retirement Accounts to determine what eligibility ages would be today and in 2050 if adjustments for mortality improvement were taken into account. We find that historical adjustment of eligibility ages for age inflation would have increased ages of eligibility by approximately 0.15 years annually. Failure to adjust for mortality improvement implies the percent of the population eligible to receive full Social Security benefits and Medicare will increase substantially relative to the share eligible under a policy of age adjustment.
The rate-limiting step in muscle contraction.

The motion of skinned muscle fibers in chemically controlled bathing solutions is examined to obtain information about the cross bridge cycle. The effects of an ATP regenerating system and ionic strength on both the transient and the steady response to step changes in load are compared. The transient is changed in characteristic ways by these factors, but the steady motion is unaffected. If changes in the transient reflect changes in the rates of “making” and “breaking” cross bridges, these results suggest that the rate of physiological contraction is limited by a slow transition in the unattached myosin molecule rather than the making and breaking of cross bridges per se.
Morphological analysis by multiple sequence alignment

In biological sequence processing, Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) techniques capture information about long-distance dependencies and the three-dimensional structure of protein and nucleotide sequences without resorting to polynomial complexity context-free models. But MSA techniques have rarely been used in natural language (NL) processing, and never for NL morphology induction. Our MetaMorph algorithm is a first attempt at leveraging MSA techniques to induce NL morphology in an unsupervised fashion. Given a text corpus in any language, MetaMorph sequentially aligns words of the corpus to form an MSA and then segments the MSA to produce morphological analyses. Over corpora that contain millions of unique word types, MetaMorph identifies morphemes at an F1 below state-of-the-art performance. But when restricted to smaller sets of orthographically related words, Meta-Morph outperforms the state-of-the-art ParaMor-Morfessor Union morphology induction system. Tested on 5,000 orthographically similar Hungarian word types, MetaMorph reaches 54.1% and ParaMor-Morfessor just 41.9%. Hence, we conclude that MSA is a promising algorithm for unsupervised morphology induction. Future research directions are discussed.
Convective Gain of Parametric Instabilities: An Experimentalist’s Viewpoint

The parametric instabilities inherent in laser-plasma interactions are a critical barrier to the realization of laser-driven inertial confinement fusion energy.1 These instabilities couple the laser (pump) wave to two daughter waves which may be scattered-light (slw), ion-acoustic, or electron-plasma (epw) waves. Detrimental effects include the production of suprathermal electrons (two-plasmon decay,2 ion-acoustic decay instability,3 and stimulated Raman scattering [SRS]4) and increased plasma reflectivity (stimulated Brillouin scattering [SBS] and SRS5). A basic understanding of the behavior of these instabilities, including instability intensity thresholds under various plasma conditions, intensity scaling, and saturation levels, is necessary to design efficient ignition capsules. An extensive theoretical and experimental program has been pursued since the mid-1970’s to characterize these processes.6,7
Metabolic activation of procarbazine: Evidence for carbon-centered free-radical intermediates

The metabolism of procarbazine was studied using spin-trapping techniques. The oxidation of procarbazine, catalyzed by horseradish peroxidase, prostaglandin synthetase [ram seminal vesicle (RSV) microsomes] or rat hepatic microsomal cytochrome P-450, produced carbon-centered free radicals. Cytochrome P-450 also catalyzed this oxidation in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. Horseradish peroxidase activation of procarbazine formed both the methyl radical and the N-isopropylbenzylamide radical [(CH3)2CHNHCO(C6H4)CH2.]. In the presence of RSV or rat hepatic microsomes, mostly the benzyl-type radical was trapped, presumably due to the reactivity of the methyl radical.
Strategies For Adaptive Control In Pharmacokinetic Model-driven Intravenous Drug Delivery With Zero Or Sparse Feedback

Although all drug dosing regimens are based implicitly or explicitly on the pharmacokinetics of the agent being adminis- tered, pharmacokinetic model-driven drug delivery using a com- puter-controlled drug infusion pump (CACI) to achieve physi- cian-specified plasma drug concentrations may be the most efficient and efficacious means of administering some intravenous drugs when automated closed-loop delivery is not an option. In the administration of intravenous anesthetic drugs, this concept is gaining acceptance without feedback of measured plasma drug concentrations. In critical care, where periodic measurement of the plasma drug concentration is routine, CACI with adaptation of the pharmacokinetic model is possible.
SiO2 etching in inductively coupled C2F6 plasmas: surface chemistry and two-dimensional simulations

Abstract A surface chemistry model was developed to understand the mechanism of etching or deposition on silicon dioxide surfaces exposed to a high density C2F6 plasma. The surface chemistry model in combination with a gas phase plasma chemistry model was implemented in the Modular Plasma Reactor Simulator (MPRES) to study oxide etching and uniformity under typical processing conditions. Simulation results on etch rate and uniformity as a function of operating conditions were consistent with experimental data. The transition from polymerization to etching as the ion bombardment energy (bias power) was increased was also captured by the simulation. Under low pressure conditions (several mtorr) the ion flux peaked at the wafer center while the neutral flux peaked at the wafer edge. Under such conditions, the oxide etch rate was highest at the edge. This supports the conclusion that, at such low pressures, oxide etching is ion driven but neutral dominated.
A comparison of the Hooked on Nicotine Checklist and the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence in adult smokers

Diminished autonomy is a core feature common to all forms of dependence involving drugs or behaviors. The Hooked on Nicotine Checklist (HONC) is a reliable and valid measure of diminished autonomy over tobacco. It has not previously been compared with the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence (FTND) in adult smokers. In the present study, 1,130 smokers (M age = 41; M cigs/day = 18.5) completed both measures. Factor analysis yielded one factor for both the HONC and the FTND. Mean HONC score was 7.0, and mean FTND score was 4.6; the measures correlated at r = .44. The HONC had higher internal consistency (alpha = .82) than the FTND (alpha = .61; z(1127) = 7.1, p < .001). The measures correlated similarly with age at smoking onset and days smoked per month, but the FTND correlated higher with cigarette consumption. Subjects who used nicotine replacement therapy or bupropion during an abstinence attempt scored higher on both measures, whereas those who maintained abstinence for at least 3 days scored lower. The HONC has several advantages: (a) It measures a clearly defined construct, and each item has face validity; and it has (b) better psychometric properties, (c) a logical cutpoint (zero symptoms), (d) greater sensitivity to the onset and low levels of dependence, and (e) easily interpretable scores. The HONC is uniquely suited for use with smokers whose cigarette consumption is low.
The usefulness of adjoint systems in solving nonconservative stability problems of elastic continua.

Approximate method of stability analysis for equilibrium in elastic continuums subjected to follower type surface traction
On fading poisson channels with varying noise levels

In this paper, we study Poisson fading channels with varying noise levels. This model is motivated by applications of visible light communication systems, in which the noise level is affected by the strength of the background light. We consider scenarios with and without delay constraints. For the case without a delay constraint, we characterize the optimal power allocation scheme that maximizes the ergodic capacity. For the case with a strict delay constraint, we characterize the optimal power allocation scheme that minimizes the outage probability. We also provide several numerical examples to illustrate the analytical results.
Short-a in Northern New England

This article investigates the relationship between the Boston speech community and two New Hampshire (NH) speech communities with respect to the phonetic status of short-a. Analysis of twenty-six recordings shows that (1) breaking is more prevalent in New England than previous isoglosses suggest and (2) younger NH speakers are exhibiting a pattern distinct from both Boston and older NH speakers. The author suggests that the latter result is related to migration patterns and geographic attitudes in New England, which may have contributed to dialect leveling in the sense of Kerswill.
Stratigraphy and Oil Possibilities of Mesozoic Rocks in Kandik Basin, East-Central Alaska: ABSTRACT

Mesozoic sedimentary rocks in the Kandik basin are subdivided provisionally into four units. The oldest, unit A, rests unconformably on the Tahkandit Limestone of Permian age. It consists mainly of carbonaceous argillite but includes some limestone, oil shale, and quartz arenite. This unit is about 5,000 ft. thick and ranges in age from Middle Triassic (Ladinian) at its base to Early Cretaceous (Valanginian) at its top. Conformably overlying unit A is unit B, a massive quartz arenite with minor interbeds of argillite and chert-pebble conglomerate. Unit B is less than 100 ft. thick south of the Yukon River but northward it thickens to about 1,000 ft. or more in the headwaters of the Black River. Pelecypods of Valanginian age have been found in the quartz arenite at several widely spaced localities. Unit B grades conformably upward into unit C, a rhythmically bedded quartz arenite and argillite, at least 5,000 ft. thick, that forms a substantial part of the Kandik Formation (Lower Cretaceous) at its type locality. Pelecypods of Valanginian age occur in the lower part of unit C. Unit D consists of chert-pebble conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone, and argillite, all of the graywacke type. It rests conformably on unit C in the vicinity of the Yukon End_Page 1757------------------------------ River, but apparently rests unconformably on units B and A and on rocks of Paleozoic age near Indian Grave Creek. Unit D is several thousand feet thick and is provisionally correlated with non-marine clastic rocks of Early Cretaceous (Albian) age near Eagle, Alaska. The oil shale within unit A is a potential source bed for petroleum, but none of the Mesozoic rocks cropping out in the Kandik basin seem to have enough porosity to make them potential reservoirs. Although the oil possibilities of the Mesozoic rocks are not encouraging, some of the Paleozoic rocks contain oil and therefore deserve further investigation. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1758------------
A rapid, flexibel method for biochemical assays using a microtiter plate reader and a microcomputer. Application for assays of protein, Na,K-Atpase and K-p-Nitrophenylphosphatase

A computerized system which greatly accelerates and eases the collection, storage, and analysis of data has been applied to several standard biochemical assays. The system uses a commercially available microtiter plate reader connected to an Apple IIe microcomputer via a standard serial port. Data are transmitted automatically from the reader to the microcomputer, where they can be viewed, printed, further analyzed immediately, or stored on a diskette for later retrieval and processing. Some or all of the data may be entered manually. The program calculates a linear least squares best fit to a standard curve after correcting all data for blanks, then determines the quantities of substrate or product contained in each well of a microtiter plate. Data from two plates may be combined, enabling calculation of enzyme specific activities. This system can be adapted to any assay whose final step can be performed by a microtiter plate reader. Its use is described for determination of protein concentration, Na,K-ATPase activity, and K-stimulated p-nitrophenylphosphatase activity.
The Talking Drum: Moving Towarda Psychology of Literacy Transformation

This article discusses how the talking drum has been a viable cultural voice for many West and Central African cultures in the acquisition of literacy. Based on this discussion; the author proposes research questions regarding the function and use of music and language, cognition and the psycholinguisticfeatures of the drum languages, the psychological dimension of music production, and its link to acoustic phonetic symbols of the drum languages. Ofparticular concern is the musical character of tonal languages spoken in Africa and the use of the talking drum for literacy purposes. In addition, the article describes the important role of the talking drum in the maintenance of archaic forms of (tonal) languages through mnemonic code systems and the speech mode of drumming.
Political Aid and the Development of Party Politics: The Case of the UK’s Westminster Foundation for Democracy

The paper analyzes the work of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) from its founding in 1992 to the present day. The WFD is a government sponsored NGO that administers democratic political aid in Eastern and Southern Europe, former Soviet Republics, and Africa (among other regions) with the intent of insuring that new democracies develop mainstream party systems and transparent, replicable standards for conducting elections. The aid takes the form of sending political professionals to train the new political party’s operatives, giving political leaders the opportunity to visit other countries as observers, and providing infrastructure resources for political party organizations and civil society groups. Previous studies of political aid focus on the aggregate funds used to administer democratic governance and civil society programs and how they influence levels of democratization in recipient states. The unidirectional dimension of whether democracy aid works looks only at the conditions in the consolidating democracy. A multi-dimensional approach would consider donor countries’ agendas in offering democracy aid, the bilateral relationship that might form between elites in donor nations and recipient nations through democracy aid efforts (say, through political parties), in addition to the political outcomes in recipient nations. Here, we turn our attention to the donor states, specifically the WFD which has a dichotomous structure of administering democracy promotion through a ‘developmental’ NGO and through ‘political’ means through the international offices of the domestic UK political parties. Several questions are addressed here. First, what motivates donor states to engage resources in democracy promotion? Second, do donor states administer democracy aid in the same way? And finally, should democracy aid be considered by scholars of party and electoral systems as an external variable that affects party system development?
VLA Experimental Resource for Testing Innovative Configurations and Lightings (VERTICAL)

Stottler Henke is developing VERTICAL (VLA Experimental Resource for Testing Innovative Configurations And Lightings) for the US Navy; a test and design tool that can be used to support vertical takeoff and landing/rotorcraft ship VLA design and testing at the test team members' work area. This is being accomplished by utilizing MS Flight Simulator, FSUIPC and Java. Visual landing aids (VLAs) provide necessary support to the landing of aircraft on ships. For existing ship classes with fixed lighting systems, the ability to differentially adjust the intensity of drop lights, glide slope indicators, flood lights, and deck status lighting provides focus on different pilot cues during shipboard landing in a wide variety of meteorological conditions. Color is used to provide focus on different approach and landing cues in varying meteorological conditions. The drive is to allow for a wider envelope of operations for aircraft from ships. That is, it is desired to be able to safely operate VTOL aircraft in higher sea states and lower visibility conditions than is allowed today. In order to improve decision-making in this complex domain in an affordable manner, design and testing in simulated situations is critical. VERTICAL provides this solution by providing a test and design tool on a PC allowing one to fly shipboard approaches in specific aircraft, to the deck of a specific ship class, with a realistic view in day and night operations and under a variety of weather conditions, while providing an easy method of adjusting ship VLA components and environment lighting. VERTICAL combines an interactive graphical user interface with various aircraft and custom built ships which are controlled and rendered by Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. By utilizing Microsoft's off-the-shelf simulator package, we are able to render extremely detailed three-dimensional graphics (with accurate physics) that simulates visual scene properties relevant for simulating low-altitude flight at low cost, and with significantly reduced development time compared to custom tools. Users are presented with a fully navigable, three-dimensional environment (the Visualization Environment) provided by MS Flight Simulator containing the ship being targeted for VLA design. The environment may include other aircraft flying or on the ship, essentially the environment is able to replicate whatever should be simulated to duplicate realistic conditions. The visualization module communicates with the core (integration module) via an external system interface (ESI) written in a product called FSUIPC. The lights on the ship can be controlled via the VLA modification GUI. The VLA Modification GUI, developed as a separate application developed in Java provides an intuitive interface for modifying the VLA components
Opinions Regarding Polygamy Among LDS Church Members: Demographic Predictors

People's opinions toward polygamy were examined in a study of 1369 adults who were current or former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Questions addressed several areas: polygamy and the law, respondents' perceptions of polygamous women, the potential link between legalizing gay marriage and legalizing polygamy, polygamists' reliance on social welfare programs, and the ability of teens raised in polygamy to leave that lifestyle. Consistent with the contact hypothesis, multiple regression analyses showed that people who knew a polygamist held more favorable opinions of polygamy. Polygamists, men, infrequent church attenders, and older people also tended to hold more favorable opinions of polygamy. Educational attainment showed weak associations with opinions, while marital status failed to predict opinions toward polygamy.
Inactivation of the human P2Y12 receptor by thiol reagents requires interaction with both extracellular cysteine residues, Cys17 and Cys270.

Human platelets express 2 G protein–coupled nucleotide receptors: the platelet adenosine diphosphate (ADP) receptor coupled to stimulation of phospholipase C (P2Y1) via heterotrimeric guanosine 5-triphosphate (GTP)–binding protein Gq, and the platelet ADP receptor coupled to inhibition of adenylyl cyclase (P2Y12) via heterotrimeric GTP-binding protein Gi. Although these 2 receptors are encoded on the same chromosome and have similar pharmacologic profiles, they have different reactivities toward thiol reagents. The thiol agent p-chloromercuribenzene sulfonic acid (pCMBS) and the active metabolites from antiplatelet drugs, clopidogrel and CS-747, inactivate the P2Y12 receptor and are predicted to interact with the extracellular cysteine residues on the P2Y12 receptor. In this study we identified the reactive cysteine residues on the human P2Y12 receptor by site-directed mutagenesis using pCMBS as the thiol reagent. Cys97Ser and Cys175Ser mutants of the P2Y12 receptor did not express when transfected into Chinese hamster ovary (CHO-K1) cells, indicating the essential nature of a disulfide bridge between these residues. The Cys17Ser, Cys270Ser, and Cys17Ser/Cys270Ser double mutants had similar median effective concentration (EC50) values for ADP and 2-methylthio–ADP (2-MeSADP) when compared with the wild-type P2Y12. Similarly, the median inhibitory concentration (IC50) values for BzATP (2′,3′-O-(4- benzoylbenzoyl) adenosine 5′-triphosphate), an antagonist of the P2Y12 receptor, also did not differ dramatically among these mutants and the wild-type P2Y12receptor. pCMBS inactivated the wild-type P2Y12 receptor in a concentration-dependent manner, whereas it had no effect on the P2Y1 receptor. Finally, pCMBS partially affected the Gi coupling of Cys17Ser or Cys270Ser receptor mutants, but had no effect on Cys17Ser/Cys270Ser P2Y12receptor–mediated inhibition of adenylyl cyclase. These results indicate that, unlike the P2Y1 receptor, which has 2 essential disulfide bridges linking its extracellular domains, the P2Y12 receptor has 2 free cysteines in its extracellular domains (Cys17 and Cys270), both of which are targets of thiol reagents. We speculate that the active metabolites of clopidogrel and CS-747 form disulfide bridges with both Cys17 and Cys270 in the P2Y12 receptor, and thereby inactivate the receptor.
Bursicon-induced adenyl cyclase activity in the haemocytes of the American cockroach

Abstract Partially purified preparations of bursicon were injected, between ecdyses, into American cockroaches ( Periplaneta americana ) held at 4°C. After short periods of time, the haemocytes were removed and found to contain appreciable amounts of cyclic adenosine 5′-monophosphate (cAMP). Identical experiments using animals reared at 23°C did not result in the accumulation of cAMP. These and additional data suggest that phosphodiesterase is not active during the initial stages of bursicon-stimulated adenyl cyclase. Incubation of haemocyte soluble proteins in the presence of [ 3 H]cAMP, followed by molecular sieve chromatography on P-60 polyacrylamide gel, shows the binding of cAMP to large molecular weight proteins. Similar experiments, but with phosphodiesterase inhibition revealed a reduced level of radioactive bound protein. From these studies one can assume that the haemocytes contain a soluble cAMP-dependent protein kinase. If either [ 14 C]-leucine or [ 14 C]-tyrosine is incubated with whole blood taken from animals between ecdyses, little or no uptake by the haemocytes can be seen. Identical studies, but with the addition of cAMP, results in a dramatic enhancement of amino acid uptake. It appears that bursicon stimulates blood-cell adenyl cyclase, which in turn produces cAMP. The cAMP subsequently activates a specific protein kinase that phosphorylates potential membrane proteins. The membrane phosphoprotein may be instrumental in the enhanced uptake of amino acids.
Holographic Mapping For Perception

In the animal brain there appear to be a variety of two-dimensional maps representing, in some cases, stimuli and, in other cases, responses. Links between these are performed by neurons which are trained during the animal's experience. This may offer a useful paradigm for complex optically controlled systems. We discuss here - mapping theory from N dimensions into 2, - map transformations by holography, and - map reconciliation by coherent optics.
Comments on Entrepreneurial pursuits of self and collective interests and Strategic entrepreneurship, collaborative innovation, and wealth creation

I provide comments on these articles and then place them in the broader context of the burgeoning literatures on technological collaboration and corporate social responsibility. Copyright © 2008 Strategic Management Society.
An Estradiol-Porphyrin Conjugate Selectively Localizes Into Estrogen Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer Cells

Abstract A conjugate of a C11-β-derivative of estradiol and an asymmetric tetraphenylporphyrin was synthesized to study its potential selective uptake by breast cancer cells naturally over-expressing the nuclear receptor for estrogen (ER). Competitive radioligand binding assays of this conjugate with recombinant ER showed that the conjugate bound to ER in a dose-dependent manner with an EC50 of 274 nM, compared with 1 nM for estradiol, the natural ligand. Cellular uptake studies with ER-positive MCF-7 and ER-negative HS578t human breast cancer cells revealed that, the conjugate was taken up by MCF-7 cells in a dose-dependent manner, which was obliterated by co-incubation with a large excess of estradiol. On the other hand there was very little uptake of the un-conjugated porphyrin by MCF-7 and Hs578t cells. HS578t cells also showed insignificant uptake of the conjugate under the conditions of our experiment. These results strongly suggested that specific interaction between the endogenous ER in MCF-7 cells and the estrogen part of the conjugate enabled these cells to selectively internalize the conjugate over the un-conjugated porphyrin. Therefore, ER-binding conjugates of estradiol and porphyrins could potentially be used for ER-targeted photodynamic therapy of hormone-sensitive cancers of breast, ovary, gonads etc.
Glassy Magnets Composed of Metals Coordinated to 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane: M(TCNQ)2 (M = Mn, Fe, Co, Ni)†

The homologous series M(TCNQ)2 (M = Mn(II), Fe(II), Co(II), and Ni(II); TCNQ = 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane) prepared from reactions of [M(CH3CN)6][BF4]2 and [n-Bu4N][BF4] in CH3CN has been carefully analyzed from the perspective of synthetic issues and physical characterization, including complete magnetic analyses by the tools of dc and ac magnetometry. The preparative method was optimized to definitively establish the reproducibility of the chemistry as judged by infrared spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, powder X-ray crystallography, and elemental analysis. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) and transmission electron microscopic (TEM) studies results are also in accord with the conclusion that these materials are pure, isostructural phases. The dc magnetic measurements reveal a spontaneous magnetization for the four materials at low temperatures with a weak field coercivity of 20, 750, 190, and 270 G at 2 K for Mn(TCNQ)2, Fe(TCNQ)2, Co(TCNQ)2, and Ni(TCNQ)2, respectively. At low tempera...
Nifedipine blocks retention of a visual discrimination task in chicks.

Reports that the dihydropyridine Ca2+ channel antagonists may facilitate memory led to the present study of the behavioral effects of nifedipine. Ninety-two 4-day-old male chicks received 0, 100 nM, 100 μM, or 10 mM nifedipine. Drugs were administered in volumes of 2 μl into the fourth cerebral ventricle 5 min before training on a visual discrimination task. Nifedipine did not produce any detectable changes in behavior during acquisition trials. Retention, however, was impaired 24 h after training in the 100 nM and 100 μM nifedipine-treated chicks, which made significantly more errors than controls. Nifedipine did not affect the amount of time required to complete the task. No effects on body weight gain were detected, suggesting that the memory impairment was not due to a change in feeding behavior. These data are discussed in terms of the role of calcium-dependent processes in memory.
Instability in evaporative binary mixtures. II. The effect of Rayleigh convection

Multi-component mixtures undergoing phase change in the presence of gravity depict instabilities whose physical origins depend upon the heating arrangement. Calculations on evaporative instability in closed systems using the example of low weight alcohols predict that cellular patterns would occur when the system is heated from above provided that the liquid depths are small compared to the vapor depths. The cellular patterns give way to long wavelength modes when the liquid depths are large because the solutal convection is dominant. When heated from below, cellular patterns can always be obtained regardless of the phase depths. Moreover, for this heating arrangement the physics shows thermal dominance at large wave numbers and solutal dominance at small wave numbers.
Grazing of the spring diatom bloom in the New York Bight by the calanoid copepods Calanus finmarchicus, Metridia lucens and Centropages typicus

Abstract Spring in shelf waters of the New York Bight was characterized by a relatively rapid increase in the numbers and biomass of the large herbivorous copepod Calanus finmarchicus , which seemed to be growing at an in situ rate of approximately 8% body weight per day. The functional feeding response of females of all three taxa never showed saturation. The proportion of daily primary production which was ingested by these three taxa increased from 13 to 46% in the March–April interval at one shelf location and was >100% in both March and April at another shelf location. In contrast, the proportion of daily production which was ingested in slope water in April was only 4%. The implication is that most of the spring diatom bloom over the shelf is ingested over the shelf by the population of rapidly growing C. finmarchicus juveniles. The fecal carbon calculated to be generated by the grazing activities of the observed populations of C. finmarchicus, Metridia lucens , and Centropages typicus resulted in a daily vertical carbon flux very similar to that observed over the shelf with sediment traps and pellet collectors.
Cerebral infarction and transient ischemic attacks. Efficient evaluation is essential to beneficial intervention

Rapid but precise evaluation of patients presenting with cerebral infarction is essential to determine immediate intervention. Initial assessment should include history taking, physical examination, routine laboratory testing, electrocardiography, chest radiology, and noncontrast head CT. Localizing the event to the appropriate arterial circulation (anterior versus posterior) and determining topography (subcortical versus cortical) guide sequential testing to ascertain the mechanism of cerebral infarction. Diagnostic testing focuses on selectively identifying potential cardiac, large-vessel, small-vessel, or hematologic causes. Although diagnostic tools are evolving, 15% of cerebral infarctions still have an unknown cause or multiple potential sources.
An investigation of thermodynamic states during high-pressure fuel injection using equilibrium thermodynamics

Abstract A numerical investigation of mixing processes between an injected fuel (an n-alkane) and a chamber inert gas (nitrogen) was carried out for high-pressure fuel injection. The objective is to determine conditions for the coexistence of both liquid and gas phases under the typical ambient conditions encountered in diesel engines. A phenomenological investigation was built by coupling phase stability analysis with the energy conservation equation. Phase changes (including separation and combination) are predicted to occur so as to yield the lowest Gibbs free energy. It is also shown that predicted states without considering phase transitions can be very different from the corresponding thermodynamically correct states. By comparing four n-alkane/nitrogen mixtures it is shown that the lower limit of the two-phase region occurs at similar temperatures. However, heavy n-alkane/nitrogen mixtures have a larger upper limit, and phase separation occurs at higher temperatures. The present model predicts the existence of multiple phases locally in the dense spray jet under high temperature and pressure ambient conditions due to the significant reduction of the mixture temperature caused by vaporization and cooling.
Organic electro-optic glasses for WDM applications

This communication primarily deals with utilizing organic electro-optic (OEO) materials for the fabrication of active wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmitter/receiver systems and reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs), including the fabrication of hybrid OEO/silicon photonic devices. Fabrication is carried out by a variety of techniques including soft and nanoimprint lithography. The production of conformal and flexible ring microresonator devices is also discussed. The fabrication of passive devices is also briefly reviewed. Critical to the realization of improved performance for devices fabricated from OEO materials has been the improvement of electro-optic activity to values of 300 pm/V (or greater) at telecommunication wavelengths. This improvement in materials has been realized exploiting a theoretically-inspired (quantum and statistical mechanics) paradigm for the design of chromophores with dramatically improved molecular first hyperpolarizability and that exhibit intermolecular electrostatic interactions that promote self-assembly, under the influence of an electric poling field, into noncentrosymmetric macroscopic lattices. New design paradigms have also been developed for improving the glass transition of these materials, which is critical for thermal and photochemical stability and for optimizing processing protocols such as nanoimprint lithography. Ring microresonator devices discussed in this communication were initially fabricated using chromophore guest/polymer host materials characterized by electro-optic coefficients on the order of 50 pm/V (at telecommunication wavelengths). Voltage-controlled optical tuning of the pass band of these ring microresonators was experimental determined to lie in the range 1-10 GHz/V or all-organic and for OEO/silicon photonic devices. With new materials, values approaching 50 GHz/V should be possible. Values as high as 300 GHz/V may ultimately be achievable.
The effect of photodynamic therapy on tumor cell expression of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and MHC class I‐related molecules

Background and Objective Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is FDA-approved anti-cancer modality for elimination of early disease and palliation in advanced disease. PDT efficacy depends in part on elicitation of a tumor-specific immune response that is dependent on cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and natural killer (NK) cells. The cytolytic potential of CTLs and NK cells is mediated by the ability of these cells to recognize major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I and MHC class I-related molecules. The MHC class I-related molecules MICA and MICB are induced by oxidative stress and have been reported to activate NK cells and co-stimulate CD8+ T cells. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of PDT on tumor cell expression of MHC classes I and II-related molecules in vivo and in vitro. Study Design/Materials and Methods Human colon carcinoma Colo205 cells and murine CT26 tumors were treated with 2-[1-hexyloxyethyl]-2-devinyl pyropheophorbide-a (HPPH)-PDT at various doses. MHC classes I and I-related molecule expression following treatment of Colo205 cells was temporally examined by flow cytometry using antibodies specific for components of MHC class I molecules and by quantitative PCR using specific primers. Expression of MHC class I-related molecules following HPPH-based PDT (HPPH-PDT) of murine tumors was monitored using a chimeric NKG2D receptor. Results In vitro HPPH-PDT significantly induces MICA in Colo205 cells, but had no effect on MHC class I molecule expression. PDT also induced expression of NKG2D ligands (NKG2DL) following in vivo HPPH-PDT of a murine tumor. Induction of MICA corresponded to increased NK killing of PDT-treated tumor cells. Conclusions PDT induction of MICA on human tumor cells and increased expression of NKG2DL by murine tumors following PDT may play a role in PDT induction of anti-tumor immunity. This conclusion is supported by our results demonstrating that tumor cells have increased sensitivity to NK cell lysis following PDT. Lasers Surg. Med. 44:60–68, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.