cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Forced expression of the homeodomain protein Gax inhibits cardiomyocyte proliferation and perturbs heart morphogenesis

The development of the tubular heart into a complex four-chambered organ requires precise temporal and region-specific regulation of cell proliferation, migration, death and differentiation. While the regulatory mechanisms in heart morphogenesis are not well understood, increasing attention has focused on the homeodomain proteins, which are generally linked to morphogenetic processes. The homeodomain containing gene Gax has been shown to be expressed in heart and smooth muscle tissues. In this study, the Gax protein was detected in the nuclei of myocardial cells relatively late in chicken heart development, at a time when myocyte proliferation is declining. To test the hypothesis that the Gax protein functions as a negative regulator of cardiomyocyte proliferation, a replication-defective adenovirus was used to force its precocious nuclear expression during chicken heart morphogenesis. In experiments in which Gax- and beta-galactosidase-expressing adenoviruses were co-injected, clonal expansion of myocytes was reduced, consistent with inhibition of myocyte proliferation. This effect on proliferation was corroborated by the finding that the percentage of exogenous Gax-expressing myocytes that were positive for the cell cycle marker PCNA decreased over time and was lower than in control myocytes. The precocious nuclear expression of Gax in tubular hearts resulted in abnormal heart morphology, including small ventricles with rounded apices, a thinned compact zone and coarse trabeculae. These results suggest a role for the Gax protein in heart morphogenesis causing proliferating cardiomyocytes to withdraw from the cell cycle, thus influencing the size and shape that the heart ultimately attains.
Observation of Excitons in a Molecular Liquid: Specular Reflection Spectrum of α-Methylnaphthalene

The normal-incidence specular-reflection spectrum of liquid $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{e}$ was obtained for the wavelength region from 215 to 400 nm. Comparison of the Kramers-Kronig transform of the reflection spectrum with the absorption spectrum of $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{-}\mathrm{m}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{p}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{h}\mathrm{a}\mathrm{l}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{e}$ is cyclohexane shows the bands of the neat-liquid spectrum shift to lower energy and display significant broadening. These effects support the existence of excitons in molecular liquids.
Dietary adherence in Hispanic patients receiving hemodialysis.

Objectives The study objective was to identify the factors that influence dietary adherence in Hispanic patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis and to determine the differences in dietary adherence between Hispanic and non-Hispanic patients. Design We performed a cross-sectional study using a descriptive-comparative design. Setting The study took place at hemodialysis centers at Winthrop-University Hospital, New York. Participants The participants were adult patients of Hispanic descent receiving maintenance hemodialysis three times per week for 3 months or more and an equal number of age- and sex-matched non-Hispanic patients. Intervention Information was obtained by a questionnaire about knowledge of the diet, preferred language for education, consumption of potassium- (K + ) and phosphorus- (PO 4 ) containing foods, and adherence attitudes and behaviors. Serum albumin (SAlb), K + , and PO 4 for the past 3 months were obtained from medical records and evaluated to assess dietary adherence. Main Outcome Measure The main outcome measure was a mean SAlb of 3.2g/dL or greater, K + of 5.5 mEq/L or less, and PO 4 of 5.5 mg/dL or less. Results A total of 17 Hispanic and 17 comparison patients were included. Both groups were adherent to the diet because their mean levels of SAlb, K + , and PO 4 were within acceptable limits. Dietary adherence was observed in 76% of the Hispanic patients for SAlb, 88% for K + , and 65% for PO 4 , whereas the rate of adherence was 59%, 88%, and 76%, respectively, for the comparison group. Conclusion Both groups were adherent to the restrictions of the renal diet. More patients from both groups were adherent to K + than to PO 4 restrictions. Among the factors that probably influenced dietary adherence to the renal diet in this dialysis facility are knowledge of the renal diet, language, food frequency consumption, socioeconomic status, family support, and attitudes toward the renal diet. Patient education provided in Spanish with family involvement is an important element for promoting adherence among Hispanic patients receiving dialysis.
Overview of the animal health drug development and registration process: an industry perspective

Products for animal health commercialization follow a structured progression from initial concept through to regulatory approval. Typically, products are developed for use in either food animals or companion animals. These can be for the intention of disease intervention, productivity enhancement or improvement in a quality of life capacity. The animal health industry is a regulated industry, meaning that a government agency is responsible for oversight of products, both pre- and post-approval. There are three primary US government agencies that ensure quality, safety and effectiveness for the approval of new products and post-marketing compliance.
Quality of security adaptation in parallel disk systems

In the past decade, parallel disk systems have been highly scalable and able to alleviate the problem of disk I/O bottleneck, thereby being widely used to support data-intensive applications. Although a variety of parallel disk systems were developed, most existing disk systems lack a means to adaptively control the quality of security for dynamically changing workloads. We address this gap in disk technology by designing, implementing, and evaluating a quality of security control framework for parallel disk systems, or ASPAD for short, that makes it possible for parallel disk systems to adapt to changing security requirements and workload conditions. The ASPAD framework comprises four major components, namely, a security service middleware, a dynamic data-partitioning mechanism, a response time estimator, and an adaptive security quality controller. The framework is conducive to adaptively and expeditiously determining security services for requests submitted to a parallel disk system in a way to improve security of the disk system while making an effort to guarantee desired response times of the requests. We conduct extensive experiments to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the proposed ASPAD framework. Empirical results show that ASPAD significantly improves the overall performance of parallel disk systems over the same disk systems without using the ASPAD framework.
Activity and Imagined Activity Can Enhance Young Children's Reading Comprehension.

The Indexical Hypothesis suggests a new method for enhancing children’s reading comprehension. Young readers may not consistently “index,” or map, words to the objects the words represent. Consequently, these readers fail to derive much meaning from the text. The instructional method involves manipulating toy objects referred to in the text (e.g., a barn, a tractor, a horse, in a text about a farm) to simulate the actions described in the text. Correctly manipulating the objects forces indexing and facilitates the derivation of meaning. Both actual manipulation and imagined manipulation resulted in markedly better (compared with rereading) memory for and comprehension of the text material, thereby lending strong support to the Indexical Hypothesis. Can young children’s reading comprehension be enhanced? Are there potent reading-comprehension strategies that can be identified and prescribed (see, e.g., Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, & Willows, 2001; Symons, McGoldrick, Snyder, & Pressley, 1990)? The Indexical Hypothesis (Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002; Glenberg & Robertson, 2000; Kaschak & Glenberg, 2000) suggests a new sort of answer to these old questions. Because children may not consistently index, or map, written words to the objects the words represent, even when the words are pronounced, these children fail to derive meaning from the text. Consequently, reading becomes an unengaging exercise in word calling. If, as we hypothesize, early young readers’ performance can be enhanced by increased indexing, then the following instructional intervention is suggested: While children read texts about events taking place in a particular scenario (e.g., on a farm), objects referred to in the text (e.g., a toy barn, tractor, and horse) are made available, and the children are asked to manipulate those objects to simulate the content of the sentences. Such manipulation should force indexing, thereby facilitating the children’s derivation of meaning. We begin by reviewing the Indexical Hypothesis and some of the research that supports it. The review includes a description of three precedents suggesting that manipulation of objects being read about should enhance children’s reading comprehension. 1 We then present three experiments conducted with first- and secondgrade readers. These experiments demonstrate large (e.g., 50% and more) positive effects of manipulation on children’s recall and application of the material just read. In addition, in Experiment 3, children are trained to imagine manipulating the toys rather than actually manipulating them. This imagined manipulation produces a modest degree of transfer (i.e., strategy maintenance in the absence of instructions). Finally, we contrast the explanation of poor reading comprehension provided by the Indexical Hypothesis with several other accounts based on fluency, inference making, and integration.
Cdc42 and Rac Stimulate Exocytosis of Secretory Granules by Activating the Ip3/Calcium Pathway in Rbl-2h3 Mast Cells

We have expressed dominant-active and dominant-negative forms of the Rho GTPases, Cdc42 and Rac, using vaccinia virus to evaluate the effects of these mutants on the signaling pathway leading to the degranulation of secretory granules in RBL-2H3 cells. Dominant-active Cdc42 and Rac enhance antigen-stimulated secretion by about twofold, whereas the dominant-negative mutants significantly inhibit secretion. Interestingly, treatment with the calcium ionophore, A23187, and the PKC activator, PMA, rescues the inhibited levels of secretion in cells expressing the dominant-negative mutants, implying that Cdc42 and Rac act upstream of the calcium influx pathway. Furthermore, cells expressing the dominant-active mutants exhibit elevated levels of antigen-stimulated IP(3) production, an amplified antigen-stimulated calcium response consisting of both calcium release from internal stores and influx from the extracellular medium, and an increase in aggregate formation of the IP(3) receptor. In contrast, cells expressing the dominant-negative mutants display the opposite phenotypes. Finally, we are able to detect an in vitro interaction between Cdc42 and PLCgamma1, the enzyme immediately upstream of IP(3) formation. Taken together, these findings implicate Cdc42 and Rac in regulating the exocytosis of secretory granules by stimulation of IP(3) formation and calcium mobilization upon antigen stimulation.
The C Proteins of Human Parainfluenza Virus Type 1 Block IFN Signaling by Binding and Retaining Stat1 in Perinuclear Aggregates at the Late Endosome

Interferons (IFNs) play a crucial role in the antiviral immune response. Whereas the C proteins of wild-type human parainfluenza virus type 1 (WT HPIV1) inhibit both IFN-β induction and signaling, a HPIV1 mutant encoding a single amino acid substitution (F170S) in the C proteins is unable to block either host response. Here, signaling downstream of the type 1 IFN receptor was examined in Vero cells to define at what stage WT HPIV1 can block, and F170S HPIV1 fails to block, IFN signaling. WT HPIV1 inhibited phosphorylation of both Stat1 and Stat2, and this inhibition was only slightly reduced for F170S HPIV1. Degradation of Stat1 or Stat2 was not observed. The HPIV1 C proteins were found to accumulate in the perinuclear space, often forming large granules, and co-localized with Stat1 and the cation-independent mannose 6-phosphate receptor (M6PR) that is a marker for late endosomes. Upon stimulation with IFN-β, both the WT and F170S C proteins remained in the perinuclear space, but only the WT C proteins prevented Stat1 translocation to the nucleus. In addition, WT HPIV1 C proteins, but not F170S C proteins, co-immunoprecipitated both phosphorylated and unphosphorylated Stat1. Our findings suggest that the WT HPIV1 C proteins form a stable complex with Stat1 in perinuclear granules that co-localize with M6PR, and that this direct interaction between the WT HPIV1 C proteins and Stat1 is the basis for the ability of HPIV1 to inhibit IFN signaling. The F170S mutation in HPIV1 C did not prevent perinuclear co-localization with Stat1, but apparently weakened this interaction such that, upon IFN stimulation, Stat1 was translocated to the nucleus to induce an antiviral response.
Isolation and characterization of Escherichia coli tolC mutants defective in secreting enzymatically active alpha-hemolysin.

This study describes the isolation and characterization of a unique class of TolC mutants that, under steady-state growth conditions, secreted normal levels of largely inactive alpha-hemolysin. Unlike the reduced activity in the culture supernatants, the cell-associated hemolytic activity in these mutants was identical to that in the parental strain, thus reflecting a normal intracellular toxin activation event. Treatment of the secreted toxin with guanidine hydrochloride significantly restored cytolytic activity, suggesting that the diminished activity may have been due to the aggregation or misfolding of the toxin molecules. Consistent with this notion, sedimentation and filtration analyses showed that alpha-hemolysin secreted from the mutant strain has a mass greater than that secreted from the parental strain. Experiments designed to monitor the time course of alpha-hemolysin release showed delayed appearance of toxin in the culture supernatant of the mutant strain, thus indicating a possible defect in alpha-hemolysin translocation or release. Eight different TolC substitutions displaying this toxin secretion defect were scattered throughout the protein, of which six localized in the periplasmically exposed α-helical domain, while the remaining two mapped within the outer membrane-embedded β-barrel domain of TolC. A plausible model for the secretion of inactive alpha-hemolysin in these TolC mutants is discussed in the context of the recently determined three-dimensional structure of TolC.
Preface to Social Theory of Property Rights

. In the history of liberal theories of property, the predominant model deduces a right to highly unequal amounts of property from a premise that the person is primarily independent and self-determined. But modem social theory, communitarianism and critical legal theory have generated strong support for an alternative premise of social self-determination of the person. These theories have not, however, adequately explored the logical implications of social personality for the justifiable degree of equality of income under property right. This study reasons a right to some significant equalization of income from a premise that the individual is socially self-determined. The supporting argument develops a different concept of social personality than found in prevailing social and communitarian theories. With regard to property, it is particularly important to conceptualize the formation of the individual by and within the system of economic relations. The personological premises are also developed differently from Marx's analysis, which overemphasizes the production side of the economy. The present analysis examines the individual in the consumption side as well. But in contrast to the subjective-individualist conception of the consumer in neoclassical economic theory, we will utilize a conception of socially self-determined consumer wants and self-seeking. This social-personological premise proves to have strong egalitarian implications for the distribution of income under property rights.
Blood transfusion after pediatric cardiac surgery is associated with prolonged hospital stay.

Background Red blood cell transfusion is associated with morbidity and mortality among adults undergoing cardiac surgery. We aimed to evaluate the association of transfusion with morbidity among pediatric cardiac surgical patients. Methods Patients discharged after cardiac surgery in 2003 were retrospectively reviewed. The red blood cell volume administered during the first 48 postoperative hours was used to classify patients into nonexposure, low exposure (≤15 mL/kg), or high exposure (>15 mL/kg) groups. Cox proportional hazards modeling was used to evaluate the association of red blood cell exposure to length of hospital stay (LOS). Results Of 802 discharges, 371 patients (46.2%) required blood transfusion. Demographic differences between the transfusion exposure groups included age, weight, prematurity, and noncardiac structural abnormalities (all p p p p = 0.02) and high transfusion group (adjusted HR 0.66, 95% CI: 0.53 to 0.82, p p = 0.05) and high transfusion (adjusted HR 0.65, 95% CI: 0.49 to 0.87, p = 0.004) in the biventricular group but not in the single ventricle group was associated with increased LOS. Conclusions Blood transfusion is associated with prolonged hospitalization of children after cardiac surgery, with biventricular patients at highest risk for increased LOS. Future studies are necessary to explore this association and refine transfusion practices.
An Existential View of Adolescence

Adolescence is viewed from an existential point of view. Incorporating contributions from developmental approaches, the author looks at the development of abstract thought in the adolescent and examines the focus of the adolescent's abstract thinking capabilities on the conditions of existence and the conflicts born of them. The author provides an existential paradigm that presents adolescent behavior as the manifestation of the adolescent's defense mechanisms developed in response to conflict arising from experiencing the fundamental concerns of existence that all individuals must face. Specific existential concerns dealt with include dread of death, confusion of indecision, hopeless-ness of meaninglessness, and despair of isolation.
A model for cooperative interactive plan explanation

The Interactive Discourse Planner (IDP) is designed to describe and justify domain plans interactively. The text plan that IDP incrementally formulates and executes is represented uniformly in the same knowledge base with the domain plans that are under discussion. In this way, the text plan and the domain plans are both accessible for analyzing the user's feedback. IDP can interpret vaguely articulated feedback, generate concise replies and metacomments, and detect when the user's feedback initiates a digression. As a testbed for my model, I am implementing IDP to interactively give driving directions and route advice. >
Skin Grafting in the Syrian Hamster A Modified Technic

SYNOPSIS IN INTERLINGUAGRAFFOS CUTANEE IN HAMSTERS SYRIAN: UN TECHNICA MODIFICATE.—Il es difficile excider con cisorios un pecia circlar de pelle de approximativemente 10 mm de diametro pro un graffo a spissitate integre. Mantener le graffo in sito per medio de bandages o suturas es indesirabile. Un ronde punciator-forcipe bioptic de 8 mm excideva graffos que es perfectemente ronde, de spissitate integre, e identic in dimensiones. Un spargitura Rezifilm manteneva le graffo in sito de maniera satistactori. Le graffos se adjustava perfectemente e esseva retenite sin imbrication e sin le presentia de exponite tissu subcutanee.
Developmental Pathways from Child Maltreatment to Peer Rejection.

Using a prospective longitudinal design, rejection by peers, aggressive behavior, and social withdrawal were examined among a representative community sample of 107 maltreated children and an equal number of non-maltreated children. Results revealed that chronic maltreatment was associated with heightened risk of rejection by peers. Chronically maltreated children were more likely to be rejected by peers repeatedly across multiple years from childhood to early adolescence. Maltreatment chronicity was also associated with higher levels of children's aggressive behavior, as reported by peers, teachers, and children themselves. Aggressive behavior accounted in large part for the association between chronic maltreatment and rejection by peers. Socially withdrawn behavior was associated with peer rejection, but did not account for the association between chronic maltreatment and peer rejection. These results held for both girls and boys, followed from childhood through early adolescence. Moreover, the links among chronic maltreatment, aggressive behavior, and peer rejection were already established by early school age. Implications of these results for developmental theory and intervention are discussed.
Adaptive algorithms for OFDMA wireless ad hoc networks with multiple antennas

The design of higher-layer protocols is an active area of research for ad hoc networks that operate on multiple channels. In orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM), symbols are transmitted on orthogonal subcarriers which can be viewed as separate transmission channels. In an orthogonal frequency-division multiple-access (OFDMA) ad hoc network, adjacent nodes operate on different sets of subcarriers. As the number of users increases in such a network, the throughput drops due to the availability of fewer subcarriers for each user and because of the increased cochannel interference between users. Multiple antenna receivers have been proposed for ad hoc networks to reduce power consumption and enhance the range of each node in the network. In this paper, we extend a frequency-domain subcarrier adaptive beamformer to an OFDMA ad hoc network that beamforms in the direction of a desired node and nulls interferers from cochannel nodes. A blind time-domain subcarrier adaptive beamformer and signal canceler are proposed that satisfy a constant-modulus criterion. Since each group of nodes in an ad hoc network communicates on a unique set of subcarriers, the optimal beamformer should ideally place nulls in the directions of the interferers only on those subcarriers and independently of other subcarriers.
Predicting appropriate semantic web terms from words

The Semantic Web language RDF was designed to unambiguously define and use ontologies to encode data and knowledge on the Web. Many people find it difficult, however, to write complex RDF statements and queries because doing so requires familiarity with the appropriate ontologies and the terms they define. We describe a system that suggests appropriate RDF terms given semantically related English words and general domain and context information. We use the Swoogle Semantic Web search engine to provide RDF term and namespace statistics, the WorldNet lexical ontology to find semantically related words, and a naive Bayes classifier to suggest terms. A customized graph data structure of related namespaces is constructed from Swoogle's database to speed up the classifier model learning and prediction time.
Histone H1 phosphorylation is associated with transcription by RNA polymerases I and II

Histone H1 phosphorylation affects chromatin condensation and function, but little is known about how specific phosphorylations impact the function of H1 variants in higher eukaryotes. In this study, we show that specific sites in H1.2 and H1.4 of human cells are phosphorylated only during mitosis or during both mitosis and interphase. Antisera generated to individual H1.2/H1.4 interphase phosphorylations reveal that they are distributed throughout nuclei and enriched in nucleoli. Moreover, interphase phosphorylated H1.4 is enriched at active 45S preribosomal RNA gene promoters and is rapidly induced at steroid hormone response elements by hormone treatment. Our results imply that site-specific interphase H1 phosphorylation facilitates transcription by RNA polymerases I and II and has an unanticipated function in ribosome biogenesis and control of cell growth. Differences in the numbers, structure, and locations of interphase phosphorylation sites may contribute to the functional diversity of H1 variants.
Event-related fMRI studies of false memory: An Activation Likelihood Estimation meta-analysis

Over the last two decades, a wealth of research in the domain of episodic memory has focused on understanding the neural correlates mediating false memories, or memories for events that never happened. While several recent qualitative reviews have attempted to synthesize this literature, methodological differences amongst the empirical studies and a focus on only a sub-set of the findings has limited broader conclusions regarding the neural mechanisms underlying false memories. The current study performed a voxel-wise quantitative meta-analysis using activation likelihood estimation to investigate commonalities within the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) literature studying false memory. The results were broken down by memory phase (encoding, retrieval), as well as sub-analyses looking at differences in baseline (hit, correct rejection), memoranda (verbal, semantic), and experimental paradigm (e.g., semantic relatedness and perceptual relatedness) within retrieval. Concordance maps identified significant overlap across studies for each analysis. Several regions were identified in the general false retrieval analysis as well as multiple sub-analyses, indicating their ubiquitous, yet critical role in false retrieval (medial superior frontal gyrus, left precentral gyrus, left inferior parietal cortex). Additionally, several regions showed baseline- and paradigm-specific effects (hit/perceptual relatedness: inferior and middle occipital gyrus; CRs: bilateral inferior parietal cortex, precuneus, left caudate). With respect to encoding, analyses showed common activity in the left middle temporal gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex. No analysis identified a common cluster of activation in the medial temporal lobe.
Impedance Biosensor Utilizing a Si Substrate Deposited by Wet Methods

We report an impedance biosensor utilizing a Si electrode created by wet chemical deposition atop 6061 Al alloy. The sensor electrode is created by galvanic/electroless Si deposition from an electrolyte containing 10 mM HF and 20 mM Na2SiF6 in 80 wt% formic acid, followed by antibody immobilization. The impedance response of the sensor electrode to increasing concentrations of peanut protein Ara h 1, a common food allergen, can be fit to an equivalent circuit containing three RC loops. The circuit element most sensitive to antigen binding is the charge transfer resistance, yielding a detection limit of 4 ng/mL. Biosensors that utilize electrochemical impedance spectroscopy have been employed with a wide variety of immobilized biomolecules, including antibodies, receptor proteins, aptamers, and ssDNA. These biomolecules must be immobilized atop a conductive and biocompatible substrate, which is most commonly accomplished by amide bond formation to carboxylate-terminated Au-thiol self-assembled monolayers. However, Au-thiol self-assembly chemistry has been reported to have inadequate stability for many applications, with a shelf life limited to days to weeks. In addition, most sensors need to be calibrated, which for antibodybased biosensors requires antibody unfolding. For this reason, durable chemistry for antibody immobilization is also needed for biosensor regeneration during such a calibration procedure. In addition to Au, other biocompatible substrate materials that have been employed for impedance biosensors include C, Si, Pt, Ti, and ITO. Si is intriguing as a biosensor substrate, since it is directly below C in the periodic table, so Si-C bonds are of comparable strength to C-C and Si-Si bonds. Additional advantages of Si substrates for biosensors include easier incorporation into ULSI devices and easier surface preparation relative to C. Room temperature combined galvanic and electroless deposition of compact Si films was recently reported from concentrated formic acid. Here these Si films are used for immobilization of the mouse monoclonal antibody to peanut protein Ara h 1, and subsequent impedance detection of the protein antigen. Peanuts are considered one of the most dangerous food allergens, with severe anaphylactic reactions causing over 100 fatalities in the United States alone each year. Nine possible allergens within peanuts have been identified, Ara h 1 to Ara h 8, and peanut oleosin, with Ara h 1 the most widely studied.
Reagan and the Russians: Crisis Bargaining Beliefs and the Historical Record

Reagan's view of how to deal with the Soviet Union is compared to the U. S. performance record in three Soviet-American crises: Berlin, 1948-1949, Berlin, 1961, andCuba, 1962. Reagan's public statements indicate that he views the Soviets as incorrigibly hostile, so that conflict bargaining with the Soviets is a zero-sum game requiring a coercive U.S. bargaining strategy. This is characterized as a “bullying” strategy and contrasted with a “reciprocating” approach. The two approaches provide competing hypotheses for an examination of Soviet responses to U.S. influence attempts. The study tests the association between types of U.S. influence attempts and initial Soviet reactions and then proceeds to an interrupted time series analysis of the longer effects of U. S. threats of force on the mix of coercion-accommodation in Soviet crisis bargaining. The author finds a positive association between specific U.S. threats of force and initial Soviet responses in kind, and between carrot-and-stick inducements that use less specific threats and more accommodative Soviet responses. With the exception of the Cuban crisis, U.S. threats of force have not been associated with significant extended shifts in the level of Soviet hostility. The article concludes that, on balance, the performance record of the United States is more supportive of the efficacy of a reciprocating strategy than the coercive bargaining strategy implied by Reagan's beliefs.
Examining the Strain-Crime Relationship Among African American Women: An Empirical Test of Agnew's General Strain Theory

OF DISSERTATION EXAMINING THE STRAIN-CRIME RELATIONSHIP AMONG AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF AGNEW’S GENERAL STRAIN THEORY Agnew’s (1992; 2006) general strain theory (GST) has become one of the foremost theories to explain crime in contemporary criminology. While it has undergone several empirical tests over the years, there remain many understudied aspects of the theory. The current study addresses some of these aspects by longitudinally exploring the relationship between multiple types of strain and drug and non-drug crime among a sample of African American women. Data for this study were collected as part of a larger study on how drug use and criminality are related to health disparities, particularly HIV, and service utilization among African American drug-using and non-drug-using women across justice system status—prison, probation, and community, no supervision. The overall sample comprised of 462 women who completed structured interviews at four time intervals with a response rate of 87 percent. The study was guided by three specific research aims. First, this study examined whether various types of strain―economic hardship, criminal victimization, and gendered racism―were conducive to different types of crime. Second, this study examined whether certain negative emotional states―anger, depression, and anxiety―mediated the effects on the strain-crime relationships among the women. And third, this study examined whether certain factors―social support, coping skills, and spiritual well-being―moderated the strain-crime relationships among the women. Findings revealed all three forms of strain had statistically significant effects on involvement in crimes unrelated to drug use, such as check fraud or burglary, among the women in the sample, while only economic hardship and victimization had significant effects on drug crime. In addition, partial mediation was found between economic hardship, anger, and non-drug crime and complete mediation occurred between gendered racism, anger, and non-drug crime. That is, women in the sample became angry after experiencing these types of strain and responded to that feeling by engaging in crimes unrelated to drugs. Lastly, moderation was only found in the logistic regression model examining gendered racism, social support, and non-drug crime. In other words, women with perceived high social support were less likely to commit non-drug crimes than those with low social support except when their gendered racism experiences became extremely high. This study’s findings will make significant contributions to the scholarship across multiple disciplines, as well as potentially inform practice and policy. Drawbacks and directions for future research are discussed.
Microstructure, static properties, and fatigue crack growth mechanisms in Ti-6Al-4V fabricated by additive manufacturing: LENS and EBM

Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) technology is capable of building 3D near-net-shaped functional parts directly from computer models using unit materials, such as powder or wire. Additive manufacturing's computer-aided design offers superior geometrical flexibility. The near-net-shaping capability also significantly reduces materials waste. These benefits make AM desirable for critical applications, such as aerospace, ground transportation, and medical. Confident utilization of the technology requires thorough understanding of the AM materials, ensuring that structural integrity and performance requirements are met or exceeded. In this study, Ti-6Al-4V fabricated by two AM techniques: Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) and Electron Beam Melting (EBM) were investigated and critically compared. Samples were built using various processing parameters and heat treated under different conditions, which resulted in different microstructures and mechanical properties. Characteristic microstructures were determined for all cases. Room temperature tensile and fatigue crack growth properties were also evaluated and compared in different orientations with respect to the building direction. The effects of post-AM heat treatments on microstructure and properties were also studied. The results are systematically presented and discussed from the material/process optimization, structural design, and fatigue life prediction perspectives.
Celebrating the process: O.J. and KTLA-TV

Boom. With a deep jolt, a drum is struck. The television screen fades in from black to reveal a still image of Orenthal James Simpson from the chest up. String and wind instruments suddenly rise into a slow, rather ominous melody, marked at regular intervals by repeated strikes of the drum. Simpson, clad in a conservative grey suit, white shirt, and multi-colored tie, fills the left half of the screen. His arms and hands cannot be seen. His shoulders are directed about one quarter turn to the right, his head cocked slightly to the side, his mouth pursed. His eyes stare up and out into space, away from the television spectator. Next to Simpson's head, dominating the right side of the screen, is a graphic formed with simple black and white letters and underlined in red: “The Simpson Trial.” Below this sits the KTLA news logo. These graphics and Simpson's image rest against a white background framed in blue. Closer inspection of the background reveals that it is really a muted image of the empty criminal trial courtroom. As the music continues, the graphics and Simpson's image dissolve into the first of three or four sound bites from the previous day's testimony. These sound bites are framed by boxes that pop up at various locations around the screen, expanding in size until about three-quarters of the screen is filled.
Entire Large Solutions to Elliptic Equations of Power Non-linearities with Variable Exponents

We give conditions on the variable exponent q that ensure the existence and nonexistence of a positive solution to the elliptic equation Δu = u q(x) on R N (N ≥ 3) which satisfies lim|x|→∞ u(x) = ∞. The nonnegative function q is required to be locally H¨ older continuous on R N . We prove existence for q > 1 provided q(x) decays to unity rapidly as |x |→∞ . We treat the case q ≤ 1 as a special case of q − 1 changing signs and show that a solution exists provided q is asymptotically radial. In addition, we give an example to show that our results are nearly optimal. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. 35J61, 35J15.
Abstract 39: Protein Disulfide Isomerase Plays an Important Role in αMβ2 Integrin-Mediated Neutrophil Recruitment During Vascular Inflammation

Introduction: Protein disulfide isomerase (PDI), a cell-surface localized oxidoreductase, plays a crucial role in regulating integrin-mediated platelet functions. Although PDI is detected on the neutrophil surface, its role in neutrophil recruitment during vascular inflammation remains unknown. Objectives: To determine the physiological role of neutrophil surface PDI in integrin-mediated neutrophil recruitment during vascular inflammation. Methods and Results: Using real-time fluorescence intravital microscopy in myeloid-specific PDI knockout mice, we have demonstrated that neutrophil PDI is required for neutrophil recruitment into the site of TNF-alpha-induced cremaster venular inflammation. Infusion of wild-type PDI but not functionally-inactive PDI rapidly rescued the defect of neutrophil recruitment in the PDI knockout mice. Cell-impermeable PDI inhibitors also perturbed neutrophil recruitment to the site of TNF-alpha-inflamed venular inflammation in wild-type mice. Neutrophil recruitment was further inhibited when blocking anti-PDI antibodies were infused into alphaLbeta2 but not alphaMbeta2 knockout mice, suggesting that extracellular PDI regulates alphaMbeta2-mediated neutrophil recruitment. To further investigate the role of neutrophil surface PDI in integrin-mediated neutrophil adhesion during vascular inflammation, adhesion assays were performed using human neutrophils treated with cell-impermeable PDI inhibitors. PDI inhibition impaired human neutrophil adhesion to TNF-alpha-activated endothelial cells under venous shear and to ICAM-1-coated surfaces under static conditions. Neutrophil adhesion was further inhibited when anti-PDI was combined with anti-alphaL but not anti-alphaM antibodies. PDI inhibitors also perturbed fibrinogen binding to activated alphaMbeta2 integrin. Using PDI shRNA in neutrophil-like HL60 cells, we found that knockdown of PDI gene diminished alphaMbeta2-mediated cell adhesion to activated endothelial cells under shear. Immunoprecipitation assays and confocal microscopy revealed that surface PDI-alphaMbeta2 interaction is enhanced upon neutrophil activation and regulated by the isomerase activity. Conclusion: Our results indicate that neutrophil surface PDI regulates the alphaMbeta2-ligand interaction, thereby playing an important role in neutrophil recruitment to the activated endothelium during vascular inflammation.
Impedance and Mode Transformers

A microwave system usually involves several different types of waveguides, each with its own characteristic impedance and mode of propagation. One of the problems in microwave engineering is the design of the interface between different guides to optimize the overall system efficiency.
Rural Secondary Educators' Perceptions of Their Efficacy in the Inclusive Classroom:

The purpose of this study was to compare the differences in rural secondary special and general education teachers' perceptions of their efficacy in teaching students in an inclusive classroom. The...
Parallelization & checkpointing of GPU applications through program transformation

GPUs have emerged as a powerful tool for accelerating general-purpose applications. The availability of programming languages that makes writing general-purpose applications for running on GPUs tractable have consolidated GPUs as an alternative for accelerating generalpurpose applications. Among the areas that have bene#12;ted from GPU acceleration are: signal and image processing, computational uid dynamics, quantum chemistry, and, in general, the High Performance Computing (HPC) Industry. In order to continue to exploit higher levels of parallelism with GPUs, multi-GPU systems are gaining popularity. In this context, single-GPU applications are parallelized for running in multi-GPU systems. Furthermore, multi-GPU systems help to solve the GPU memory limitation for applications with large application memory footprint. Parallelizing single-GPU applications has been approached by libraries that distribute the workload at runtime, however, they impose execution overhead and are not portable. On the other hand, on traditional CPU systems, parallelization has been approached through application transformation at pre-compile time, which enhances the application to distribute the workload at application level and does not have the issues of library-based approaches. Hence, a parallelization scheme for GPU systems based on application transformation is needed. Like any computing engine of today, reliability is also a concern in GPUs. GPUs are vulnerable to transient and permanent failures. Current checkpoint/restart techniques are not suitable for systems with GPUs. Checkpointing for GPU systems present new and interesting challenges, primarily due to the natural di#11;erences imposed by the hardware design, the memory subsystem architecture, the massive number of threads, and the limited amount of synchronization among threads. Therefore, a checkpoint/restart technique suitable for GPU systems is needed. The goal of this work is to exploit higher levels of parallelism and to develop support for application-level fault tolerance in applications using multiple GPUs. Our techniques reduce the burden of enhancing single-GPU applications to support these features. To achieve our goal, this work designs and implements a framework for enhancing a single-GPU OpenCL application through application transformation.
À Votre Santé: Product Costing and Decision Analysis in the Wine Industry

A Votre Sante (AVS) requires students to incorporate operational measures into product costing results, and also to understand cost accounting from multiple perspectives, including product versus period costs, variable versus fixed costs and activity based costing. Also, the analyses require the students to understand the concepts of relevant costs and opportunity costs in order to make decisions for AVS. The case uses information taken from a small wine operation in Napa Valley; however, it has been simplified to reinforce the case analyses and teaching points. AVS has been used in an advanced graduate-level managerial accounting class, and would be most appropriate for a graduate-level accounting or MBA student or for an advanced undergraduate course.
Historical Perspective of Imaging Contrast Agents.

Contrast agents were introduced early in the history of medical imaging. Iodine-based intravascular agents became the radiographic compounds of choice and refinements of their chemical structures led to the highly tolerated low-osmolarity agents in use today. Gadolinium became the most popular compound for MR imaging; however, recognition of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis and in vivo dechelation intensified research on their safety profile. Ultrasonography contrast media evolved from manual injections of air through agitated saline solutions to microbubbles with different gases. Research has concentrated on bubble stabilization and development of small but sufficiently echogenic particles.
Cinema: Transforming an Imaginative Community

In an aesthetics of renewal, film can be understood as a re-enchanting art form that has the ability to transform the hearts and minds of people by telling stories in multisensory ways. This chapter discusses the various ways that films frame the world and present new realities to us. Movies have the ability to powerfully engage religious ideas and evoke spiritual yearnings in us. When film is properly utilized, it can become a powerful medium for building a re-enchanted, Spirit-filled community.
Methods for Detecting Host Genetic Modifiers of Tumor Vascular Function Using Dynamic Near-Infrared Fluorescence Imaging

Vascular supply is a critical component of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and is essential for tumor growth and metastasis, yet the endogenous genetic modifiers that impact vascular function in the TME are largely unknown. To identify the host TME modifiers of tumor vascular function, we combined a novel genetic mapping strategy [Consomic Xenograft Model] with near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging and multiparametric analysis of pharmacokinetic modeling. To detect vascular flow, an intensified cooled camera based dynamic NIR imaging system with 785 nm laser diode based excitation was used to image the whole-body fluorescence emission of intravenously injected indocyanine green dye. Principal component analysis was used to extract the spatial segmentation information for the lungs, liver, and tumor regions-of-interest. Vascular function was then quantified by pK modeling of the imaging data, which revealed significantly altered tissue perfusion and vascular permeability that were caused by host genetic modifiers in the TME. Collectively, these data demonstrate that NIR fluorescent imaging can be used as a non-invasive means for characterizing host TME modifiers of vascular function that have been linked with tumor risk, progression, and response to therapy.
Obsidian procurement and distribution in the Northwestern Maya lowlands during the Maya Classic, a regional perspective

Abstract A collection of 1338 obsidian artifacts and debitage from 37 archaeological sites (Early Formative to Late Classic) in the Northwestern Maya lowland in Mexico were analyzed using EDXRF and an attribute analysis. The study includes obsidian collected from urban population nodes like Chinikiha, Moral-Reforma, and Yaxchilan, incorporating the different types and size of settlements that include single platforms in the rural areas. The study illustrates a global perspective of the local communities in their daily use of obsidian. The application of an elemental sourcing analysis yielded the provenance of obsidian from sources in Guatemala (El Chayal, Ixtepeque, Jilotepeque) and Mexico (Zaragoza, Pachuca, Penjamo), pointing to the complex interregional and long-distance network of exchange that extended beyond the study area.
The binding of desialylated glycoproteins by plasma membranes of rat liver. Development of a quantitative inhibition assay.

Abstract A general method is described for the quantitative determination of the binding of glycoproteins, and their enzymatically modified derivatives, to the plasma membranes of rat liver. The assay is based upon the competitive inhibition of the binding phenomenon in an operationally irreversible system. Utilizing this procedure, a quantitative estimate of the ability of the membranes to bind four normally circulating serum glycoproteins, as well as their asialo and agalacto derivatives, has been made. The results obtained extend the previous qualitative observations in vivo and provide the basis for a systematic analysis of the structural determinants involved in the binding process.
Longitudinal Research and Functional Behavioral Assessment Issues

The role of functional behavioral assessment is contrasted with a longitudinal risk factors exposure model for understanding and predicting maladaptive behavioral outcomes in applied settings, and ...