cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Electrical Automaticity and Intercellular Synchronization via Shared Extracellular Compartments

ABSTRACT Electrically excitable cells often spontaneously and synchronously depolarize in vitro and in vivo. It remains unknown how cells synchronize and autorhythmically activate above the intrinsic mean activation frequency of isolated cells without pacemaking mechanisms. Recent insights into ephaptic coupling (non-gap junction or synaptic coupling) suggest that cyclic ion accumulation and depletion in diffusion limited extracellular volumes densely expressing ion channels modifies action potentials. This report explores how potassium accumulation and depletion in a restricted extracellular domain promotes spontaneous oscillations in the Hodgkin Huxley action potential model, which does not spontaneously activate on its own without external stimulus. Simulations demonstrate cells sharing a diffusion limited extracellular compartment can become autorhythmic and synchronous despite intercellular electrical heterogeneity. Autorhythmic frequency can be determined by net potassium flux into the cleft and the cleft volume. Additionally, inexcitable cells can induce autorhythmic activity in an excitable cell via a shared cleft and sufficient potassium fluxes contributed by each cell. Importantly, the synchronization and autorhythmic activity conferred by shared cleft with reduced potassium efflux can occur in the absence of gap junctions. Lastly, not only can potassium oscillations in shared restricted clefts initiate, support, and suppress autorhythmic depolarizations, the same mechanism can homogenize repolarization. The work has implications for understanding how automaticity is coordinated among excitable cells and suggests a new role for non-excitable cells such as fibroblasts, macrophages, or astrocytes with sarcolemmal potassium handling proteins facing shared and restricted intercellular clefts. SIGNIFICANCE A mechanism of cyclic ion accumulation and depletion in diffusion limited extracellular compartments can suppress, initiate, and support autorhythmic activity. Additionally, autorhythmicity can emerge from electrophysiologically heterogeneous cell pairs sharing a diffusion limited extracellular compartment, even if the individual cells will not spontaneously depolarize on their own. Sustained and synchronous autorhythmic activity can occur in the absence of gap junction coupling. Lastly, the shared diffusion limited extracellular compartment can also reduce action potential duration gradients by synchronizing repolarization.
All In: The Urban Mission: The 2019 Annual CUMU Conference

The Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) celebrated its 25th annual conference in October 2019. Convening in Philadelphia PA, this conference was the largest for CUMU to date, selling out weeks in advance and drawing representatives from across the United States, Canada, and South Africa. With the theme of “All In: The Urban Mission”, attendees gathered purposefully to examine how universities are striving to intentionally align their goals with the priorities of their host cities to affect desired change, drive economic development and inclusion, and address issues of shared importance.
Making Oppositional Means: The Illustrated Zine Literature of Queer Activist Groups in Spain, 1970s to the Present

This article traces a brief history of zine literature produced by gay and lesbian activist circles in Spain from the late Francoist years to present, paying specific attention to the publications by the queer Madrid-based groups La Radical Gai and Lesbianas Sin Duda (LSD) in the 1990s. Self-published graphic content is analysed alongside the collective process to produce this literature in an effort to question the ways in which these publications articulate and enact the activist values of the social group in the practice of fanzine creation itself. This article proposes that the collective creation of zine literature in queer activist collectives has operated as both a mode of and means for sustaining oppositional mobilization
Exploring the Limitations of Environment Lighting on Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Displays

Due to the additive light model employed by most optical see-through head-mounted displays (OST-HMDs), they provide the best augmented reality (AR) views in dark environments, where the added AR light does not have to compete against existing real-world lighting. AR imagery displayed on such devices loses a significant amount of contrast in well-lit environments such as outdoors in direct sunlight. To compensate for this, OST-HMDs often use a tinted visor to reduce the amount of environment light that reaches the user’s eyes, which in turn results in a loss of contrast in the user’s physical environment. While these effects are well known and grounded in existing literature, formal measurements of the illuminance and contrast of modern OST-HMDs are currently missing. In this paper, we provide illuminance measurements for both the Microsoft HoloLens 1 and its successor the HoloLens 2 under varying environment lighting conditions ranging from 0 to 20,000 lux. We evaluate how environment lighting impacts the user by calculating contrast ratios between rendered black (transparent) and white imagery displayed under these conditions, and evaluate how the intensity of environment lighting is impacted by donning and using the HMD. Our results indicate the further need for refinement in the design of future OST-HMDs to optimize contrast in environments with illuminance values greater than or equal to those found in indoor working environments.
Context-aware Deep Representation Learning for Geo-spatiotemporal Analysis

The emergence of remote sensing technologies coupled with local monitoring workstations enables us the unprecedented ability to monitor the environment in large scale. Information mining from multi-channel geo-spatiotemporal data however poses great challenges to many computational sustainability applications. Most existing approaches adopt various dimensionality reduction techniques without fully taking advantage of the spatiotemporal nature of the data. In addition, the lack of labeled training data raises another challenge for modeling such data. In this work, we propose a novel semi-supervised attention-based deep representation model that learns context-aware spatiotemporal representations for prediction tasks. A combination of convolutional neural networks with a hybrid attention mechanism is adopted to extract spatial and temporal variations in the geo-spatiotemporal data. Recognizing the importance of capturing more complete temporal dependencies, we propose the hybrid attention mechanism which integrates a learnable global query into the classic self-attention mechanism. To overcome the data scarcity issue, sampled spatial and temporal context that naturally reside in the largely-available unlabeled geo-spatiotemporal data are exploited to aid meaningful representation learning. We conduct experiments on a large-scale real-world crop yield prediction task. The results show that our methods significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art yield prediction methods, especially under the stress of training data scarcity.
Longitudinal Coupling of Depression in Parent–Adolescent Dyads: Within- and Between-Dyads Effects Over Time:

In the present work, we evaluated reciprocal, within-dyads associations between parents’ and adolescents’ depressive symptoms across two independent samples (N = 327 and N = 435 dyads; approximatel...
Biological information for the new blue economy and the emerging role of eDNA

Abstract Use of biological information, including genetic data, is proliferating in decision-making in ocean industries from fishing and aquaculture to shipping goods, from boatbuilding to energy extraction, and from disposing of wastes to monitoring for health and safety. Profitable outcomes of marine bioprospecting remain meager, and businesses have repeatedly overexploited living marine resources. While varieties of chemicals that could make humans healthier, more youthful, and more beautiful surely abound in the oceans, science has barely begun to look at the 250,000 known species of marine life to classify them systematically by useful attributes. Meeting demand for consequent products most likely needs to occur through synthesis on land. A bio-based industry likely to boom soon uses loose DNA in seawater, or environmental DNA, to measure the presence and abundance of marine species. Environmental monitors await regulatory approval of genetic data as a complement to, and substitute for, data from nets and other traditional forms of stock assessment. Collectors of biological information will increasingly operate remotely and autonomously, and personnel will shift to bioinformatics roles on shore.
The effect of porosity and γ-γ′ eutectic content on the fatigue behavior of hydrogen charged PWA 1480

The study addresses the effect of systematically varying gamma-gamma-prime eutectic content and porosity level on the fatigue life of a hydrogen-charged single crystal PWA 1480 superalloy. Four microstructural variants are produced, and differences in gamma-gamma-prime eutectic morphology among the four processing variants are analyzed. Single valued tensile test data indicate that the tensile and yield strength of the PWA 1480 are degraded by hydrogen charging, with the exception of the material given a eutectic solution treatment. It is shown that the reduction of the fatigue life can be minimized by a duplex thermomechanical treatment consisting of a eutectic solution followed by hot isostatic pressing.
Oral therapy with pregneninolone in functional uterine bleeding

F UNCTIONAL uterine bleeding is excessive bleeding due t,o factors which are not yet known. Many t.heories and therapeutic agents have been recommended, but none turned out to be entirely satisfactory. One factor, however, seems to be present for uterine bleeding, whether normal or abnormal, namely estrogen stimulation. However, the future may prove the existence of some relationship between the hormones and structural changes in the endometrial vascular supply and that the factors which are responsible for the bleeding are within the endometrium, possibly of vascular nature, and not dependent upon the histologic type of the endometrium.
Behavioral research into heuristics and bias as an academic pursuit

Behavioral research is an accepted research paradigm in business disciplines outside of finance including management, marketing and accounting. This paper looks at these disciplines and proposes goals for increasing acceptance of this form of research in real estate. Primary goals include investigation of actual heuristic use, concentration on expert decision makers, either as a group or in comparison to novices, incorporation of additional theory advocating functional heuristics, incorporation of real estate specific theory and identifying both theoretically and empirically when, why and how heuristic use may bias the decision process.
Relative role of eukaryotic and prokaryotic microorganisms in phenanthrene transformation in coastal sediments.

The relative role of eukaryotic versus prokaryotic microorganisms in phenanthrene transformation was measured in slurries of coastal sediment by two different approaches: detection of marker metabolites and use of selective inhibitors on phenanthrene biotransformation. Phenanthrene biotransformation was measured by polar metabolite formation and CO2 evolution from [9-14C]phenanthrene. Radiolabeled metabolites were tentatively identified by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) separation combined with UV/visible spectral analysis of HPLC peaks and comparison to authentic standards. Both yeasts and bacteria transformed phenanthrene in slurries of coastal sediment. Two products of phenanthrene oxidation by fungi, phenanthrene trans-3,4-dihydrodiol and 3-phenanthrol, were produced in yeast-inoculated sterile sediment. However, only products of phenanthrene oxidation typical of bacterial transformation, 1-hydroxy-2-naphthoic acid and phenanthrene cis-3,4-dihydrodiol, were isolated from slurries of coastal sediment with natural microbial populations. Phenanthrene trans-dihydrodiols or other products of fungal oxidation of phenanthrene were not detected in the slurry containing a natural microbial population. A predominant role for bacterial transformation of phenanthrene was also suggested from selective inhibitor experiments. Addition of streptomycin to slurries, at a concentration which suppressed bacterial viable counts and rates of [methyl-3H]thymidine uptake, completely inhibited phenanthrene transformation. Treatment with colchicine, at a concentration which suppressed yeast viable counts, depressed phenanthrene transformation by 40%, and this was likely due to nontarget inhibition of bacterial activity. The relative contribution of eukaryotic microorganisms to phenanthrene transformation in inoculated sterile sediment was estimated to be less than 3% of the total activity. We conclude that the predominant degraders of phenanthrene in muddy coastal sediments are bacteria and not eukaryotic microorganisms.
Coherent radiation in the range of 15–28 μm in a cadmium–selenide crystal

Abstract We have achieved coherent radiation continuously tunable in the range of 15–28 μm based on type-II phasematched and non-phasematched difference-frequency generation in CdSe. The longest wavelength for the output mid-IR is much longer than the previous value. In the short-wavelength end the conversion efficiency can be still high due to long coherence length and maximum nonlinear coefficient. While the maximum output energy per pulse reaches 0.84 μJ (the peak power of 168 W) at the output wavelength of 23 μm the output energy per pulse can be larger than 5 nJ (the corresponding peak power of 1 W) for the wavelength range of 19–26 μm .
Hormonal regulation of cell junction permeability: Upregulation by catecholamine and prostaglandin E1

By cellular activation with hormones, we test the proposition (Loewenstein, W.R.,Physiol. Rev. 61:829, 1981) that the permeability of cell junction is upregulated through elevation of the level of cyclic AMP. Cultured rat glioma C-6 cells, with β-adrenergic receptors, and human lung WI-38 cells, with prostaglandin receptors, were exposed to catecholamine (isoproterenol) and prostaglandin E1, respectively, while their junctions were probed with microinjected fluorescent-labelled mono-, di-, and triglutamate. Junctional permeability, as indexed by the proportion of cell interfaces transferring the probes, rose after the hormone treatments. The increase in permeability took several hours to develop and was associated with an increase in the number of gap-junctional membrane particles (freeze-fracture electron microscopy). Such interaction between hormonal and junctional intercellular communication may provide a mechanism for physiological regulation of junctional communication and (perhaps as part of that) for physiological coordination of responses of cells in organs and tissues to hormones.
Metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 signaling enhances TRPM1 calcium channel function and increases melanin content in human melanocytes.

Summary Mutations in TRPM1, a calcium channel expressed in retinal bipolar cells and epidermal melanocytes, cause complete congenital stationary night blindness with no discernible skin phenotype. In the retina, TRPM1 activity is negatively coupled to metabotropic glutamate receptor 6 (mGluR6) signaling through Gαo and TRPM1 mutations result in the loss of responsiveness of TRPM1 to mGluR6 signaling. Here, we show that human melanocytes express mGluR6, and treatment of melanocytes with L-AP4, a type III mGluR-selective agonist, enhances Ca2+ uptake. Knockdown of TRPM1 or mGluR6 by shRNA abolished L-AP4-induced Ca2+ influx and TRPM1 currents, showing that TRPM1 activity in melanocytes is positively coupled to mGluR6 signaling. Gαo protein is absent in melanocytes. However, forced expression of Gαo restored negative coupling of TRPM1 to mGluR6 signaling, but treatment with pertussis toxin, an inhibitor of Gi/Go proteins, did not affect basal or mGluR6-induced Ca2+ uptake. Additionally, chronic stimulation of mGluR6 altered melanocyte morphology and increased melanin content. These data suggest differences in coupling of TRPM1 function to mGluR6 signaling explain different cellular responses to glutamate in the retina and the skin.
A one-fluid mixing rule for hard spheres mixtures

Abstract A one-fluid, density dependent mixing rule for hard spheres which agrees well with current theories and computer experiments is derived. The proposed mixing rule is a simple approximation of the mixture hard sphere diameter, approaching the correct limits for low densities and for spheres of equal diameter. Since the equivalent mixture diameter used here is in a one-fluid form, its application to equations of state and to corresponding states correlations is straightforward.
Studies of Jupiter's lower ionospheric layers

Fluxes of heavy ions necessary to form layers of enhanced ionization observed in the lower ionosphere of Jupiter are theoretically calculated, and possible formation mechanisms of the layers are investigated. Estimates of ion drift velocities and neutral wind speeds are made from the shape of the ionization layers, and are found to range from a few centimeters per second to meters per second. Zonal wind shear ranges from 50 m/s westward to 200 m/s eastward over a 70 km altitude range, while small meridional winds are sufficient to form the layer. Results indicate that if the layers are formed from sodium or sulfur ions from the Galilean satellite which are injected into the Jovian atmosphere, then the Na(+) flux must be 30,000 sq cm/s, and the S(+) flux must be 4000 sq cm/s in order to correlate with Pioneer 10 observations of the L(6) layer. At low altitudes of the L(6) and L(7) layers, the denser atmosphere makes diffusion very slow, and the vertical drift velocity of 1 cm/s requires a zonal wind of only several centimeters per second to drive it.
‘Sy excellente pasture’: Guillaume Briçonnet's mysticism and the Pseudo-Dionysius

In order to understand the theology of reformists like Guillaume Briconnet, bishop of Meaux and central figure in early 16th-century French ecclesiastical circles, one must concentrate on Briconnet's relationship to mysticism. Briconnet's theology comes in the main from his study of Pseudo-Dionysius, and thus concentrates on a mystical understanding of Christianity and the Christian's path toward God. By looking also at Briconnet's interest in the reinvigoration of Scripture and Hebrew mysticism, one can understand Briconnet's theology as both reformist and in keeping with medieval tradition.
Whose Life is it Any Rate? Of virtue, temporality and vocational education

Abstract In the spirit of Lyotard the paper acknowledges the market‐driven functionality at the centre of higher education. Through the understanding offered in Heidegger's phenomenological method it is proposed that education for being‐in‐the‐world is constrained by the social reification of inauthentic natures of temporality as revealed through performativity. It argues that a reconstituted Aristotelian virtue model of self has much to recommend it, offering a more essential mode of revealing ontology. The essence of higher education is not to be found in the ‘present’ expediencies of a succession of fragmented selfs buttressed under the rhetoric of lifetime learning. A fundamental social and moral re‐evaluation of higher‐level provision is urged, which contextualises the problem of an economic model used to drive the purpose of education at higher levels.
Lactation suppression and puerperal fever

Seventy-five puerperal women who did not wish to breast-feed were treated with bromocriptine mesylate (Parlodel) or placebo in a prospective, randomized, double-blind study. Results revealed a puerperal fever incidence of 18.6%, 13.3% of which was due to breast engorgement and 5.3% to an infectious process. Parlodel prevented puerperal fever in 87.9% of patients. If Parlodel was given within 18 hours of delivery, physiologic puerperal fever was prevented in 100% of cases.
Use of multiparametric techniques to quantify the effects of naturally occurring ligands on the kinetics of Fe(II) oxidation.

A multifactorial experimental design was employed to quantify and rank the effects of a series of ligands on the rate of Fe(II) (18 μM) oxidation in a system containing chloride, sulfate, carbonate/bicarbonate, fluoride, and natural organic matter (NOM) at pH 8.34 ± 0.13. Several factors and combinations thereof correlated with the rate of Fe(II) oxidation at the 95% level of confidence. Presented in decreasing order of significance, those factors were carbonate/bicarbonate, NOM, sulfate, chloride, the sulfate/fluoride interaction, and fluoride. The center point of the experimental design was repeated with different organic matters substituted, including Nordic Reservoir NOM, fulvic and humic acids; Suwannee River NOM, fulvic and humic acids; and Pony Lake fulvic acid. Despite the widely differing geographical origins of these organic materials, their overall impact on the oxidation rate of Fe(II) was consistent, with the observed rate varying no more than a factor of 2 as a function of different organic ...
A new tree-ring date for the "floating island" lava flow, Mount St. Helens, Washington

Anomalously narrow and missing rings in trees 12 m from Mount St. Helens' “floating island” lava flow, and synchronous growth increases in trees farther from the flow margin, are evidence that this andesitic flow was extruded between late summer 1799 and spring 1800 a.d., within a few months after the eruption of Mount St. Helens' dacitic layer T tephra. For ease of reference, we assign here an 1800 a.d. date to this flow. The new date shows that the start of Mount St. Helens' Goat Rocks eruptive period (1800–1857 a.d.) resembled the recent (1980–1986) activity in both petrochemical trends and timing. In both cases, an initial explosive eruption of dacite was quickly succeeded by the eruption of more mafic lavas; dacite lavas then reappeared during an extended concluding phase of activity. This behavior is consistent with a recently proposed fluid-dynamic model of magma withdrawal from a compositionally zoned magma chamber.
A Porous Silicon-Based Optical Interferometric Biosensor

A biosensor has been developed based on induced wavelength shifts in the Fabry-Perot fringes in the visible-light reflection spectrum of appropriately derivatized thin films of porous silicon semiconductors. Binding of molecules induced changes in the refractive index of the porous silicon. The validity and sensitivity of the system are demonstrated for small organic molecules (biotin and digoxigenin), 16-nucleotide DNA oligomers, and proteins (streptavidin and antibodies) at pico- and femtomolar analyte concentrations. The sensor is also highly effective for detecting single and multilayered molecular assemblies.
Characterizing the entanglement of symmetric many-particle spin-1/2 systems

Analyzing the properties of entanglement in many-particle spin-1/2 systems is generally difficult because the system's Hilbert space grows exponentially with the number of constituent particles, N. Fortunately, it is still possible to investigate a many-particle entanglement when the state of the system possesses sufficient symmetry. In this paper, we present a practical method for efficiently computing various bipartite entanglement measures for states in the symmetric subspace and perform these calculations for N similar to 10^(3). By considering all possible bipartite splits, we construct a picture of the multiscale entanglement in large symmetric systems. In particular, we characterize dynamically generated spin-squeezed states by comparing them to known reference states (e.g., Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and Dicke states), and families of states with near-maximal bipartite entropy. We quantify the trade-off between the degree of entanglement and its robustness to particle loss, emphasizing that substantial entanglement need not be fragile.
Protein kinase C activation induces conductance changes in Hermissenda photoreceptors like those seen in associative learning.

Protein kinase C activation induces conductance changes in Hermissenda photoreceptors like those seen in associative learning
Hollow Fiber Pharmacodynamic Studies and Mathematical Modeling to Predict the Efficacy of Amoxicillin for Anthrax Postexposure Prophylaxis in Pregnant Women and Children

Amoxicillin is considered an option for postexposure prophylaxis of Bacillus anthracis in pregnant and postpartum women who are breastfeeding and in children because of the potential toxicities of ciprofloxacin and doxycycline to the fetus and child. The amoxicillin regimen that effectively kills B. anthracis and prevents resistance is unknown. Fourteen-day dose range and dose fractionation studies were conducted in in vitro pharmacodynamic models to identify the exposure intensity and pharmacodynamic index of amoxicillin that are linked with optimized killing of B. anthracis and resistance prevention. Studies with dicloxacillin, a drug resistant to B. anthracis beta-lactamase, evaluated the role of beta-lactamase production in the pharmacodynamic indices for B. anthracis killing and resistance prevention. Dose fractionation studies showed that trough/MIC and not time above MIC was the index for amoxicillin that was linked to successful outcome through resistance prevention. Failure of amoxicillin regimens was due to inducible or stable high level expression of beta-lactamases. Studies with dicloxacillin demonstrated that a time above MIC of ≥94% was linked with treatment success when B. anthracis beta-lactamase activity was negated. Recursive partitioning analysis showed that amoxicillin regimens that produced peak concentrations of 1.75 μg/ml provided a 100% success rate. Other amoxicillin peak and trough values produced success rates of 28 to 67%. For postpartum and pregnant women and children, Monte Carlo simulations predicted success rates for amoxicillin at 1 g every 8 h (q8h) of 53, 33, and 44% (30 mg/kg q8h), respectively. We conclude that amoxicillin is suboptimal for postexposure prophylaxis of B. anthracis in pregnant and postpartum women and in children.
Asthma in Seniors: Part 1. Evidence for Underdiagnosis, Undertreatment, and Increasing Morbidity and Mortality

At least 2 million US citizens over 65 years of age have asthma as a chronic disease, a number that will rapidly increase as the population ages. We used computer-assisted searches to identify epidemiologic studies specific for this age group published in the commonly available medical literature in English between 1988 and 2008. The prevalence of current asthma in individuals aged over 65 years is high (5.3%). Affected patients appear to perceive symptoms of asthma differently than younger patients, often have comorbid conditions with similar symptoms, and present for medical care later and with more fixed airways obstruction. Approximately 50% of deaths from asthma occur in the elderly, and mortality is increasing (10.5/100,000). We found only one longitudinal epidemiologic study that addressed the natural history of asthma in patients aged over 65 years, and that study used historical controls. Asthma in the elderly is a poorly studied, growing chronic disease that is underdiagnosed and undertreated. Present paradigms for diagnosis require modification.
The “bent copper tube”: A new inexpensive and convenient reactor for fluorides of metals in suboxidation states

Abstract Bent copper tubes have been successfully used for solid state reactions at high temperature, under nonoxidizing atmosphere. They provide an inexpensive and convenient alternative to gold and platinum for reactions between fluorides, and do not reduce some elements such as tin(II), as nickel does. Solid state NMR studies of fast fluoride ion conductors Pb1−xSnxF2 prepared in copper tubes show that contamination by paramagnetic Cu2+ is minimal. 119Sn Mossbauer spectroscopy is used as a sensitive probe for the formation of SnO2, and indicates that no oxygen leaked in the tubes. Like any reaction carried out in a sealed container, those resulting in a gas being evolved and/or highly exothermic reactions can lead to explosions and thus must be avoided. An attempt to synthesize TiI4 in a sealed copper tube is described, as an example of a dangerous uncontrollable reaction by this method.
Effects of defensiveness and self-actualization on a Herzberg replication

Abstract Two hundred workers were tested for self-actualization, internal vs external locus-of-control, repression vs sensitization, need for approval, and the tendency to attribute job satisfaction and dissatisfaction to motivators and hygienes. Results indicated that self-actualization is related to the attribution of satisfaction to both motivators and hygienes and that external locus of control, sensitization, and low need for approval are related to the attribution of dissatisfaction to both motivators and hygienes. Discussion includes a caution on the design of Herzberg replications and a suggestion that attribution of job feelings may be a function, in part, of personality variables affecting only a good or only a bad feeling.
INHIBITION OF EXPRESSION OF PKC-ALPHA BY ANTISENSE MRNA IS ASSOCIATED WITH DIMINISHED CELL GROWTH AND INHIBITION OF AMYLASE SECRETION BY AR4-2J CELLS

Abstract AR4-2J pancreatoma cells were stably transfected with an expression vector containing the cDNA for PKC-α in the antisense orientation. Transfectants designated antisense-α AA1, AA2, and AA3exhibited marked reductions in PKC-α expression and decrements in cell growth. The magnitude of the decrement in cell growth paralleled the reduction in PKC-α expression, i.e., AA3> AA1> AA2. The ability of dexamethasone to induce cell differentiation as assessed by a rise in cellular amylase levels was not markedly affected by the reduction in PKC-α expression. Unstimulated amylase release was attenuated in AA1cells and almost completely blocked in AA2transfectants. The AA2transfectant cell line failed to elicit a secretory response to caerulein, and the AA1transfectant exhibited a lack of the secondary phase of stimulated amylase secretion. These findings demonstrate that PKC-α is involved in the mechanisms regulating growth and secretion in AR4-2J cells, but is not necessary for the induction of amylase stores following differentiation.
Thresholds of the Pomeron in a dual multiperipheral model

Abstract A dual multiperipheral model for the production of two resonance clusters is considered. Vacuum-state parameters are determined from Reggeon parameters. We then obtain a single effective trajectory with α p ≅0.875+0.35 t for s ⪅50GeV 2 and α p ≅0.98+0.35 t for s⪆50 GeV 2 .
Pooled Estimates of Parent-Child Correlations in Stature from Birth to Maturity.

Correlations between the heights of children throughout their development and their parents9s mature heights differ widely in different growth studies. The range of values, however, is shown to be within the limits of sampling error, making it possible to estimate correlations for each age from birth to maturity. Mother-child correlations are generally higher than father-child correlations, and for both comparisons the correlation increases when the child reaches early adolescence. There is no relation between the heights of the parents and the timing of the child9s growth spurt, but there probably is a relation between the heights of the parents and the amount the child grows during early adolescence.
The kudzu connection: Exploring the link between land use and invasive species

Abstract From kudzu to zebra mussels, invasive species have wreaked environmental and economic havoc by modifying ecosystems, damaging crops, threatening native species, and serving as hosts to pests and viruses. Invasive species are a clearly a problem—but are they a land use problem? This study establishes a potential nexus between land use planning and biological invasions, or bioinvasions. The study also identifies the types of regulatory and non-regulatory tools used by local governments to address invasive species, including bans and ordinances, planning and policies, permit requirements, partnerships and projects, education, and other strategies.
Parties as Political Intermediaries

This paper argues that parties regulate competition among like-minded factions so as to enhance reputation building by, and voter trust in, the politicians standing for a given cause. While intra- and interparty competition contributes to keeping politicians on their toes, unbridled competition may encourage politicians to challenge good platforms and to wage competition along socially suboptimal dimensions (for example, by privileging form over content). The paper builds a simple model of intraparty competition and studies whether various hierarchical or democratic party institutions constitute an efe cient form of party governance. The paper shows that intraparty disagreements, when they occur, hurt the party’s position in the general election, but that their possibility enhances party image; and that parties must be able to avoid behind-the-scene allocations of portfolios and spoils in order to be credible. Last, it analyzes the impact of political polarization and interparty competition on the choice of party governance.
Location of translational initiation factor IF3 on the small ribosomal subunit

The location of translational initiation factor IF3 bound to the 30S subunit of the Thermus thermophilus ribosome has been determined by cryoelectron microscopy. Both the 30S⋅IF3 complex and control 30S subunit structures were determined to 27-A resolution. The difference map calculated from the two reconstructions reveals three prominent lobes of positive density. The previously solved crystal structure of IF3 fits very well into two of these lobes, whereas the third lobe probably arises from conformational changes induced in the 30S subunit as a result of IF3 binding. Our placement of IF3 on the 30S subunit allows an understanding in structural terms of the biochemical functions of this initiation factor, namely its ability to dissociate 70S ribosomes into 30S and 50S subunits and the preferential selection of initiator tRNA by IF3 during initiation.
Perioperative perfusion strategies for optimal fluid management in liver transplant recipients with renal insufficiency

Renal Insufficiency (RI) is a common finding in patients suffering from end-stage liver disease. The causes of RI are reported to be multifactorial and the degree of RI can range from early functional impairment to hepatorenal syndrome (HRS). The process of liver transplantation is highly likely to exacerbate the symptoms and sequelae of renal dysfunction. RI continues to be a cause of morbidity and mortality in the intraoperative and postoperative periods. With careful evaluation and monitoring in addition to appropriate intervention, a uniformly good outcome may be possible even for these most complicated patients. This paper will describe successful perfusion interventions carried out during the three phases of liver transplantation: pre-anhepatic, anhepatic and reperfusion at our institution for a three-year period. Intraoperative plasmapheresis (n5 /3), continuous veno-venous hemofiltration (CVVH) (n 5 /7), intraoperative dialysis (n 5 /8), and intraoperative dialysis with fluid removal (n 5 /3) tech...
Practical experience in top-down structured software production in an academic setting

Much has been said about the importance of teaching top-down program design and structured programming in computer programming courses. However, instruction in these concepts has usually been limited to short homework assignments and at most to term projects. This type of experience is very different from the production programming environment encountered in industry, where the problems tackled are generally more complex and on a larger scale. Also, in many cases industrial programs are produced by a programming team under constraints in both time and resources. For students who aspire to a career in the software area, experience in a realistic production programming environment is desirable. Such experience is not provided in the traditional courses and novel ways have to be devised in order to bring it on campus.At Harvey Mudd College, an academic program, called the Mathematics Clinic, has been institured with the aim of providing this type of realistic experience to the student. The Mathematics Clinic brings problems from industry to be studied and solved by small teams of students under faculty supervision. The problems are selected for their educational value, but attention is paid to the feasibility of producing results that are of value to the sponsoring industrial concern.The general organization of the Clinic program has been described by Spanier (1). In the present paper, a production programming project undertaken by the Mathematics Clinic is described with emphasis placed on the mode of instruction and the experience gained by the students.
Recombinant human erythropoietin for treatment of anemia in persons with AIDS not receiving zidovudine

Abstract Because few data exist on the effect of recombinant human erythropoietin (EPO) for anemia not induced by zidovudine (ZDV) in persons with AIDS, we analyzed a subset of 523 subjects not taking ZDV (‘non-ZDV’) who participated in an open-label EPO treatment program involving 1943 subjects. Non-ZDV subjects had a mean hematocrit of 27.3% on entry and their mean weekly EPO dose was 354–464 U/kg that was given for a mean of 17 weeks. EPO was well tolerated with an adverse event discontinuation rate of 2.3%. The mean hematocrit increased to 30.8% at week 6 and remained between 32 and 34% for the next 18 weeks. Subjects requiring one or more transfusion per 6-week period decreased from 43% before study entry to 14% for weeks 13–18 and 18% for weeks 19–24. These changes were comparable to those observed in the entire group of 1943 patients. We concluded that EPO was safe and as effective for anemia in persons with AIDS not taking ZDV as for those receiving it.
Independent Assessment of alternative launch vehicles for the Augustine Committee

The Aerospace Corporation was asked to perform, for the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight (HSF) Plans Committee, also known as the Augustine Committee, the task of identification and independent evaluation of existing and proposed launch vehicles which alone or in combination could satisfy future NASA mission requirements.{12} There were 14 various launch systems to compare based upon presentations made to the HSF Committee. This paper presents the methodology used in performing this assessment and summarizes the primary findings.
Minimum wage effects by gender

Recent criticisms have led some to dismiss time-series analyses in the debate over the minimum wage. We investigate previous time-series studies showing that raising the minimum wage has a smaller impact on females than males. We reanalyze the data in light of recent developments in time-series methods and find that the minimum wage has a similar significant negative impact on both males and females. We conclude that, following a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, both male and female employment drops from between 2 and 4 percent over a two-year period. This employment decrease slowly erodes as economic growth and inflation cause the minimum wage to fall below the market-clearing wage.
Proof of character-valued index theorems

A character-valued index is a generalization of the ordinary Dirac index to manifolds with nontrivial automorphism groups. A simple proof of the corresponding fixed-point theorem is presented which uses the techniques of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. This theorem relates the character-valued index to a topological integral of curvature forms on the fixed-point space of the automorphism in question.
Mapping dynamic mechanical remodeling in 3D tumor models via particle tracking microrheology

Particle tracking microrheology (PTM) has recently been employed as a non-destructive way to longitudinally track physical changes in 3D pancreatic tumor co-culture models concomitant with tumor growth and invasion into the extracellular matrix (ECM). While the primary goal of PTM is to quantify local viscoelasticity via the Generalized Stokes-Einstein Relation (GSER), a more simplified way of describing local tissue mechanics lies in the tabulation and subsequent visualization of the spread of probe displacements in a given field of view. Proper analysis of this largely untapped byproduct of standard PTM has the potential to yield valuable insight into the structure and integrity of the ECM. Here, we use clustering algorithms in R to analyze the trajectories of probes in 3D pancreatic tumor/fibroblast co-culture models in an attempt to differentiate between probes that are effectively constrained by the ECM and/or contractile traction forces, and those that exhibit uninhibited mobility in local water-filled pores. We also discuss the potential pitfalls of this method. Accurately and reproducibly quantifying the boundary between these two categories of probe behavior could result in an effective method for measuring the average pore size in a given region of ECM. Such a tool could prove useful for studying stromal depletion, physical impedance to drug delivery, and degradation due to cellular invasion.
On the relationship between water-flux and hydraulic gradient for unsaturated and saturated clay

Summary Experimental results indicate that the traditional form of Darcy’s law is not adequate for describing water flow processes in clay media because the observed relationship between water flux and hydraulic gradient can be highly non-linear. To capture this non-Darcian flow behavior, we propose a new relationship between water flux and hydraulic gradient by generalizing the currently existing relationships. The new relationship is shown to be consistent with experimental observations for both saturated and unsaturated conditions. In this paper, we also develop an empirical relationship between permeability and threshold hydraulic gradient, an important measure of non-Darcian behavior. The latter relationship is practically useful because it can reduce the number of parameters whose values need to be determined from experiment data in order to model non-Darcian behavior. How to incorporate the impacts of temperature and electrolyte concentrations into the proposed relationships needs further research.
The in vivo distribution of 51Cr-labeled Trypanosoma cruzi in mice

Abstract The optimal conditions for labeling Trypanosoma cruzi culture forms with 51 CrO 4 2− were determined. Labeled trypanosomes or labeled human red blood cells (RBCs) were injected intravenously into normal C3H(He) female mice and the rate of clearance and organ distribution of the isotope were observed over a 30 h period. It was found that trypanosomes and xenogeneic RBCs were cleared rapidly from the peripheral blood and accumulated primarily in the liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys. A difference was noted in accumulation of trypanosomes and RBCs in these mice.
Leukotrienes increase blood-brain barrier permeability following intraparenchymal injections in rats

To examine whether leukotrienes could increase blood-brain barrier permeability, rats were anesthetized and injected intravenously with Evans blue. Ten microliters of vehicle, of leukotrienes B4, C4, or E4, or of arachidonic acid was injected over 1 hour directly into the brain parenchyma. The percentage of the total surface area of Evans blue extravasation in a coronal section of brain centered on the injection site was then determined as an estimate of blood-brain barrier permeability. Leukotrienes B4, C4, and E4, and arachidonic acid all increased blood-brain barrier permeability, but this effect was lost when the total dose was reduced to 20 ng. Increased blood-brain barrier permeability induced by arachidonic acid could be prevented by pretreatment with the lipoxygenase inhibitor BW755C, but not with indomethacin. Leukotrienes may play a role in the development of increased blood-brain barrier permeability after cerebral injury.
Ab Initio Molecular Orbital Study on the Electronic Structures and Reactivity of Boron-Substituted Carbon

A study using ab initio MO calculations and frontier orbital theory has been performed to investigate the effect of substitutional boron on the electronic structure and reactivity of eight-ring carbon model structures. This theoretical analysis confirmed that boron substitution in the carbon lattice can result in two opposite effects on carbon oxidation: catalysis and inhibition. Boron substitution was found to decrease the global cluster stability and to affect the local reactivity of its edge sites. For a zigzag cluster, the reactivity of carbon active sites may be increased or decreased by boron substitution and the exact effect appears to be dependent on substituent position: in general, the reactivity of unsaturated edge sites decreases, but substitution at certain basal-plane sites may increase the reactivity of some active sites which in turn suggests a catalytic effect. For an armchair cluster, boron substitution increases the reactivity of one or more armchair edge sites. Single atom substituti...
On linear convergence of iterative methods for the variational inequality problem

Abstract We present new linear convergence results for iterative methods for solving the variational inequality problem. The methods include the extragradient method, the proximal point method, a matrix splitting method and a certain feasible descent method. The proofs of the results are based on certain error bounds related to the algorithmic mappings. Moreover, we show that all these error bounds hold if a projection-type error bound holds.
A note on the event horizon for a processor sharing queue

In this note we identify a phenomenon for processor sharing queues that is unique to ones with time-varying rates. This property was discovered while correcting a proof in Hampshire, Harchol-Balter and Massey (Queueing Syst. 53(1---2), 19---30, 2006). If the arrival rate for a processor sharing queue has unbounded growth over time, then it is possible for the number of customers in a processor sharing queue to grow so quickly that a newly entering job never finishes. We define the minimum size for such a job to be the event horizon for a processor sharing queue. We discuss the use of such a concept and develop some of its properties. This short article serves both as errata for Hampshire, Harchol-Balter and Massey (Queueing Syst. 53(1---2), 19---30, 2006) and as documentation of a characteristic feature for some processor sharing queues with time varying rates.
Contextual Career Counseling for Transitioning Military Veterans

Military culture is a unique subset of the United States, complete with its own language, writing style, norms, membership, rank structure, values, and laws (Harmon, 2007). Using contextual theory for career counseling, counselor educators can assist counselors-in-training in understanding the effects of the military environment on clients who are military veterans. This article includes a review of the literature and a call for research.