cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Interaction of the bHLH-zip domain of c-Myc with H1-type peptides. Characterization of helicity in the H1 peptides by NMR.

The carboxyl-terminal 92 residues of c-Myc-92 display site-specific DNA binding specificity for the consensus sequence 5'-CACCACGTGGTG-3' (Blackwell, T. K., Kretzner, L., Blackwood, E. M., Eisenman, R. N., and Weintraub, H. (1990) Science 250, 1149-1151). Size exclusion high pressure liquid chromatography analysis of the purified fusion protein, glutathione S-transferase-c-Myc-92, indicates that c-Myc-92 is tetrameric with a dissociation constant of < 60 nM. Helix-1 (H1) and leucine zipper peptides from the basic-helix-loop-helix-zipper domain of c-Myc and Max were assayed as potential inhibitors of c-Myc-92 DNA binding. H1 peptides with substitutions that confer greater helicity are found to inhibit c-Myc-92 DNA binding. The mechanism of inhibition involves the cooperative binding of H1 peptides with tetrameric c-Myc-92 as determined by a spectrophotometric assay employing 2,4-dinitrophenyl-H1-F8A. NMR structural characterization reveals a correlation between helicity and inhibition. In a partially hydrophobic environment, H1-Mx (from Max) is a random coil, while H1-WT, H1-F8A, and H1-F8A,S6A (from c-Myc) display differing degrees of helicity. Structure determination on the basis of nuclear Overhauser effect data indicates that the H1-F8A helix is significantly more ordered than H1-WT. Analysis on the basis of the Max x-ray structure (Ferre-D'Amare, R., Prendergast, G. C., Ziff, E. B., and Burley, S. K. (1993) Nature 363, 38-45) suggests that H1 peptide binding to c-Myc-92 may occur through an alteration in the packing of helix-1 in c-Myc-92 or through an interaction with an exposed hydrophobic cluster of residues at each H1-H2 interface. This binding site for H1 peptides may be of significance in the interaction of c-Myc with proteins involved in transcriptional regulation.
Symbiosis. Making light work of adaptation.

A paradox about reef-building corals is that they seem to be vulnerable to environmental change in the short term, yet have persisted for hundreds of millions of years. A new study may provide the solution, showing that the corals form symbiotic associations with many different types of algae, and the distribution of these algal taxa within coral-reef communities varies according to light and temperature, allowing the corals to adjust to environmental changes.
Bounds on the mass gap of the ferromagnetic XXZ chain

We prove rigorous lower and upper bounds for the mass gap of the ferromagnetic spin 1/2 XXZ chain. The two bounds coincide asymptotically in the Ising limit $\Delta\to\infty$. Near the isotropic point, $\Delta=1$, the estimates are good enough to determine the critical behaviour of the mass gap unambiguously. The derivation does not rely on exact solutions.
5-Bromouracil-tolerant mutants of Bacillus subtilis.

5-Bromouracil (BU)-tolerant mutants of Bacillus subtilis 23 (thy his) have been isolated. Several classes of tolerant mutants were obtained by a sequential selection procedure. The classes can be distinguished by their relative BU tolerance as well as several other phenotypic characteristics. The mutants can grow for an extended period of time in minimal medium supplemented with amino acids and BU, in which the sensitive parental strain (Bu+) undergoes rapid cell death. Both mutants But-1 and But-1310 have a greater rate of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis by a factor of two in the presence of BU than Bu+, But-1 being somewhat faster than But-1310. The preferential incorporation of thymine to BU of But-1 is about half that of the Bu+ strain during DNA replication in minimal medium supplemented with 10 μg of BU/ml and 1 μg of thymine/ml. It is not known at what step or steps this reduction in selectivity occurs.
Targeting with Drone Technology: Humanitarian Law Implications

The U.S. government’s dramatically increasing use of drone technology has provoked a maelstrom of questions about the law. None of the controversies dwell on the possibility that drones, as a weapons platform, are inherently unlawful. To the contrary, most observers recognize the potential benefits of drone technology to minimize unintended casualties or damage to property. While they disagree on important legal issues, critics and proponents alike share at least one significant concern: drones may be the future of warfare, and the U.S. may soon find itself "on the other end of the drone," as other governments and armed non-state groups develop drone technology. Yet discussions of the legal constraints lag behind the rapid advances in technological capability and deployment. Even those who believe that the U.S. government’s use of drone technology is carefully calibrated to adhere to applicable law worry that other governments or non-state groups will cite the U.S. government’s silence on key legal questions as justification to shirk from transparency about their practice or even openly flout the law. In this paper, we describe three questions arising from the U.S. government’s use of drone technology, focusing on ambiguities in the government’s position which scholars have debated: the scope of the armed conflict; who may be targeted; and the legal and policy implications of who conducts the targeting. These questions stem not so much from drone technology itself, but from the kind of warfare for which the U.S. is currently using drones. Scholars and experts have sharply disagreed about the answers to these questions, but it is telling that a core set of issues has emerged as the shared focus for individuals from across the ideological spectrum.
An Approach to the Control of Kinematically Redundant Robot Manipulators

The study of redundant manipulators presents a number of challenges. In particular, it is of interest to investigate how best to take advantage of the increased number of joint space trajectories solving the inverse kinematics problem which are made available by the redundant design. Here the inverse kinematics problem is investigated for those robotic manipulators possessing redundancy. An algorithm is described based on the generalized inverse approach, allowing generation of trajectories performing some desired subtask in addition to prespecified end effector motion. The subtask, or subtasks, are represented by a condition on a scalar cost function. Several possible applications are illustrated by simulation results.
THE DIALECTICS OF STATE ECONOMIC INTERVENTION

Much research has been devoted to analyses of the factors that influence the creation and implementation of state policy. Conventional theories of the state suggest interesting frameworks for understanding the savings and loan bailout legislation. However, they are limited because they have stalled in a debate predicated on the presumption of theoretically mutual exclusivity. While an increasing number of observers have begun to call for a synthesis, there remains a need to specify the contours of such a synthesis. Of great use here to organize a synthesis of state theories is Jessop's (1990) concepts of state projects and balance of class forces as a frame for analyzing the savings and loan bailout. We use these concepts as mechanisms for exploring the conditions under which the factors identified by each of the state theories become more or less salient in explaining the production and implementation of state policy. Moreover, these synthesizing concepts facilitate an explication of the varying levels of power implied by state theories: who governs, who wins, and who benefits from policy, and under what conditions are these levels of power invoked? We focus here on the legislation for bailing out the savings and loan industry in 1989. An examination of that policy reveals that the industry itself was created as part of a larger state project to correct for contradictions in the economy that produced the Great Depression. The industry's 1980s crisis was created by a combination of the very regulations that created the special protected niche of the thrifts, Federal Reserve Board policy restricting the money supply in an effort to control inflation, and the deregulation of banking that unleashed economic forces contradicting the original mission and undermining the already precarious financial stability of the savings and loan industry. Although both capital accumulation and nonaccumulation interests received attention in the legislation, only accumulation interests actually benefited in its implementation. The savings and loan bailout was thus not a singular, isolated policy responding to a crisis but rather part of a broader dialectic process of state economic intervention, organized and implemented through state projects and informed by processes affecting the balance of class forces.
Social glue and norms of sociality

If we are going to understand morality, it is important to understand the nature of societies. What is fundamental to them? What is the glue that holds them together? What is the role of shared norm acceptance in constituting a society? Michael Bratman’s account of modest sociality in his book, Shared Agency, casts significant light on these issues. Bratman’s account focuses on small-scale interactions, but it is instructive of the kinds of factors that can enter into explaining sociality more generally. Norms of “social rationality” play an important role in Bratman’s account. I agree with his idea that these norms have normative force. I contend that these norms actually are morally significant. On the resulting view, social glue consists of actual and intended meshing of intentions and shared knowledge combined with a kind of normative pressure that has normative authority—along with other more familiar factors such as familial connections, cooperative arrangements, and affective states such as loyalties.
Non-enumerative path delay fault diagnosis [logic testing]

The first non-enumerative framework for diagnosing path delay faults using zero suppressed binary decision diagrams is introduced. We show that fault free path delay faults with a validated non-robust test may together with fault free robustly tested faults be used to eliminate faults from the set of suspected faults. All operations are implemented by an implicit diagnosis tool based on the zero suppressed binary decision diagram. The proposed method is space and time non-enumerative as opposed to existing methods which are space and time enumerative. Experimental results on the ISCAS'85 benchmarks show that the proposed technique is on an average least three times more efficient in improving the diagnostic resolution than existing techniques.
Asynchronous magnetic bead rotation (AMBR) biosensor in microfluidic droplets for rapid bacterial growth and susceptibility measurements

Inappropriate antibiotic use is a major factor contributing to the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. The long turnaround time (over 24 hours) required for clinical antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) often results in patients being prescribed empiric therapies, which may be inadequate, inappropriate, or overly broad-spectrum. A reduction in the AST time may enable more appropriate therapies to be prescribed earlier. Here we report on a new diagnostic asynchronous magnetic bead rotation (AMBR) biosensor droplet microfluidic platform that enables single cell and small cell population growth measurements for applications aimed at rapid AST. We demonstrate the ability to rapidly measure bacterial growth, susceptibility, and the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of a small uropathogenic Escherichia coli population that was confined in microfluidic droplets and exposed to concentrations above and below the MIC of gentamicin. Growth was observed below the MIC, and no growth was observed above the MIC. A 52% change in the sensor signal (i.e. rotational period) was observed within 15 minutes, thus allowing AST measurements to be performed potentially within minutes.
On the Dynamics of Vibration Absorbers With Motion-Limiting Stops

The dynamics of a class of vibration absorbers with elastic stops is discussed in this paper. The mechanical model proposed in previously published papers are modified to explain certain nonlinear effects, chaotic vibrations, and lower damping observed in our studies. Refined contact-noncontact criteria are presented. Exact steady-state solutions are obtained for a piecewise linear system by using the proposed contact-noncontact criteria. Numerical simulations are presented and compared with the results of the previous work. Significant differences that have been found include some chaotic responses of the system. Experiments are conducted to validate the theoretical results. Chaotic and period-2 responses are also detected experimentally.
The effect of subsurface hydrogen on the adsorption of ethylene on Pd(111)

Abstract The adsorption of ethylene on a hydrogen pre-covered Pd(1 1 1) surface was studied by reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIRS). The effect of either surface or subsurface hydrogen on the state of ethylene hybridization is explored by making use of the order–disorder transition of hydrogen on Pd(1 1 1) at low temperatures, during which the proportion of surface and subsurface hydrogen varies. The results indicate that the subsurface hydrogen is responsible for the formation of π-bonded ethylene on hydrogen-covered Pd(1 1 1).
The effects of exposure to exogenous fatty acids and membrane fatty acid modification on the electrical properties of NG108-15 cells

1. The role of membrane lipid composition in determining the electrical properties of neuronal cells was investigated by altering the available fatty acids in the growth medium of cultured neuroblastoma × glioma hybrid cells, clone NG108-15. 2. Growth of the cells for several days in the presence of polyunsaturated fatty acids (linoleic, linolenic, and arachidonic) caused a pronounced decrease in the Na+ action-potential rate of rise (dV/dt) and smaller decreases in the amplitude, measured by intracellular recording. Oleic acid had no effect on the action potentials generated by the cells. In contrast, a saturated fatty acid (palmitate) and atrans monounsaturated fatty acid (elaidate) caused increases in both the rate of rise and the amplitude. 3. No changes in the resting membrane potentials or Ca2+ action potentials of fatty acid-treated cells were observed. The membrane capacitance and time constant were not altered by exposure to arachidonate, oleate, or elaidate, whereas arachidonate caused a small increase in membrane resistance. 4. Examination of the membrane phospholipid fatty acid composition of cells grown with various fatty acids revealed no consistent alterations which could explain these results. 5. To examine the mechanism for arachidonate-induced decreases indV/dt, the binding of3H-saxitoxin (known to interact with voltage-sensitive Na+) channels was measured. Membranes from cells grown with arachidonate contained fewer saxitoxin binding sites, suggesting fewer Na+ channels in these cells. 6. We conclude that conditions which lead to major changes in the membrane fatty acid composition have no effect on the resting membrane potential, membrane capacitance, time constant, or Ca2+ action potentials in NG108-15 cells. Membrane resistance also does not appear to be very sensitive to membrane fatty acid composition. However, changes in the availability of fatty acids and/or changes in the subsequent membrane fatty acid composition lead to altered Na+ action potentials. The primary mechanism for this alteration appears to be through changes in the number of Na+ channels in the cells.
Granular Causality Applications: Using Part-of Relations for Discovering Causality

Causal markers, syntactic structures and connectives have been the sole identifying features for automatically extracting causal relations in natural language discourse. However, various connectives such as "and", prepositions such as "as", and other syntactic structures are highly ambiguous in nature, as they have multiple meanings besides causality. As a result, one cannot solely rely on lexico-syntactic markers for detection of causal phenomenon in discourse. This paper introduces the Theory of Granular Causality and describes a new approach to identify causality in natural language. Causality is often granular in nature Mulkar-Mehta, 2011; Mazlack, 2004, and this property of causality is used to discover and infer the presence of causal relations in text. This is compared with causal relations identified using just causal markers. A precision of 0.91 and a recall of 0.79 is achieved using granularity for causal relation detection, as compared to a precision of 0.79 and a recall of 0.44 using text-based causal words for causality detection. Next, the author presents the findings for discovering causal relations between two sentences in an article. The system achieves a precision of 0.60 for discovering causality between two sentences using granular causality markers as features. The results are encouraging, and show that the granular causality is an important phenomenon in natural language
A Novel ABC Transporter of the Sulfonylurea Receptor Family Expressed Specifically in the Drosophila Embryonic Heart and Tracheal System

A Novel ABC Transporter of the Sulfonylurea Receptor Family Expressed Specifically in the Drosophila Embryonic Heart and Tracheal System
Liquid chromatographic determination of mexiletine and tocainide in human plasma with fluorescence detection after reaction with a modified o-phthalaldehyde reagent.

Abstract A liquid chromatographic procedure for the determination of mexiletine or tocainide in human plasma is described. Plasma, after the addition of a homologue of mexiletine or of tocainide, is extracted with dichloromethane. The extract is evaporated and reconstituted in a non-aqueous o-phthalaldehyde—mercaptoethanol reagent. An aliquot of the solution is chromatographed on a reversed-phase Ultrasphere-octyl column. The peaks are detected by fluorescence (λex = 350 nm and λem = 445 nm). The fluorescent derivatives of the drugs and internal standards are stable at room temperature and give symmetrical single peaks. Use of fluorescamine as a reagent to prepare fluorescent derivatives of mexiletine and tocainide prior to chromatography is also evaluated.
Response to Skeptics of Global Warming.

Abstract The majority of the scientific community involved in climate research is convinced of the reality of a current and future global warming due to the greenhouse effect, a change that must be largely caused by human activities. However, a minority of scientists is still skeptical of the notion that mankind is significantly influencing the climate of the earth, and it therefore argues against taking certain measures to avert this alleged global warming. In recent years the media have given considerable coverage to the statements of these skeptics. Reasons for their statements range from a simple argument that we do not understand the earth's climate system well enough to predict the future, to more complex arguments involving negative feed-backs and changes of solar activity. They question whether the global temperature increase in this century of up to 0.6 K is primarily a result of worldwide burning of fossil fuels. The purpose of this article is to show that the statements of this skeptical school...
Agent-based simulation applications in marketing research: an integrated review

Agent-based simulation has been used to study a wide variety of complex and social systems. This paper presents the results of a comprehensive and multi-dimensional analysis of the application of a...
Lifetimes of persistent currents in superconducting loops interrupted by Josephson junctions

The lifetimes of quantized persistent current states of a superconducting loop interrupted by a single Josephson junction are estimated using the techniques of random-noise theory. Numerical results are presented for physically realizable examples. In the calculations it is assumed thatRC(2eI 1/ħC) 1/2 ≪1 a condition which may be satisfied by either a low-capacitance crossed-film junction or by a weak link.
Tortuosity in anode-supported proton conductive solid oxide fuel cell found from current flow rates and dusty-gas model

Abstract Ba(Ce0.8Y0.2)O3−δ anode-supported proton conductive solid oxide fuel cells were fabricated and tested. By changing the H2 partial pressure at the anode side, the effect of anodic concentration polarization on open-circuit voltage of the cell was observed. Saturation current densities under concentration polarization were obtained from different anode thickness cells and were used for tortuosity calculation. The calculation is based on the dusty-gas model which includes Knudsen diffusion and Stefan–Maxwell equation terms. The tortuosity value for our supporting anode is 1.55 ± 0.1 which is in a physically reasonable range for modern porous anode materials. The tortuosity that we found is independent of the cell testing temperature and anode thickness, which is consistent with the fact that tortuosity is a geometric factor of the anode structure. The derived equation also can be used for predicting the effect of varying the anode thickness, porosity and pore size. Also, the concentration of the gases as a function of position across the anode is determined.
Anesthetic management of labor pain: what does an obstetrician need to know?

Background Obstetrical anesthesia is considered by many to be a high-risk subspecialty of anesthesia practice that is laden with clinical challenges and medico-legal liability. Anesthesia-related complications are the sixth leading cause of pregnancy-related maternal mortality in the United States.
Some experiments on the sound of silence in phonetic perception.

The results of several experiments demonstrate that silence is an important cue for the perception of stop‐consonant and affricate manner. In some circumstances, silence is necessary; in others, it is sufficient. But silence is not the only cue to these manners. There are other cues that are more or less equivalent in their perceptual effects, though they are quite different acoustically. Finally, silence is effective as a cue when it is part of an utterance that is perceived as having been produced by a single male speaker, but not when it separates utterances produced by male and female speakers. These findings are taken to imply that, in these instances, perception is constrained as if by some abstract conception of what vocal tracts do when they make linguistically significant gestures.
Comparative analysis of carboxysome shell proteins

Carboxysomes are metabolic modules for CO2 fixation that are found in all cyanobacteria and some chemoautotrophic bacteria. They comprise a semi-permeable proteinaceous shell that encapsulates ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) and carbonic anhydrase. Structural studies are revealing the integral role of the shell protein paralogs to carboxysome form and function. The shell proteins are composed of two domain classes: those with the bacterial microcompartment (BMC; Pfam00936) domain, which oligomerize to form (pseudo)hexamers, and those with the CcmL/EutN (Pfam03319) domain which form pentamers in carboxysomes. These two shell protein types are proposed to be the basis for the carboxysome’s icosahedral geometry. The shell proteins are also thought to allow the flux of metabolites across the shell through the presence of the small pore formed by their hexameric/pentameric symmetry axes. In this review, we describe bioinformatic and structural analyses that highlight the important primary, tertiary, and quaternary structural features of these conserved shell subunits. In the future, further understanding of these molecular building blocks may provide the basis for enhancing CO2 fixation in other organisms or creating novel biological nanostructures.
Altered Lysine Uptake by a Variant Carrot Cell Strain Resistant to the Lysine Analog S-2-aminoethyl-L-cysteine

Summary C81 is a variant carrot ( Daucus carota L. cv. Danvers) cell strain selected for resistance to the lysine analog S-2-aminoethyl-L-cysteine (AEC). The resistance is due to decreased uptake of the analog (Matthews et al., 1980). AEC inhibition reversal experiments and lysine uptake inhibition experiments demonstrated that the basic amino acids arginine and lysine in addition to AEC are taken into carrot cells via the same carrier system. Nonpolar (leucine, proline and tryptophan), uncharged (asparagine), and acidic (aspartic acid and glutamic acid) amino acids are not taken up by this carrier system. Arginine inhibited lysine uptake in wild-type cells twice as much as did AEC, but no difference in lysine uptake inhibition by arginine and AEC was detected in the C81 cell variant. These data suggest that the lysine/arginine carrier system is altered in the C81 cell line. Lysine and AEC uptake studies suggest that the altered uptake capacity of C81 results from a decrease in affinity for both AEC and lysine, while the V max also appears to increase only when AEC is a substrate.
Prognostic significance of mediastinal mass in adult Hodgkin's disease

The authors analyzed the prognostic significance of mediastinal involvement with Hodgkin's disease in 169 pathologically stage adults (greater than or equal to 17 years) treated at the Mayo Clinic between 1974 and 1978. Sixty percent of the patients presented with mediastinal disease, evenly divided between those with a mediastinal to thoracic ratio (MTR) less than 0.33 and greater than or equal to 0.33. They were of younger average age and were more likely to have nodular sclerosis histologic subtype than those patients without a mediastinal mass. The median follow-up from diagnosis was 4.1 years with 90% of the patients being followed for 2 or more years. The 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) for the radiation only group was 70% in patients without mediastinal disease, 53% in the less than 0.33 MTR group and 44% in the greater than or equal 0.33 MTR group (P = 0.25). The 5-year survival was 92% in the patients without mediastinal disease, 88% in the less than 0.33 MTR group and 90% in the greater than or equal to 0.33 MTR group (P = 0.70). This lack of significant difference both in the 5-year DFS and survival between the three groups was also seen in the patients taken in toto (169) and in those receiving combined modality treatment (36). However, in early stage (I and II) patients, treated with radiation only, those with a large mediastinal mass had a 5-year DFS (33%) that was significantly worse than both the small mass patients (71%) and those with no mediastinal mass (87%) P less than 0.005). The pattern of relapse in the 40 patients who failed following treatment by radiation only was not affected by an increasing size of mediastinal involvement. At the time of this analysis 27 of the 40 patients who had relapsed following treatment by radiation only (all stages) had remained free from second relapse. The authors do not believe that the current data either support or negate the use of a combined modality approach in the initial treatment of Hodgkin's disease patients presenting with a large mediastinal mass. Only further follow-up will establish whether the treatment of patients, who have relapsed following radiation only, is durable and results in an overall survival comparable to that obtained by using combined modality initially.
Investigation of viologen derivatives as electron-transfer mediators in amperometric glucose sensors

Abstract Using experiments involving cyclic voltammetry and stationary potential measurements, it was shown that several water-soluble viologens, N,N ′-di(4-nitrobenzyl)viologen dichloride, poly( o -xylylviologen dibromide) and poly( p -xylylviologen dibromide), can efficiently mediate electron transfer from reduced glucose oxidase to a conventional carbon paste electrode. Whereas msot viologens cannot serve as electron-transfer mediators for flavoenzymes owing to their highly negative redox potentials, these molecules have sufficiently anodic redox potentials (more positive than that of flavin adenine dinucleotide) that they can reoxidize reduced glucose oxidase. These redox potentials are, however, sufficiently cathodic that glucose sensors based on glucose oxidase and these mediators can be operated in a potential range where the oxidation of common interfering species, such as ascorbic acid and uric acid, does not occur.
Isolation of Thy-1 caps and analysis of their phospholipid composition in mouse T-lymphoma cells.

In this study we have used a density perturbation method to isolate anti-Thy-1 antibody-induced Thy-1 caps from mouse T-lymphoma cells in the absence of detergents, and then compared the phospholipid composit on of these capped membranes with that of uncapped membranes. Initial phospholipid analysis by two-dimensional thin layer chromatography (2-D TLC) reveals a significant increase in the amount of 32P-labeled phosphatidylcholine in the Thy-1 capped membrane. In contrast, no significant changes are observed in the labeling of phosphatidylserine, phosphatidylethanolamine, or the sphingomyelins. Therefore, it is suggested that phosphatidylcholine may be involved in the organization and/or regulation of Thy-1 antigen redistribution. The composition of phosphoinositide in uncapped and capped membranes was analysed separately using one-dimensional thin layer chromatography (1-D TLC) to resolve phosphatidylinositol (PI), phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PIP), and phosphatidylinositol 4, 5-bisphosphate (PIP2) from all other phospholipids. This analysis reveals a significant reduction in levels of PIP and PIP2, but not PI, in Thy-1 caps. Through the use of ion exchange column chromatography, we have found an increased production of all three species of inositol phosphates during anti-Thy-1 antibody-induced capping. Inositol 1, 4, 5 -triphosphate (IP3) shows the most significant increase, compared to the much smaller increases in inositol 4, 5-bisphosphate (IP2) and inositol monophosphate (IP). These results suggest that the binding of anti-Thy-1 antibody to Thy-1 antigen activates phospholipase C which, in turn, initiates polyphosphoinositide turnover and IP3 production. It is proposed that these observed effects are the result of early signal transducing events which are prerequisite steps in Thy-1 receptor cap formation.
Synthesis and body distribution of alpha-aminoisobutyric acid-L-11C in normal and prostate cancer-bearing rat after chemotherapy

This paper describes the synthesis of α-aminoisobutyric acid-l-11C (11C-AIB) and studies its body distribution in healthy and tumor-bearing animals. High tissue levels of 11C-AIB were found in organs with high metabolic activity (pancreas, liver, kidney). The prostate tumor 11C-AIB concentrations are significantly lower than that of pancreas, liver, and kidney, but increased when compared with normal prostate levels. Effective chemotherapy, which reduces tumor growth of two different prostate adenocarcinoma cell lines (R-3327-H, R-3327-G) also decreases 11C-AIB levels and the 11C-AIB prostate to tumor ratio.
Experimental method of separation of the volume and surface components in an electron energy-loss spectrum

Abstract The electron energy-loss spectrum collected in a scanning transmission electron microscope contains a surface-energy-loss contribution as well as a volume-loss part. An experimental procedure is developed to separate these two components. This procedure is applied to spectra collected from a slightly oxidized iron film, a fresh palladium film and an oxidized palladium film to obtain information about the electronic structure of the bulk as well as of the surface of the specimen.
Systemic lupus erythematosus in childhood: Clinical manifestations and improved survival in fifty-five patients☆

A retrospective review of 55 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) (45 girls and 10 boys) under age 18 (median age of onset; 12.2 years) seen at the Children's Hospital Medical Center (Boston, Mass.) over the past 20 years was done. Clinical presentation was similar to previous series, but atypical presentation was common. Certain unusual presentations (such as isolated hematopoietic abnormalities) often occurred and delayed diagnosis for years in some cases. The frequency of ARA clinical classification of SLE was different in children as compared to adults. We observed depression of lymphocyte count in many patients and encountered elevations of hepatic enzyme levels in others. Of the 55 patients reviewed, 9 have died and 8 have been lost to follow-up. Of the rest, 21 have mild to moderate disease and 17 have inactive or minimally active SLE, after a median length of follow-up of 8.8 years. In severe cases, using either corticosteroids and/or cytotoxic agents, a favorable prognosis was obtained. Our cumulative 5- and 10-year survival of 92 and 85%, respectively, equals or exceeds that of previous reports of childhood SLE.
The role of parental work schedule in CPS involvement

Abstract Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2904), we investigated whether maternal work schedules were associated with Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement and child maltreatment indicators during the first five years of a child's life. We further examined if this association could be explained by demographic characteristics, child care arrangements, maternal health and social supports, economic and hardship characteristics, and parenting practices. Finally, we examined if this association differed by context (i.e., maternal marital status, maternal education, and family income-to-needs ratio). Our regression results indicate significant associations between maternal shift work and mother-reported CPS involvement and mother-reported psychological aggression behaviors. Economic and hardship characteristics explained some of the significant association between maternal shift work and CPS involvement. Economic and hardship characteristics and parenting practices also explained some of the significant association between maternal shift work and psychological aggression behaviors. The obtained significant associations were more pronounced for mothers who were not married, who were high school graduates, and whose family income was either below or near poverty. We discuss the broader social factors associated with employment demands and childcare arrangements.
Investigation of filtration artifacts when sampling ambient particulate matter for mutagen assay

Abstract An ultra-high volume ambient particulate sampler capable of collecting four identical samples was used to investigate filtration artifacts which may affect mutagen assays. During five sampling episodes variables employed included filter material (glass, quartz, Teflon and Teflon-impregnated glass fiber), sampling interval (3–12 h) and the re-exposure to varying concentrations of gaseous pollutants. Filters were extracted with an equi-volume mixture of dichloromethane, toluene and methanol and extracts subjected to Salmonella /mammalian microsome mutagenicity testing employing strain TA98. From this somewhat limited data set, no large differences were observed which could be attributed to filtration artifacts.
Social Psychologists' Expertise in the Public Interest: Civilian Morale Research During World War II

By reviewing the careers of three prominent social psychologists, Floyd Henry Allport, Daniel Katz, and Rensis Likert, this article describes the theoretical and practical psychological expertise that American psychologists developed before, during, and after World War II and describes how this expertise resulted in significant gains for the field of social psychology. Prior to World War II, Allport, Katz, and Likert made pioneering contributions to understanding issues relevant to society, to the science of social psychology, and to methods of attitude measurement and poll design. In response to World War II, each of the three pursued research topics more immediately connected to the war effort. Similar to other prominent social psychologists, Allport, Katz, and Likert were able to parlay their prewar reputations into significant, high-level roles in the service of the World War II effort. In turn, these successes helped to lay the foundation for a postwar boom in social psychology that had implications for training in and research on social psychology. Nonetheless, social psychology's and society's utilization of the knowledge gained during World War II appears to have been less than optimal.
An Observational Study of Fronts and Frontal Mergers over the Continental United States

Abstract The Stormscale Operational and Research Meteorology-Fronts Experiment Systems Tests (STORM-FEST) field program was carried out over the central United States to investigate the structure and dynamics of fronts and their attendant precipitation systems adjacent to complex topography and to evaluate new observing networks and analysis techniques for mesoscale research and weather forecasting. This study presents the analysis of data taken between 8 and 10 March 1992, which was the most active period of STORM-FEST. This three-day observing period was characterized by the passage of an extratropical cyclone and related fronts. The synoptic-scale conditions related to the cyclone and frontal evolutions are described. Multiple frontal zones (i.e., Pacific and arctic cold fronts, quasi-stationary polar front, dryline, maritime warm front) and associated regions of precipitation are documented, and their origins and interactions are explored. These features, both well defined and subtle, were observed wi...
An efficient front-end for timing-directed parallel simulation of multi-core system

Manifold is a parallel simulation framework for multi-core systems. For full-system simulation, Manifold adopts the timing-directed simulation paradigm that separates the simulation into a functional front-end and a timing back-end. Components in the front-end perform functional simulation of the cores and send streams of instructions to the back-end to simulate the timing behavior. In its current design, Manifold uses the QSim multi-core emulator as the front-end, which communicates with the back-end through network sockets. Experiments have shown that the latency of the socket communications has a significant impact on the overall simulation performance. This paper presents a novel method that attempts to hide the TCP/IP latency for the back-end by creating proxy processes as an intermediary between the front-end and the back-end. The proxies serve as clients to the QSim server in the front-end, and as servers to the back-end. They interact with the QSim server through sockets, while working with the back-end in a producer-consumer manner using shared memory segments. Experiments show that this method can completely hide the TCP/IP latency for the back-end. The back-end can always get its instructions from the shared memory without waiting for the QSim server. The overhead of getting inputs for the back-end simulation is reduced to almost zero. As confirmed by our experiments, this improvement causes some side effects that together lead to significant improvements in overall simulation performance. In testing of system models with up to 64 cores, we have achieved from 29% to 51% improvement in simulation performance.
Crystal growth in the presence of surface melting: supersaturation dependence of the growth of columnar ice crystals

We report measurements of the growth rates of the basal (0 0 0 1) and prism (1010) facets of ice as a function of surface supersaturation, in a regime where the growth dynamics are dominated by the presence of surface melting. Our measurements were made using freely falling columnar ice crystals, growing a solvent gas of air at a pressure of one atmosphere, with ambient supersaturation levels 1<σ_∞<11%. Condensation coefficients for the two facets were inferred by modeling the effects of both particle and heat diffusion, which also yielded surface supersaturation levels 0.75<σ_(surf)<2.2%. Our results show a strong supersaturation dependence in the crystal growth, as for both facets the condensation coefficient exhibited a precipitous drop below σ_(surf)≈1%. In addition, the condensation coefficient for the basal facet was found to be nearly a factor of 10 larger than for the prism facet. These results support a model in which the ice growth rates are governed by 2D nucleation at the interface between the crystalline solid and a quasi-liquid surface layer.
PHOTOCHEMISTRY OF ORGANIC CHROMOPHORES INCORPORATED INTO FATTY ACID MONOLAYERS

The photochemical behavior of several different chromophores incorporated as surfactant molecules in organized monolayer assemblies is reported. For several systems rather pronounced differences are observed between reactivity in solution and in the assemblies. Many of the differences can be ascribed to packing phenomena and to restrictions on diffusion and molecular motion in the condensed assemblies. Among the reactions studied which are subject to strong environmental influences in the assemblies are cis-trans photoisomerization, ligand photoejection, excimer and photodimer formation and electron transfer reactions. Photoreactions occurring at an assembly-solution interface have also been observed including the cleavage of water mediated by a layer-bound excited state of a surfactant ruthenium complex.
An analysis of receptor inputs to and spatial distribution of ganglion cellon andoff processes

Correlation matrices and autocorrelation functions were derived from responses of ganglion cells in the isolated goldfish retina. In the first experiment, rod selective stimuli and cone selective stimuli were alternately presented; it was found that the responses to the two stimuli were mediated by the sameon andoff response processes. In the second experiment, two stimuli that selectively stimulated long wavelength sensitive cones were alternately presented to two spatially distinct areas within the receptive field center. The statistical analyses showed that the responses to the two stimuli were mediated by the same pair of response processes.
Racial differences in sex hormone levels in women approaching the transition to menopause

Abstract Objective: Evaluate racial differences in reproducibility of hormone levels over time (estradiol, DHEAS, FSH, and testosterone) while adjusting for covariates previously identified as relevant in the study population. Design: Longitudinal cohort study. Setting: Healthy, late-reproductive-age women in a community-based sample. Patient(s): African American and Caucasian women identified by random digit dialing. Intervention(s): Hormone levels measured in the early follicular phase of the menstrual cycle four times over 9 months. A multivariate, linear mixed model estimated effects on hormone levels of race, age at enrollment, age at menarche, number of pregnancies, current smoking, alcohol consumption, body mass index (BMI), waist/hip ratio (WHR), and menstrual cycle length. Main Outcome Measure(s): Follicular plasma levels of estradiol, FSH, DHEAS, and testosterone. Result(s): African American but not Caucasian women had significantly lower levels of estradiol and DHEAS with increasing age. African American but not Caucasian women had significantly decreased levels of estradiol and significantly increased levels of DHEAS with increasing BMI. No racial differences in reproducibility of hormone measures were found. Conclusion(s): There are racial differences in associations of hormone levels with age and BMI in late reproductive age women. Further study is needed to replicate these findings and to determine the relationships of these hormonal associations with menopausal symptoms.
“Dignity was the First to Leave”:* Godinez V. Moran, Colin Ferguson, and the Trial of Mentally Disabled Criminal Defendants

This article considers the Colin Ferguson trial in the context of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Godinez v. Moran, establishing a unitary standard for the determinations of competence to stand trial, competence to plead guilty, and competence to waive counsel. The Ferguson trial was widely seen as a “charade.” I argue that the Ferguson spectacle was the inevitable denouement of the Godinez decision. I then look at the Ferguson trial (through contemporaneous press and television coverage) under the filters of “sanism” and “pretextuality.” I conclude that the “dignity” value—a prerequisite for a constitutionally-acceptable fair trial—was, as a result of Godinez, lacking in the Ferguson case.
Biodegradation of metal citrate complexes and implications for toxic-metal mobility

THE presence of synthetic and naturally occurring chelating agents in nuclear and toxic-metal wastes is a major concern because of their potential to enhance mobilization of metal ions away from the disposal sites1–3. Of particular interest is citric acid, which is present in low-level and transuranic radioactive wastes4,5 and in domestic and industrial wastes (as washing fluids, for instance), as well as being found naturally. Citrate ions form multidentate, stable complexes with a variety of toxic metals and radionuclides; but biodegradation of these complexes, precipitating the metal ions as insoluble hydroxides, oxides or other salts, may retard migration. Here we report a study of the biodegradation of citrate complexes of Ca, Fe(n), Fe(m), Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and U. Several of these complexes were not readily degraded by bacteria, and the biodegradability depended on the chemical nature of the complex, not on the toxicity of the metal to the bacteria. This resistance to biodegradation implies that citrate complexation may play an important part in migration of these hazardous wastes.
An experimental method for directly determining the interconnectivity of melt in a partially molten system

An experimental method for directly determining the degree of interconnectivity of melt in a partially molten system is discussed using an olivine-basalt system as an example. Samarium 151 is allowed time to diffuse through mixtures of olivine and basalt powder which have texturally equilibrated at 1350 C and 13 to 15 kbars. The final distribution of samarium is determined through examination of developed radiographs of the samples. Results suggest an interconnected melt network is established at melt fractions at least as low as 1 wt pct and all melt is completely interconnected at melt fractions at least as low as 2 wt pct for the system examined.
Polycations as prostaglandin sythesis inducers. II. structure-activity relationships

Abstract Moderately high molecular weight polycations stimulate arachidonic acid release with concomitant synthesis and release of prostaglandins in cultured 3T3 mouse fibroblasts. We have examined a series of synthetic polycations for prostaglandin synthesis-inducing activity as an approach to defining the structural features required for activity. Extensive (>80%) acetylation of poly(vinylamine) was tolerated without loss of activity, indicating that a uniform high density of charges is not required. However, complete acetylation of poly(vinylamine) abolished activity, indicating that some positive charges are required for activity. Full activity was observed for charge densities in the range of one per two to one per six atoms of polymer backbone. Branched and linear polycations activated equally well. Location of the charge with respect to the polymer backbone did not affect activity in polymers bearing charges located up to seven atoms away from the backbone. Polycations lacking primary or secondary amino groups exhibited full activity, indicating that Schiff base formation is not required for activity. These results are consistent with a model in which activation involves electrostatic interactions with discrete anionic sites on the target cell.