cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Symmetric pyrrolic squaraines and their application to organic photovoltaics

Abstract We report the material characterization and single crystal Xray analysis of bis(3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrrol-2-yl)-3-oxocyclobut-1-en-1-olate (PSQ) and a derivative of this symmetric squaraine dye with a thiophene substituent (NSP) that has high solubility and high absorptivity (e = 5.2 × 105 M−1 cm−1) in the 500–800 nm region of the solar spectrum, making it a potential candidate for application in organic photovoltaics (OPVs). The squaraine derivatives show markedly broader absorption in the solid state than in solution. Photoluminescent quantum yields for PSQ and NSP are low (ΦPL = 0.014 and 0.047 respectively). OPVs were fabricated using the following architecture: ITO/ MoO3 (120 A)/ Squaraine (80–85 A)/ C60(400 A)/ BCP (100 A)/ Al (1000 A), BCP = bathocuproine. Devices fabricated with thin films of PSQ give higher fill factors (FF), photocurrent and better performance under 1 sun, AM1.5 G simulated illumination: open-circuit voltage Voc = 0.43 V, short-circuit current Jsc = 5.17 mA/cm2, FF = 0.52, and power conversion efficiency η = 1.15%, compared with NSP based OPVs: Voc = 0.56 V, short-circuit current Jsc = 4.34 mA/cm2, FF = 0.42, and power conversion efficiency η = 1.02%.
Coevolution of HIV-1 and broadly neutralizing antibodies.

Purpose of reviewExploring the molecular details of the coevolution of HIV-1 Envelope with broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) in infected individuals over time provides insights for vaccine design. Since mid-2017, the number of individuals described in such publications has nearly tripled. New
Sustainable Discovery and Development of Antibiotics - Is a Nonprofit Approach the Future?

Sustainable Discovery and Development of Antibiotics Shifting to a nonprofit-driven model for development of antibiotics could encourage discovery and development of truly needed drugs that improve...
Effect of Drawing on the Electrical, Thermoelectrical, and Mechanical Properties of Wet-Spun PEDOT:PSS Fibers

New electrically conducting and mechanically robust fibers and yarns are needed as building blocks for emerging textile devices. In this work, we describe a continuous wet-spinning process for the ...
What Drives University Technological Innovation Outcomes? A Re-Vitalised Investigation

Universities are a source of technological innovation, which in turn facilitates economic growth. The Bayh–Dole Act of 1980 was enacted to support university research efforts. However, since its en...
Effects of Gut Microbiome on Carcinogenic DNA Damage.

The human intestine is host to a vast microbial community: the gut microbiome (GM). The GM has been considered as a key modulator of human health in the past decade. In particular, several studies have supported that altered GM is associated with cancer, such as colorectal cancer, adenocarcinoma, and pancreatic cancer. The formation of a DNA adduct is one of the key events in carcinogenesis, and whether GM can influence DNA adducts has yet to be examined. This study analyzed 10 DNA adducts (N2-Me-dG, N6-Me-dA, N2-Et-dG, OH-Me-dG, OH-Me-dA, N2-EtD-dG, O6-Me-dG, 1,N2-e-dG, 8-oxo-dG, and 5-Cl-dC), attributed to various endogenous processes and physiological stressors, using highly sensitive LC-MS/MS in germ-free (GF) and conventionally raised (CONV-R) mice. Our results showed that significant differences in specific DNA adducts appeared in liver, colon, and small intestine samples between GF and CONV-R mice. The differences in adduct levels may indicate that GM can locally or systemically regulate endogenous processes including neutrophil bactericidal activity (represented by 5-Cl-dC), lipid peroxidation (1,N2-e-dG), oxidative stress generation (8-oxo-dG), and endogenous aldehyde metabolism (OH-Me-dA). Further studies are warranted to elucidate how the GM influences endogenous process, DNA damage, and the risks of developing cancer.
Lung Transplantation After Ex Vivo Lung Perfusion: Early Outcomes From a US National Registry.

Objective The objective of this study was to examine early lung transplant outcomes following EVLP using a large national transplant registry. Summary of background data Lung transplantation in the United States continues to be constrained by a limited supply of donor organs. EVLP has the potential to significantly increase the available pool of donor lung allografts through the reconditioning of "marginal" organs. Methods The united network for organ sharing registry was queried for all adults (age ≥18) who underwent first-time lung transplantation between March 2018 (when united network for organ sharing began collecting confirmed donor EVLP status) and June 2019. Transplants were stratified by EVLP use. The primary outcome was short-term survival and secondary outcomes included acute rejection before discharge and need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support post-transplant. Results A total of 3334 recipients met inclusion criteria including 155 (5%) and 3179 (95%) who did and did not receive allografts that had undergone EVLP, respectively. On unadjusted descriptive analysis, EVLP and non-EVLP cohorts had similar 180-day survival (92% vs 92%, P = 0.9). EVLP use was associated with a similar rate of acute rejection (13% vs 9%, P = 0.08) but increased rate of early extracorporeal membrane oxygenation use (12% vs 7%, P = 0.04). After adjustment, EVLP use was not associated with significantly increased mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 0.99, 95% confidence interval 0.62-1.58) or acute rejection (adjusted odds ratio 0.89, 95% confidence interval 0.40-1.97) compared to non-EVLP use. Conclusions In the largest national series of EVLP lung transplant recipients, EVLP is associated with early recipient outcomes comparable to that of non-EVLP recipients with similar baseline characteristics. Longer term follow-up data is needed to further assess the impact of EVLP on post-lung transplant outcomes.
Outdoor Falls Prevention Strategy Use and Neighborhood Walkability Among Naturally Occurring Retirement Community Residents

BackgroundOutdoor falls present a significant challenge to the health and well-being of older adults. Safe strategy use is an important component of falls prevention, yet little is known regarding ...
Public Broadcasting Is Not Much Different: Public and Commercial Broadcasters’ Coverage of Minimum Wage in South Korea

This article provides a framing analysis of media coverage of minimum wage between public and commercial broadcasters in South Korea. To do this, the current study content analyzed 1505 news report...
Working Set Analytics

The working set model for program behavior was invented in 1965. It has stood the test of time in virtual memory management for over 50 years. It is considered the ideal for managing memory in operating systems and caches. Its superior performance was based on the principle of locality, which was discovered at the same time; locality is the observed tendency of programs to use distinct subsets of their pages over extended periods of time. This tutorial traces the development of working set theory from its origins to the present day. We will discuss the principle of locality and its experimental verification. We will show why working set memory management resists thrashing and generates near-optimal system throughput. We will present the powerful, linear-time algorithms for computing working set statistics and applying them to the design of memory systems. We will debunk several myths about locality and the performance of memory systems. We will conclude with a discussion of the application of the working set model in parallel systems, modern shared CPU caches, network edge caches, and inventory and logistics management.
Private Equity and Financial Stability: Evidence from Failed Bank Resolution in the Crisis

We investigate the role of private equity (PE) in the resolution of failed banks after the 2008 financial crisis. Using proprietary failed bank acquisition data from the FDIC combined with data on PE investors, we find that PE investors made substantial investments in underperforming and riskier failed banks. Further, these acquisitions tended to be in geographies where the other local banks were also distressed. Our results suggest that PE investors helped channel capital to underperforming failed banks when the “natural” potential bank acquirers were themselves constrained, filling the gap created by a weak, undercapitalized banking sector. Next, we use a quasi-random empirical design based on proprietary bidding data to examine ex post performance and real effects. We find that PE-acquired banks performed better ex post, with positive real effects for the local economy. Our results suggest that private equity investors had a positive role in stabilizing the financial system in the crisis through their involvement in failed bank resolution.
Prune Once for All: Sparse Pre-Trained Language Models

Transformer-based language models are applied to a wide range of applications in natural language processing. However, they are inefficient and difficult to deploy. In recent years, many compression algorithms have been proposed to increase the implementation efficiency of large Transformer-based models on target hardware. In this work we present a new method for training sparse pre-trained Transformer language models by integrating weight pruning and model distillation. These sparse pre-trained models can be used to transfer learning for a wide range of tasks while maintaining their sparsity pattern. We demonstrate our method with three known architectures to create sparse pre-trained BERT-Base, BERT-Large and DistilBERT. We show how the compressed sparse pre-trained models we trained transfer their knowledge to five different downstream natural language tasks with minimal accuracy loss. Moreover, we show how to further compress the sparse models' weights to 8bit precision using quantization-aware training. For example, with our sparse pre-trained BERT-Large fine-tuned on SQuADv1.1 and quantized to 8bit we achieve a compression ratio of $40$X for the encoder with less than $1\%$ accuracy loss. To the best of our knowledge, our results show the best compression-to-accuracy ratio for BERT-Base, BERT-Large, and DistilBERT.
Microstructure and Thermal Properties of 2 Directional and 3 Directional C/C Composites

The friction between disk brakes causes significant surface heating and the ability to control the heat dissipation from the friction surface considerably contributes to improved frictional performance. The thermal properties and the microstructure of the 2D randomly chopped pitch fiber and the charred resin matrix with a smooth laminar CVI, and the 3D non-woven ex-PAN fiber reinforced composites with rough laminar CVI matrix have been studied. The microstructure of the investigated composites was characterized using polarized light microscopy (PLM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Both of the composites exhibited anisotropv in the thermal conductivity measured in temperature interval ranging from 100°C to 1300°C. The 2D-C/Cs exhibited seven times higher thermal conductivity in the "x-y" plane, where fibers are preferentially oriented, when compared to thermal conductivity in the "z" direction perpendicular to the friction surface. The carbon fibers generate a direct thermal pathway and then also provide a pattern for the directional deposition of the CVI carbon. Specific heat capacity of the 3D-C/C increased as a monotonic function of temperature with an endothermal trend. In contrast to 3D-C/Cs. a weak exothermic effect was measured above 800°C for the 2D-C/Cs. The reason for this instability is not exactly known, but it was speculated that it is related to the stability of the charred resin matrix of the 2D composite. It is obvious that the exothermal behavior observed in 2D-C/Cs also contributes to a decrease on thermal conductivity at temperatures higher than 800°C. Contrary to the 2D-C/Cs, 3D-C/Cs exhibited higher thermal conductivity in z-direction, despite the turbostratic structure of the ex-PAN fibers. This behavior is attributed to their highly crystalline rough laminar structure of CVI matrix and the continuous fiber/matrix interface which creates a non-disturbed thermal pathway. The crucial issues that determine thermal properties of the C/C composites are the crystallite size and the orientation of the 002 basal planes with respect to reinforcing fiber, a good interfacial contact between fiber and matrix, and the fiber architecture.
Thermodynamics and molecular freedom of dimers on plane honeycomb and Kagomé lattices

In earlier studies we investigated the problem of nonoverlapping dimers covering square and triangular lattices. We were able to show that the solution of dimers distributed on a one-dimensional lattice, and the solution of dimers closely packed on the two-dimensional square and triangular lattices of infinite extent in one direction and finite width, can be combined to give approximate analytic solutions for the problem of dimers loosely packed on the two-dimensional lattices considered. In this paper, we extend our study to two other kinds of two-dimensional lattices: hexagonal and Kagome. A crucial step in our investigation is the technique of generating hexagonal and Kagome lattices of infinite extent in one direction and finite width. We start with a triangular lattice obtained from a square lattice bent by 30°. By appropriately removing certain lattice sites, one is able to generate hexagonal or Kagome lattices. The boundaries of the hexagonal and Kagome lattices generated in this manner produce a noticeable effect on the solution of the problem. Naturally, this edge effect is expected to become smaller as the widthM of the lattice increases. 1) We calculate exactly the entropy, isothermal compressibility, and constant-pressure heat capacity as a function of the absolute activity,x, of dimers, for hexagonal and Kagome lattices withM<7. 2) ForM<7, we calculate exactly the molecular freedom per dimer at close packing, φ(M). 3) We obtain approximate analytic expressions of the thermodynamic functions similar to the ones obtained for square and triangular lattices. 4) Comparison is made between the exact and approximate results: the approximation is good even for small values ofM; oscillations about the exact results are observed to decrease with increasing values ofM.
CONGENITAL HEMOLYTIC ICTERUS IN A NEGRO FAMILY

1. A Negro family is reported in which 3 sisters were found to have congenital hemolytic icterus. 2. All members of the family observed showed strong Negroid characteristics. There was nothing to suggest an admixture of white blood. 3. The literature was reviewed. Including the 3 reported in this paper, 8 cases have been reported. The disease may be more common in the female as the reported cases show 7 females to 1 male. 4. Congenital hemolytic icterus, on rare occasions, occurs in the Negro race and recognizing it as such is helpful since splenectomy is of distinct value.
Averaged Description of Flow (Steady and Transient) and Nonreactive Solute Transport in Random Porous Media

In previous papers (Shvidler and Karasaki, 1999, 2001, 2005, and 2008) we presented and analyzed an approach for finding the general forms of exactly averaged equations of flow and transport in porous media. We studied systems of basic equations for steady flow with sources in unbounded domains with stochastically homogeneous conductivity fields. A brief analysis of exactly averaged equations of nonsteady flow and nonreactive solute transport was also presented. At the core of this approach is the existence of appropriate random Green's functions. For example, we showed that in the case of a 3-dimensional unbounded domain the existence of appropriate random Green's functions is sufficient for finding the exact nonlocal averaged equations for flow velocity using the operator with a unique kernel-vector. Examination of random fields with global symmetry (isotropy, transversal isotropy and orthotropy) makes it possible to describe significantly different types of averaged equations with nonlocal unique operators. It is evident that the existence of random Green's functions for physical linear processes is equivalent to assuming the existence of some linear random operators for appropriate stochastic equations. If we restricted ourselves to this assumption only, as we have done in this paper, we can study the processes in anymore » dimensional bounded or unbounded fields and in addition, cases in which the random fields of conductivity and porosity are stochastically nonhomogeneous, nonglobally symmetrical, etc.. It is clear that examining more general cases involves significant difficulty and constricts the analysis of structural types for the processes being studied. Nevertheless, we show that we obtain the essential information regarding averaged equations for steady and transient flow, as well as for solute transport.« less
Velocity Distribution of Laser Photoionized Neutrals Ejected from Methanol-Dosed Aluminum(111) by Electron-Stimulated Desorption

Nonresonant multiphoton ionization at 193 nm wavelength was employed for efficient detection of electron-stimulated neutral desorption from A1(111) dosed with methanol to produce monolayer methoxide coverage. VeloCity spectra were measured by the flight time from the crystal surface to the focal region of the laser beam with a pulsed primary electron beam of 3 keV and the sample at 300 K. Either the C+ or HCO+ photofragment indicated the same non-Boltzmann veloCity spectrum for the neutral parent precursor with a peak kinetic energy of ~0.1 eV. Identical distributions were obtained when the cleaned crystal was pre-oxidized with O2 prior to methanol dosing. As the crystal temperature was raised, HCO+ photoion signal declined steadily, while C+ increased until ~550 K. The total cross section for loss of parent signal with dose of 3 keV electrons was measured to be (2±l)×l0-17 cm2.
γ-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) Receptors

γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the most widely distributed inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system of adult vertebrates. Virtually all neurons are sensitive to GABA through its actions on either the diverse set of ionotropic type A receptors (GABAARs), the putative heterodimeric metabotropic type B receptors (GABABRs) or the ionotropic retina-enriched type C receptors (GABACRs). Keywords: neurotransmitter receptor; ancestral gene clusters; anxiety; epilepsy; neurotransmission
Charity Begins at Home? An Exploration of the Systemic Distortions Resulting from Post-Disaster Giving Incentives

Looking back to the turn of the twenty-first century, there have been many major disasters, both here and abroad. These disasters all require significant private charitable assistance to provide for victims immediate needs and also see the area through cleanup and recovery. This article reviews a number of past efforts to encourage charitable giving through temporary tax provisions. While these are well-meaning efforts on Congress’ part, temporary provisions have some significant disadvantages. First, they treat different victims with similar harm differently. Second, they are not enacted following each major disaster. Third, both equity and efficiency would be improved if disaster relief contributions were addressed in a single permanent provision with fixed triggers and established thresholds for incentivizing charitable giving for disaster relief. This article concludes that a permanent approach should be adopted to improve the aid available to disaster victims. This would also reduce political infighting at the time a disaster has occurred. Ex ante any Congressional district could be hit by a major disaster, everyone should support a permanent solution.
The HEAO-3 High Resolution Gamma-Ray Spectrometer

The gamma ray astronomy experiment launched aboard HEAO 3 performed an all-sky exploratory survey for sources of gamma-ray line emission in the energy range of.05 to 10 MeV. The detectors were four high purity germanium crystals, each of about 100 cm active volume and energy resolution line width of about 3 keV FWHM at 1.33 MeV. Observations are reported on 22 solar flares, one of which emitted a narrow deuterium formation line at 2.225 ±.002 keV; galactic plane line upper limits; a variable source of.511 MeV radiation in the vicinity of the galactic center and long term variations in the source Cygnus X-1. The experiment performed successfully and when analysis of the entire data set is completed, the experiment will achieve the narrow line sensitivity of 10−4 photons/cm2-sec over most of the sky.
The “Difficult Game” of Selling Brazilian Ethanol: Untangling Science–Business Relationships in the Global Biofuel Policy Nexus

Resumen O etanol brasileiro tem sido criticado por seus potenciais contribuicoes a mudanca climatica, criando uma controversia cientifica com grandes implicacoes economicas, sendo que o resultado vai afeitar politicas globais que regulam exportacoes dessa energia. Os cientistas brasileiros envolvidos neste conflito politico sao vistos como motivados por interesses economicos e nacionais, devido a sua colaboracao com representantes da industria de cana de acucar em influenciar a politica internacional de biocombustiveis. Proponho que esse alinhamento e um fenomeno emergente que e formado pelo envolvimento desses cientistas num processo politico que e percebido como dominado pelas preocupacoes e normas dos participantes americanos e europeios. Definindo redes de politicas internacionais assim, como ambientes institucionais que influenciam e restringem ativamente os interesses dos atores envolvidos, teremos uma analise mais util de como "interesses brasileiros" em relacao a questoes como a producao de energia e mudanca climatica sao formados e traduzidos em politicas publicas.
Functional interactions in smooth muscle: kinetic characterization of the relaxation and desensitization responses to a beta adrenergic agonist in the rabbit aorta.

Vascular smooth muscle tone is continuously modulated in vivo by the functional interaction of a variety of vasoconstrictor and vasodilator stimuli. Endogenous substances such as epinephrine simultaneously activate alpha adrenergic receptors that elicit muscle contraction and beta adrenergic receptors that relax the muscle. This study characterizes the beta adrenergic response in the isolated rabbit aorta precontracted with 1 microM phenylephrine. The beta adrenergic agonist isoproterenol (0.03-10 microM) produces a biphasic response that is composed of a rapid relaxation followed by a slower regaining of tension, which is identified as desensitization. An exploratory kinetic model that describes both the relaxation and the desensitization as first-order processes provides a good fit to the experimental data. The parameters used to describe the isoproterenol response are: 1) the observed rate constant for relaxation and its magnitude (krel and R, respectively), 2) the observed rate constant for desensitization and its magnitude (kdes and D, respectively) and 3) the observed delay in the onset of the desensitization response (td). Both the krel and the fractional relaxation were dependent on concentration of isoproterenol in a saturable manner (EC50 = 0.017 and 0.067 microM, respectively). No concentration dependence was observed for kdes, fractional desensitization and td (the average values +/- S.E.M. of these parameters are (4.7 +/- 0.2). 10(-3) sec-1, 0.83 +/- 0.02 and 191 +/- 6 sec, respectively). This work demonstrates that a kinetic approach is necessary to characterize the desensitization response and is also very useful in characterizing the kinetic and steady-state parameters of the relaxation response.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Analysis of sulfuric acid aerosol by negative ion chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Positive and negative chemical ionization mass spectra have been obtained for sulfuric acid using methane as either the reactant gas or as the moderating gas. The only positive ions which could be attributed to sulfuric acid were due to the protonated molecular ions and these ions had very low intensities. In contrast there were many ions which could be attributed to sulfuric acid and its fragments and some of these ions were intense. A preliminary investigation is reported on the use of negative ion chemical ionization mass spectrometry for quantitative analysis. Various methods of sample introduction and source temperatures were investigated and the optimum conditions provided a limit of detection of 100 ng of sulfuric acid.
AraC protein: a love-hate relationship.

In the bacterium Escherichia coli, the AraC protein positively and negatively regulates expression of the proteins required for the uptake and catabolism of the sugar L-arabinose. This essay describes how work from my laboratory on this system spanning more than thirty years has aided our understanding of positive regulation, revealed DNA looping (a mechanism that explains many action-at-a-distance phenomena) and, more recently, has uncovered the mechanism by which arabinose shifts AraC from a state where it prefers to bind to two well-separated DNA half-sites and form a DNA loop to a state where it binds to two adjacent half-sites and activates transcription. This work required learning how to assay, purify, and work with a protein possessing highly uncooperative biochemical properties. Present work is focussed on understanding arabinose-responsive mechanism in atomic detail and is also directed towards understanding protein structure and function well enough to be able to engineer the allosteric mechanism seen in AraC onto other proteins.
The Magnetized Dusty Plasma Experiment (MDPX) device: First observations

A dusty (or complex) plasma is a four-component plasma system consisting of electrons, ions, neutral atoms, and charged, nanometer to micrometer-sized particles (i.e., the “dust”). Because these dust grains are charged, they fully participate in the plasma dynamics and can be used to reveal details about transport, instabilities, and charging properties of plasmas. However, one important area that has not been studied extensively is the area of magnetized dusty plasmas. Even though the charged dust grains in a typical laboratory experiment can acquire several thousand elementary charges, the large mass of the grains ensures that the charge-to-mass ratio is quite low. As a result, it is technically challenging to design an experiment that can achieve full magnetization of ions, electrons, and the charged dust grains.
An Operating Three Axis Laser Gyro Triad

The laser gyro represents a new generation of attitude sensors with high resolution digital output. Three orthogonally-mounted laser gyros and a direction cosine computer provide a full freedom, high rate strapdown attitude reference system. A dither system is used to compensate for the natural lock-in of the ring laser, and solid quartz construction provides stability and ease of alignment. The unique characteristics of the laser gyro require test equipment and procedures which are different, though simpler, than those for conventional gyros.© (1967) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Alleviation of Thermal Stresses in Bi‐metallic Spar Webs

Results of an Investigation to Determine the Effectiveness of a Bi‐metallic Construction on Four Three‐spar Box Specimens Subjected to Simulated Aerodynamic Heating. The maximum thermal stresses in a stainless steel skin‐web combination subjected to aerodynamic heating may be greatly reduced by the addition of a thin layer of aluminium or copper to the stainless steel web. Such bi‐metallic construction increases the rate of conduction of heat from the structural parts (skins) exposed to the aerodynamic heating to the non‐exposed parts (webs) and consequently this produces a reduction in temperature gradients and thermal stresses. This paper presents the results of an investigation to determine the effectiveness of a bi‐metallic construction on a three‐spar box specimen subjected to simulated aerodynamic heating. The tests confirmed the feasibility of the method and indicated that the theoretical calculations give sufficient accuracy for design studies, provided an estimate of the joint conductance can be ...
One of Two NTP Binding Sites in Poliovirus RNA Polymerase Required for RNA Replication

The poliovirus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (3Dpol) has been shown to contain two NTP binding sites by chemical cross-linking of oxidized nucleotide to the intact protein. Only one site (Lys-61) was shown to be essential for RNA chain elongation activity by purified enzyme; however, a full-length viral RNA, coding for an altered lysine residue (K276L) in the second site, generated virus with a minute plaque phenotype that rapidly reverted to a wild-type phenotype with Arg-276 replacing Leu-276 in 3D. Viruses with lysine to leucine substitutions in other positions of the second binding site of their polymerase proteins grew with wild-type phenotype. To test the significance of the second binding site, poliovirus 3Dpol was generated with lysine (wild-type), leucine, or arginine at residue 276 and tested for NTP cross-linking using 32P-oxidized GTP. Analysis of cyanogen bromide peptides of each 3D preparation showed that the second NTP binding site had severely reduced NTP binding in mu276(Leu) but not in the revertant mu276(Arg), despite the reported requirement for lysine in the cross-linking reaction. To eliminate the possibility that 32P-oxidized GTP cross-linked to Arg at residue 276, a model system was designed with unmodified amino acid or acetylated (alpha-amino) amino acid and 32P-oxidized GTP. Cross-linking to lysine, but not leucine or arginine, was observed thus eliminating the possibility that NTP could be cross-linked to residue 276 in 3D. We conclude that NTP binding at the second site in poliovirus 3D is at lysine residues at positions other than 276 (278 or 283), and nucleotide binding at these sites has no bearing on elongation activity or replication of the virus. Nucleotide binding only at the site including Lys-61 is essential for RNA replication.
Bootstrapping Text-to-Speech for speech processing in languages without an orthography

Speech synthesis technology has reached the stage where given a well-designed corpus of audio and accurate transcription an at least understandable synthesizer can be built without necessarily resorting to new innovations. However many languages do not have a well-defined writing system but such languages could still greatly benefit from speech systems. In this paper we consider the case where we have a (potentially large) single speaker database but have no transcriptions and no standardized way to write transcriptions. To address this scenario we propose a method that allows us to bootstrap synthetic voices purely from speech data. We use a novel combination of automatic speech recognition and automatic word segmentation for the bootstrapping. Our experimental results on speech corpora in two languages, English and German, show that synthetic voices that are built using this method are close to understandable. Our method is language-independent and can thus be used to build synthetic voices from a speech corpus in any new language.
The Importance of Effective Predevelopment Plate Washing Techniques in Thin-Layer Chromatography

Abstract Comparative studies were made of the two methods commonly used for predevelopment TLC plate cleaning. In separate studies TLC plates were washed by the two methods: ascending development and dip washing using several solvent and solvent combinations. Residues remaining on the surface of plates after washing were visualized by fluorescence techniques and scanned by densitometry. Evaluation of the two washing methods showed that plate dipping gave superior results in every case over ascending development. The most effective solvent for predevelopment TLC plate washing was found to be methanol.
Animal models of stroke.

Stroke is a clinically defined neurological syn-drome characterized by rapidly progressing symp-toms and signs of focal loss of cerebral function.Cerebral ischemia invariably underlies the event,and can result in a wide range of outcomes – fromcomplete recovery/resolution to severe neurolog-ical deficits and death. Ischemic stroke is a majordisease of enormous economic burden in all de-veloped countries. Although stroke mortality hasdeclined in most developed countries over thepast 50 years (primarily as a result of better con-trol of primary risk factors, for instance hyperten-sion, diabetes, smoking and life-style changes), its prevalence and incidence in the elderly popu-lation has increased steadily. In the USA, stroke is the third leading cause of death and the num-ber one health cost burden (considering loss of professional opportunities and rehabilitation).Overall, about 20% of patients having their firststroke die within a month and, of those alive at sixmonths, about a third are dependent on others.Despite its clinical importance, virtually no specificmedical therapy has been introduced for this dis-ease except for thrombolytics (tissue plasminogenactivator, tPA) to dissolve blood clots within 3 h ofstroke onset (a limitation that leaves .95% of thepatients ineligible for treatment). It is therefore im-portant to consider why there has been a failureto discover and develop effective therapies forstroke, despite substantial academic and indus-trial research efforts. Several plausible reasonscome to mind, including: (1) the mechanisms of ischemic neuronal death in humans might differsubstantially from those studied in experimentalsystems (in vitroand in vivo); (2) heterogeneousprocesses might lead to stroke in the human popu-lation; and (3) a limited ‘therapeutic window’in hu-mans might preclude effective therapeutic oppor-tunities at the time patients become available fortreatment
Sex differences in the effects of frustration and attack on emotion and vascular processes.

Summary.-The effects of frustration ( test-failure) and attack (insult) on mood, aggression, and vascular arousal were explored in 30 male and female Ss. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure were recorded prior to and immediately following provocation and Ss were asked to rate their feelings on a post-experimental mood questionnaire. The results indicated that both rypes of provocauon led to increased vascular activity. Males evidenced a greater rise in systolic pressure than did females; whereas, no sex differences were noted for diastolic changes. No differences were found between frustration and attack regarding their effect on vascular arousal. On the mood ratings, female Ss tended to rate themselves as being weaker than males regardless of the treaunenr. Felnales also reported more felt depression after being frustrated or attacked than did control females, a pattern of emotional response not shown by male Ss. No differential effects were observed for aggression. Buss (1961), a leading challenger of the frustration-aggression hypothesis, has distinguished between two major classes of antecedents to aggression, frustration and attack. Fmstratiogz, according to Buss, refers to the blocking of learned instrumental or consummatory behavior, whereas attack involves the delivery of noxious stimuli (e.g., electric shock or insult). As such, these two types of ante. cedents appear to have differential capacities for eliciting aggressive behavior in humans. Gillespie (1961) was first to compare the effects of frustration and attack on aggression within the same study, using experimenter insult and testfailure as the attack and frustration manipulations. He noted that while, in general, attack led to a greater increase in aggression than did frustration, there were notable differences bemeen sexes, i.e., female Ss responded more aggressively following attack than following frustration, while male Ss exhibited comparable amounts of aggression after both types of provocation. Geen (1968), using only male Ss, also found attack to be a more potent instigator of aggression than frustration, even when Ss were previously trained in aggressiveness. In addition, Geen noted that attacked Ss reported significantly more anger than did frustrated Ss, who in turn were no more angry than control Ss. This latter finding is important since anger is viewed as one of the primary drives which provides the instigation to aggression (Berkowitz, 1962; Buss, 1961). Finally, Gentry (1970) observed that verbal attack produced both an increase in the amount of overt aggression manifested by male Ss and an elevation in diastolic blood pressure, a physiological response associated with the emotion of anger (Ax,
The effects of hypoxia on catecholamine dynamics in the rat carotid body

The catecholamine content of the rat carotid body was assayed using high performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection. The concentration of dopamine (DA) was found to predominate over that of norepinephrine (NE) by a small margin (31 pmol/carotid body pair DA; 23 pmol/carotid body pair NE). The turnover rates of carotid body DA and NE were determined from the time-dependent decline in their concentrations following the blockade of synthesis with alpha-methyl-p-tyrosine. Values were obtained (DA t 1/2 = 1.9 h; NE t 1/2 = 2.3 h) which suggested a rapid turnover of carotid body catecholamines. Exposure of rats to conditions of severe hypoxia (5% O2-95% N2) failed to significantly alter either the content or turnover of carotid body catecholamines. By contrast, the concentration of carotid body DOPAC, a reflection of DA utilization, was significantly elevated following hypoxic conditions. Further, in vivo tyrosine hydroxylase activity was assessed by measuring the accumulation of carotid body DOPA after inhibiting L-aromatic amino acid decarboxylase with NSD-1015. Basal tyrosine hydroxylase activity (approximately 14-16 pmol/carotid body pair/h) also was significantly increased by acute hypoxic exposure. These results, in part, suggest that rat carotid body DA may act as a neurotransmitter whose synthesis and release are coupled to stimulus demand.
Estimated Cancer Risk Associated with Occupational Asbestos Exposure

This paper estimates the number of workers in the United States who were occupationally exposed to asbestos during and after World War II and assesses the impact of this exposure on overall cancer mortality. The results suggest that over half of the estimated 7–8 million potentially exposed workers employed between 1940 and 1970 may still be alive and at risk of dying from some form of asbestos-related cancer. While the maximum number of excess cancer deaths associated with this occupational exposure is likely to occur sometime in this decade, such deaths will continue to be seen for many years thereafter. At their peak, these deaths may account for an estimated 3% of the annual cancer death toll, with an associated range of 1.4–4.4%.
Compact interferometer for micro-optic performance and shape characterization

We have focused on measurement needs for micro-refractive lenses and have developed a flexible and compact micro-interferometer that can be used to measure lens radius of curvature and form errors. Transmitted wavefront and back focal length measurements can be easily added to the instrument. This instrument addresses measurement needs for micro refractive lenses. The interferometer is based on a Mitutoyo metallurgical microscope and operates with a 633 nm helium neon source. The radius of curvature measurement is directly traceable, meaning an external artifact is not required for calibration. This requires a careful mechanical design, a detailed alignment procedure with estimates of alignment uncertainties, and stage error motion characterization with estimates of uncertainties. The instrument can also be used to measure some diffractive components and mold form errors. We describe the instrument in this paper and discuss design goals and measurement specifications.
The Effect of Lecture and a Standardized Patient Encounter on Medical Student Rape Myth Acceptance and Attitudes Toward Screening Patients for a History of Sexual Assault

Background: Most physicians fail to routinely screen patients for a history of sexual assault. Purposes: This study aimed to gauge medical student support for routinely screening patients for a history of sexual assault, examine potential barriers to screening, and determine if attitudes can be changed through educational interventions. Methods: One hundred three 2nd-year medical students completed a survey before and after a lecture on sexual assault (response rate = 94/103 and 90/103, respectively). The questionnaire was administered a third time following a standardized patient encounter with a female rape victim (response rate = 102/103). Results: Most medical students agreed that patients should be screened for sexual victimization. Students showed low levels of rape myth acceptance. Agreement with rape myths correlated with increased screening hesitancy. Statistically significant gender differences were observed. Following educational sessions, students expressed less rape myth acceptance and more c...
A hyaline layer protein that becomes localized to the oral ectoderm and foregut of sea urchin embryos

Abstract An antigen is described which is a marker for the oral ectoderm and foregut of the sea urchin embryo. In Lytechinus variegatus, the antigen is first detectable by immunofluorescence on the surface of fertilized eggs, and remains globally distributed through the early stages of gastrulation. Thereafter the antigen is localized to the oral ectoderm and foregut, coincident with the morphogenesis of these regions. The antigen is a large, detergent-insoluble, filamentous glycoprotein associated with the tips of the microvilli in the hyaline layer. This glycoprotein is present in two forms, a ∼350-kDa form that is maternally synthesized and a much larger form which is synthesized at late gastrula stage as a 350-kDa precursor before becoming modified and assembled into the hyaline layer. The timing of synthesis of the zygotic form of the molecule correlates precisely with the localized expression of the antigen. The antigen copurifies with intact hyaline layers and cosediments with hyalin in the presence of calcium, suggesting that it is a structural component of the hyaline layer.
Identification of interstellar methanol lines

The extended internal axis method Hamiltonian of Herbst et al. (1984) was used to study the rotational spectrum of methanol out to high values of the rotational quantum number J. Laboratory data for 783 lines of (C-12)H3OH from the lowest three torsional levels out to a rotational quantum number of J = 22 were fitted to an rms deviation of 4.40 MHz. For (C-13)H3OH, 455 lines out to J = 22 were fitted to an rms of 2.28 MHz.
Rhinitis, sinusitis and their relationships to allergies

To investigate the relationship between allergic rhinitis and sinusitis, a review of all patients seen at an outpatient suburban otolaryngology clinic was performed. Three hundred ninety-three of t...
Response of the high temperature superconductors to weak AC magnetic field

Abstract A variation of a magnetic modulated electric resistence technique for the characterization of high- T c granular superconductors is described here. This technique uses a weak AC magnetic field to probe the superconducting sample under a constant DC current bias near the transition temperature. Different high temperature superconducting samples including bulk YBa 2 Cu 3 O (YBCO), single crystal YBCO, Bi 2 Sr 2 Ca 1 Cu 2 O (BSCCO) and Bi 1.8 Pb 0.2 Sr 2 Ca 1 Cu 2 O (BPSCCO) thin films have been characterized with this method. This method not only provides information on the superconducting transition of the sample, it can also be used to distinguish different mechanisms of the temperature superconductors.
Multilook RELAX parametric superresolution and complex HRRR nearest-neighbor target classification

Target classification using an adjusted relative phase MSE nearest neighbor classifier and multi-look RELAX measures will be studied. This approach is a significant modification to the standard MSE nearest neighbor classifiers that are currently being used. Complex train and test signature similarities are amplified via a multi-look RELAX algorithm to obtain features consistent with point scatterer parametric models. The parameters are then used to simulate phase histories to various lengths. Transformation to the range domain at original and improved resolutions and adjustment of relative phase to a minimum completes the final data preparation to input into a nearest neighbor MSE classifier. Significant classification performance gains over the baseline MSE classifier is observed and graphically illustrated.
Neutronics and radiation field studies for the RIA fragmentation target area

Neutronics simulations and activation evaluations are currently in progress as part of the pre-conceptual research and development effort for the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA). The RIA project involves generating heavy element ion beams with powers up to 400 kW for use in a fragmentation target line to produce selected ion beams for physics research experiments. Designing a fragmentation beam dump for RIA is one of the most critical challenges for such a facility. Here, we present the results from neutronics and radiation field assessments for various beam dump concepts that can meet requirements for the RIA fragmentation line. Preliminary results from heavy ion transport including radiation damage evaluations for the RIA fragmentation beam dump are also presented. Initial neutronics and activation studies will be incorporated with other target area considerations to identify important challenges and explore possible solutions.
mRNA expression of proteins involved in iron homeostasis in brain regions is altered by age and by iron overloading in the neonatal period.

Abnormally high levels of iron are observed in the brain of patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders. The mechanisms involved in iron accumulation in neurodegenerative disorders remain poorly understood. In the present study we investigated the effects of aging and neonatal iron overload on the mRNA expression of proteins critically involved in controlling iron homeostasis. Wistar rat pups received a single daily dose of vehicle or iron (10 mg/kg of b.w. of Fe2+), at postnatal days 12–14. The expression of Transferrin Receptor (TfR), H-Ferritin, and IRP2 were analyzed by a semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay in cortex, hippocampus and striatum of rats sacrificed at three different ages (15-day-old; 90-day-old and 2-year old rats). Results indicate that TfR, H-ferritin, and IRP2 mRNA expression was differentially affected by aging and by neonatal iron treatment in all three brain regions. These findings might have implications for the understanding of iron homeostasis misregulation associated with neurodegenerative disorders.