cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
To drink or to drink less? Distinguishing between effects of implementation intentions on decisions to drink and how much to drink in treatment-seeking individuals with alcohol use disorder.

Abstract Introduction For many people with alcohol use disorders, alcohol drinking is a highly ingrained and automatized behavior with negative long-term health consequences. Implementation intentions, a behavioral intervention that links high-risk drinking situations with alternative, healthier responses, provide a means to intervene on habitual drinking behaviors. Here, a pilot treatment using implementation intentions was assessed with remote assessments and treatment prompts. Methods Treatment-seeking individuals with alcohol use disorder between the ages of 18 and 65 were recruited from the community from October 2014 to November 2016. Participants (N = 35) were quasi-randomly assigned to complete either active (n = 18) or control (n = 17) two-week implementation intention interventions. Active implementation intentions linked high-risk situations with alternative responses whereas the control condition selected situations and responses but did not link these together. Daily ecological momentary interventions of participant-tailored implementation intentions were delivered via text message. Alcohol consumption was assessed once daily with self-reported ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) of drinks consumed the previous day and thrice daily remotely submitted breathalyzer samples to assess reliability of self-reports. Results On drinking days (80% of days), the active implementation intentions group reduced alcohol consumption during the intervention period compared to the control condition; however the difference between consumption was not observed at one-month follow-up. Discussion The implementation intention intervention was associated with a 1.09 drink per day decrease in alcohol consumption on drinking days compared to a decrease of 0.29 drinks per day in the control condition. Future studies may combine implementation intentions with other treatments to help individuals to reduce alcohol consumption.
Creating Legal Versus Illegal Gambling Businesses: How Proper Government Regulation Makes a Difference

Casino gambling has been introduced in the United States to revive local economies by providing a desired activity without raising taxes on individuals. An important question is how to minimize the potential deleterious effects of legalized gambling while maximizing its economic benefits. From a criminological and economic perspective, central questions include the following: (1) to what extent legalized casino gambling has impacted rates of pathological gambling, (2) what its impact is on crime rates, (3) to what extent organized crime has infiltrated legal gambling, and (4) what the best methods are to protect legal gambling from illegal activity. This analysis examines what is known about these impacts, and it reviews methods to maximize the positive impacts of casino gambling while minimizing its negative social and economic impacts.
Immediate Effect of Lumbar Mobilization on Activity of Erector Spinae and Lumbar Multifidus Muscles

Abstract Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of grade IV lumbar mobilization on the activity/contraction of erector spinae (ES) and lumbar multifidus (LM) muscles in healthy people. Methods A randomized, repeated-measures design was used. Sixteen healthy subjects attended 3 testing sessions with a different intervention in each session (no intervention, grade IV central lumbar mobilization at L4, and placebo/light touch). Lying in a prone position, subjects lifted a light weight with their right arm while ultrasound images of LM and surface electromyography signals of ES were captured before and immediately after application of the intervention in the session. The contraction of LM was calculated from US images, and the root mean square was calculated from the electromyography signals of ES and used as outcome measures. Results A significant difference was found in LM contraction between the placebo and mobilization intervention (difference = 0.04, P = .02). There was no difference for the root mean square of electromyography signals between the interventions. Conclusion The significant difference in LM contraction was small and may not have clinical significance. Lumbar mobilization did not change the activity of ES in healthy people. Future studies with larger samples are needed to confirm our findings and to investigate the effect of mobilization on back muscles in people with low back pain.
How do birds look at their world? A novel avian visual fixation strategy

A central assumption in behavioral research is that the observer knows where an animal is looking; however, establishing when an animal is gazing (i.e., visually fixating on an object) has been challenging in species with laterally placed eyes. We quantitatively tested three fixation strategies proposed in the literature for birds, using European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). We did not find strong support for any of the three strategies, despite high statistical a priori power (93%). However, we did observe a new visual fixation strategy that we labeled monocular alternating fixation. In this strategy, starlings moved their heads to make multiple fixations with a single eye before switching to the other eye and repeating the same process. Additionally, we established that individuals favored using the left over the right eye, supporting that laterality in starlings is left-eye dominant. The newly observed fixation strategy may be associated with the high level of intra-retinal variation (density of photoreceptors, overall sensitivity of visual pigments, etc.) in the starling retina. From a functional perspective, this monocular alternating fixation strategy may be beneficial to integrate the different types of information gathered by the different portions of each retina more quickly. We discuss the implications of our results for designing and interpreting behavioral experiments that require an understanding of where a bird is looking. This is the first study to quantitatively test three hypotheses in the literature about how animals with laterally placed eyes look at objects. We found that there was not strong support for any of these three strategies, but found support for a newly described strategy for birds to look at objects (i.e., multiple looks with a single eye before switching to the other eye).
Evaluation of Course Content and Teacher Effectiveness in Psychiatric Residencies as Viewed by Program Chief Residents

The author reports the results of a survey of chief residents of psychiatric training programs utilized to assess the existence, perceived value, and mechanisms by which residents evaluate their own training experience. A useable return rate of 75.1 percent was obtained. In that group, slightly over 25 percent of the programs reported that no mechanism existed to evaluate teacher effectiveness. In addition, 19.5 percent reported that there was no mechanism to evaluate course content. Slightly over 15 percent of the responding programs reported comprehensive evaluation techniques utilizing oral exams, self-assessment exams, or on-site evaluation techniques in addition to the highly used questionnaire format. The absence of evaluating mechanisms and the apparent superficial quality of a percentage of other programs is used as information corroborating the difficulty of the task and indicating an area needing assistance in developing valid and effective evaluation techniques.
Direct parameter estimation for generalised balanced power diagrams

ABSTRACTThe statistical characterisation and synthetic reproduction of a polycrystalline material's microstructure is assisted by mathematically representing its morphology by a tessellation model. The generalised balanced power diagram (GBPD) is a tessellation model that was shown in previous studies to accurately reproduce the microstructure morphology of various materials by closely matching micrographs obtained through electron microscopy. These studies employed costly optimisation procedures to determine the best-fit model parameters, limiting the scalability of the model. In this work, it is shown that setting the tessellation cell parameters to values such that the shape moments of the corresponding grains are matched results in a quality of fit that is commensurate with optimisation procedures. This fitting approach decouples the interaction among grains when fitting the tessellation parameters and, most notably, provides analytical, closed-form expressions for all the model parameters. The perfor...
Introduction to Plasma Etching

Plasma etching has become a crucial process step for the microelectronics industry, as computer logic and memory circuits require increasingly precise fabrication of fine-scale patterns in semiconductors, metals, and insulators. Plasma etching generally involves the dissociation and ionization of a neutral precursor gas to form reactive neutral fragments and charged ions and electrons. The substrate to be etched is placed in contact with this mixture, and etching proceeds through the synergistic interaction of the substrate, corrosive neutral species, and directionally impinging plasma ions.
Orthophosphate and histone dependent polyphosphate kinase from E.coli

Abstract A polyphosphate kinase has been purified over 100-fold from an extract of E. coli K-12. It requires both orthophosphate and a basic protein (histone or protamine) for maximum activity. Because its activity is stimulated by histone, polyphosphate kinase may easily lead to an error in the determination of protein kinase in the cell extract. Our data suggest that the stimulatory effect of orthophosphate on polyphosphate kinase may be important in the regulation of phosphate metabolism in the microorganism.
Optimal Control for Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems

As time-driven and event-driven systems are rapidly coming together, the field of optimal control is presented with an opportunity to expand its horizons to these new “hybrid” dynamic systems. In this paper, we consider a general optimal control problem formulation for such systems and describe a modeling framework allowing us to decompose the problem into lower and higher-level components. We then show how to apply this setting to a class of switched linear systems with a simple event-driven switching process, in which case explicit solutions may often be obtained. For a different class of problems, where the complexity lies in the nondifferentiable nature of event-driven dynamics, we show that a different type of decomposition still allows us to obtain explicit solutions for a class of such problems. These two classes of problems illustrate the differences between various sources of complexity that one needs to confront in tackling optimal control problems for discrete-event and hybrid systems.
In vivo chloride concentrations surge to proteotoxic levels during acid stress

To successfully colonize the intestine, bacteria must survive passage through the stomach. The permeability of the outer membrane renders the periplasm of Gram-negative bacteria vulnerable to stomach acid, which inactivates proteins. Here we report that the semipermeable nature of the outer membrane allows the development of a strong Donnan equilibrium across this barrier at low pH. As a result, when bacteria are exposed to conditions that mimic gastric juice, periplasmic chloride concentrations rise to levels that exceed 0.6 M. At these chloride concentrations, proteins readily aggregate in vitro. The acid sensitivity of strains lacking acid-protective chaperones is enhanced by chloride, suggesting that these chaperones protect periplasmic proteins both from acidification and from the accompanying accumulation of chloride. These results illustrate how organisms have evolved chaperones to respond to the substantial chemical threat imposed by otherwise innocuous chloride concentrations that are amplified to proteotoxic levels by low-pH-induced Donnan equilibrium effects.
Microanatomical dissection of human intestinal T-cell immunity reveals site-specific changes in gut-associated lymphoid tissues over life

Defining adaptive immunity with the complex structures of the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract over life is essential for understanding immune responses to ingested antigens, commensal and pathogenic microorganisms, and dysfunctions in disease. We present here an analysis of lymphocyte localization and T cell subset composition across the human GI tract including mucosal sites (jejunum, ileum, colon), gut-associated lymphoid tissues (isolated lymphoid follicles (ILFs), Peyer's patches (PPs), appendix), and mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs) from a total of 68 donors spanning eight decades of life. In pediatric donors, ILFs and PP containing naive T cells and regulatory T cells (Tregs) are prevalent in the jejunum and ileum, respectively; these decline in frequency with age, contrasting stable frequencies of ILFs and T cell subsets in the colon. In the mucosa, tissue resident memory T cells develop during childhood, and persist in high frequencies into advanced ages, while T cell composition changes with age in GALT and MLN. These spatial and temporal features of human intestinal T cell immunity define signatures that can be used to train predictive machine learning algorithms. Our findings demonstrate an anatomic basis for age-associated alterations in immune responses, and establish a quantitative baseline for intestinal immunity to define disease pathologies.
Increases in Life-Safety Risks to Building Occupants from Induced Earthquakes in the Central United States:

Earthquake occurrence rates in some parts of the Central United States have been elevated for a number of years; this increase has been widely attributed to deep wastewater injection associated wit...
Asthma Phenotypes as a Guide for Current and Future Biologic Therapies

Asthma has been increasingly recognized as being a heterogeneous disease with multiple distinct mechanisms and pathophysiologies. Evidence continues to build regarding the existence of different cell types, environmental exposures, pathogens, and other factors that produce a similar set of symptoms known collectively as asthma. This has led to a movement from a "one size fits all" symptom-based methodology to a more patient-centered, individualized approach to asthma treatment targeting the underlying disease process. A significant contributor to this shift to more personalized asthma therapy has been the increasing availability of numerous biologic therapies in recent years, providing the opportunity for more targeted treatments. When targeted biologics began to be developed for treatment of asthma, the hope was that distinct biomarkers would become available, allowing the clinician to determine which biologic therapy was best suited for which patients. Presence of certain biomarkers, like eosinophilia or antigen-specific IgE, is important features of specific asthma phenotypes. Currently available biomarkers can help with decision making about biologics, but are generally too broad and non-specific to clearly identify an asthma phenotype or the single biologic best suited to an asthmatic. Identification of further biomarkers is the subject of intense research. Yet, identifying a patient's asthma phenotype can help in predicting disease course, response to treatment, and biologic therapies to consider. In this review, major asthma phenotypes are reviewed, and the evidence for the utility of various biologics, both those currently on the market and those in the development process, in each of these phenotypes is explored.
Staff Formation of Library Employees in the Postwar Kazakhstan, 1945–1965

On the history of staff formation of library employees in Kazakhstan during the post-war period. The author analyzes the archive documents, which reveal prerequisites of training specialists system in the librarianship.
Impact of pretransplant conditioning and donor T cells on chimerism, graft-versus-host disease, graft-versus-leukemia reactivity, and tolerance after bone marrow transplantation

Graft rejection, mixed chimerism, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), leukemia relapse, and tolerance are interrelated manifestations of immunologic reactivity between donor and host cells that significantly affect survival after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT). In this report, a mouse model of BMT, in which the donor and host were compatible at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), was used (1) to examine the interrelationship of pretransplant conditioning and T-cell content of donor BM with regard to lymphoid chimerism and GVHD and (2) to determine how these factors affected graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) reactivity and donor-host-tolerance. AKR (H-2k) host mice were administered optimal or suboptimal total body irradiation (TBI) as pretransplant conditioning followed by administration of BM cells from B10.BR (H-2k) donor mice with or without added spleen cells as a source of T lymphocytes. Transplanted mice were injected with a supralethal dose of AKR leukemia cells 20 and 45 days post-BMT to assess GVL reactivity in vivo. The pretransplant conditioning of the host and T-cell content of the donor marrow affected the extent of donor T-cell chimerism and the severity of GVH disease. GVL reactivity was dependent on transplantation of mature donor T cells and occurred only in complete chimeras. Transplantation of T-cell-deficient BM resulted in the persistence of host T cells, ie, incomplete donor T-cell chimerism, even when lethal TBI was used. Mixed chimerism was associated with a lack of GVL reactivity, despite the fact that similar numbers of donor T cells were present in the spleens of mixed and complete chimeras. In this model, moderate numbers of donor T cells facilitated complete donor T-cell engraftment, caused only mild GVHD, and provided a significant GVL effect without preventing the subsequent development of tolerance after conditioning with suboptimal TBI. In contrast, severe, often lethal, GVHD developed when the dose of TBI was increased, whereas tolerance and no GVH/GVL reactivity developed when the T-cell content of the marrow was decreased.
Scheduling with partial rejection

Abstract We study a single machine scheduling problem with partial rejection. Each job is with an integer processing time. Partial rejection occurs when a job is only partly processed with penalty for the rejected part. We focus on integer size rejection. The objective is to minimize the total weighted completion time of processed jobs plus the total rejection cost. We develop a polynomial time optimal algorithm to solve the problem. We also present an easy-to-implement pseudopolynomial time optimal algorithm.
A Simulation Model for External Cephalic Version.

Breech presentation complicates as many as 4% of all deliveries. External cephalic version (ECV) is a procedure that involves the external rotation of the fetus through the mother's abdomen from a breech position into a cephalic position. It provides a beneficial alternative to cesarean section (CS) as it is less invasive, more cost-effective, and mitigates many of the maternal health risks associated with CS. Though ECV has become more widely used in recent years, studies have shown that a large percentage of residency programs lack proper training pertaining to ECV, increasing the need for additional educational intervention. A well-supported method of procedural training that has demonstrated efficacy among trainees is the incorporation of simulation models. While many models have already been developed for various obstetrical procedures, few easily reproducible models currently exist for ECV. The purpose of this study was to develop a reconstructible ECV model that could be utilized for practice by trainees in the field of obstetrics. This study's proposed ECV model along with a lecture that was presented to residents and data on the effectiveness of the model and comfort with performing the procedure was collected and analyzed. The results demonstrated that when compared to baseline prior to training, levels of comfort with performing an ECV increased amongst trainees after practicing on the model.
Outcomes of patients with intermediate-risk or poor-risk metastatic renal cell carcinoma who received their first cycle of nivolumab and ipilimumab in the hospital because of symptomatic disease: The MD Anderson Cancer Center experience.

Nivolumab plus ipilimumab (nivo/ipi) is an approved therapy for patients with intermediate- or poor-risk metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Clinical factors that guide the selection of this regimen for patients with mRCC are urgently needed. We retrospectively analyzed medical records of patients with mRCC who were hospitalized at MD Anderson Cancer Center because of cancer-related symptoms and received their first cycle of nivo/ipi in the inpatient setting. Clinical parameters, including demographics, histology, clinical history, response, and survival, were collected. The four-month survival probability, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were calculated using Kaplan-Meier methods. Between November 2017 and June 2020, 21 patients were identified that fit the search: 19 patients (91%) had poor-risk disease based on the International Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma Database Consortium (IMDC) risk score; 17 patients (81%) had ≥4 risk factors; and 9 patients (43%) had sarcomatoid features on histology. Shortness of breath (28%) and abdominal pain (19%) were the two most common reasons for hospitalization. Partial response was achieved in 14% (3/21) of patients. Median PFS for all patients was 1.7 months (95% CI 0 - 3.9); median OS for all patients was 1.7 months (95% CI 0 - 4.2); and the 4-month survival probability was 36% (95% CI 25% - 47%). In this retrospective study, patients with intermediate- or poor-risk mRCC who are hospitalized at a large tertiary referral center for cancer-related symptoms derive limited clinical benefit from nivo/ipi when started in the inpatient setting. Alternative, more effective systemic therapies should be considered for these patients. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
PFOA Exposure Prior to Hepatocyte Differentiation Leads to Gene Expression Changes Implicated in Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Background: Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), is a persistent fluorinated compound with oil and water repelling properties found in cookware, food packaging and municipal water systems. Adult animals exposed to PFOA develop hepatomegaly, fatty liver, peroxisome proliferation, and immunotoxicity. Rodents exposed to PFCs in utero have altered hepatic lipid metabolism, increased hepatic de novo lipogenesis and susceptibility to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. With increasing rates of obesity, diabetes, and NAFLD it is critical to examine the mechanisms by which in utero exposure to PFOA contributes to the development of metabolic syndrome in offspring. Objective: To determine mechanism by which PFOA alters gene expression in undifferentiated hepatic progenitor cells. Design/methods: HepaRG cells, a human derived hepatocyte progenitor cell line, was treated with 0.5uM PFOA or vehicle for 48 hours followed by differentiation into hepatocytes. Total RNA was extracted using the RNeasy (Qiagen) [total RNA A260/280>2 and RNA integrity number >7 (Agilent Bioanalyzer)] to generate libraries with the Illumina TruSeq stranded total RNA kit. RNA-Seq was performed using 85 bp single-end read sequencing to generate >20 million reads per sample. RNAseq data was aligned to hg38 using STAR v2.6.1a and then quantified with featureCounts v1.6.2. DESeq2 identified differentially expressed genes via FDR (false discovery rate) after Bonferroni correction. Differentially expressed gene lists were used for Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) to identify pathways of biological significance. Results: PFOA treatment resulted in increased expression of transcription factors EGR1 (early growth response protein 1), NR4A1 (nuclear receptor Nur77), EGR2 (early growth response protein 2), KLF10 (Krueppel-like factor 10) and FOSL1 (Fos-related antigen 1), key genes linked to impaired hepatic insulin signaling, hepatic lipid metabolism, steatosis and fibrosis (fold change > 1.5; q <0.05). IPA identified enrichment of canonical pathways with biological relevance including hepatic fibrosis signaling, stellate cell activation, VDR/RXR/TR activation, and Type 2 diabetes mellitus signaling (p<0.01). Conclusion: Hepatocyte progenitor cells exposed to low dose PFOA for 48 hours prior to differentiation results in changes in expression of key metabolic genes linked to the development of NAFLD and enrichment of biologically relevant pathways associated with hepatic fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. These results suggest that PFOA exposure in utero may have lasting effects on hepatic glucose and lipid metabolism after differentiation. Further studies are needed to characterize the longstanding metabolic effects of in utero PFOA exposure in offspring and the mechanisms driving the persistence of these changes.
IPO Underpricing and Underwriting Spreads: Evidence for Dichotomy of Formation

The formal theoretical model in this study explicitly establishes the following results. Suppose the distribution of IPO quality either is time invariant, or equivalently, that distributions for IPO underpricing and underwriting spreads are explicitly conditioned on realizations of IPO quality. Within this context, cross-sectional relations that subsist between IPO underpricing and underwriting spreads, which are shown to be negative, predominate. Suppose, on the contrary, that the distribution of IPO quality is time varying. In this context, time series relations between IPO underpricing and underwriting spreads, which are shown to be positive, tend to predominate. If time series relations exactly counterbalance cross-sectional relations, relations between IPO underpricing and underwriting spreads turn out statistically insignificant. Combined, study findings show the distribution of IPO underwriting spreads and underpricing cannot be induced by exactly the same economic agents. Given the distribution of underwriting spreads is shown, in context of a non-cooperative game theoretic rational expectations equilibrium, to be induced by underwriters, by default, the distribution of underpricing is predicted to be induced by investors. This prediction implies models of IPO underpricing within which equilibriums for underpricing are determined by underwriters cannot be deemed to be robust.
Racial and Ethnic Differences in Problem Gambling among College Students.

The college years are a formative period where the risk for development of problematic gambling is high. Research examining racial and ethnic differences in gambling behaviors has been limited and inconsistent. The aims of this study were to examine racial and ethnic differences in problem gambling among a large sample of college students. Undergraduates (N = 3058) from a large southern university completed an online screening questionnaire which included demographics, gambling frequency, gambling expenditure (i.e. money lost) in the previous 6 months, and the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS). Negative binomial regression results indicated that Asian participants gambled less frequently than participants who were Caucasian or Hispanic/Latino(a), but spent more money than participants who were African-American (AA)/Black or Hispanic/Latino(a). A significantly larger proportion of Asian students met probable pathological gambling criteria (SOGS 5+; 7.8 %) and at-risk gambling criteria (SOGS 3+; 16.3 %)) than Caucasian (5.2; 10.1 %), AA/Black (3.9; 10.2 %), or Hispanic/Latino(a) (3.6; 9.4 %) students. Additionally, a significantly larger proportion of Asian students endorsed problematic gambling indicators such as lying about losses, feeling guilty about gambling, feeling like they had a gambling problem, being criticized for their gambling, feeling like they couldn't stop gambling, losing time from school or work due to gambling, having a family history of problem gambling, and arguing with close others about their gambling than Caucasian, AA/Black or Hispanic/Latino(a) students. Results suggest that Asian students may be a high-risk sub-group of college gamblers, and that there is a critical need for targeted interventions for this population.
A relational theory of model management

The field of DSS, which began as an investigation into the need for tools to help managers to solve ill-structured problems [Carlson, 1977; Keen and Morton, 1978; Keen and Wagner, 1979; Alter, 1980], has grown to encompass a variety of approaches and concerns, including artificial intelligence, model management, information economics, and individual and group behavior [Blanning, 1983b; Bonczek, Holsapple and Whinston, 1981]. This is also reflected in the content of several recent collections of papers on DSS [Fick and Sprague, 1980; Ginzberg, Reitman, and Stohr, 1982; Bennett, 1983; House, 1983; Sol, 1983], and in attempts to develop a framework for DSS that includes stored data, data analysis procedures, and decision models [Blanning, 1982c, 1982d, 1979].
A new unsupervised learning algorithm for the placement of centers in a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN)

RBFNNs represent a promising tool for the approximation of functions of several variables, and find numerous applications in many engineering fields. Their overall approximation accuracy is critically dependent on the relative positions of centers with respect to the training samples. In this paper the problem of an optimal center placement is formulated in terms of an energy function. A new and robust unsupervised learning technique is then developed, which leads to a center arrangement which is independent of their initial positions and of the order of presentation of the training samples. The performances of this new algorithm are then compared with those of the classical winner-take-all types in the given example.
Complementarity and the Scientific Method: A Criticism

The definition of quantum mechanical variables can only be made with the aid of classical physical concepts. These are identical — except for refinements — with the concepts of everyday life. Heisenberg has written: “The concepts of classical physics will remain the basis of any exact and objective science. Because we demand of the results of science that they can be objectively proved (i. e. by measurements, registered on suitable apparatus) we are forced to express these results in the language of classical physics... Thus while the laws of classical physics... appear only as limiting cases of more general and abstract connections, the concepts associated with these laws remain an indispensable part of the language of science without which it would not be possible even to speak of scientific results” 1.
Simulation and compensation of multibunch energy variation in NLC

The SLAC NLC design for a next-generation linear collider utilizes multibunching (acceleration of a train of bunches on each RF fill) to increase the luminosity and energy efficiency. It is necessary to control the energy spread of the beam, in order to minimize chromatic emittance dilution and be within the energy acceptance of the final focus. It is anticipated that the NLC may run with bunch trains having length equal to a substantial fraction of the filling time. Multibunch energy simulation methods and compensation schemes appropriate to this regime are presented. >
Hydrogen-bonded capsules in polar, protic solvents

A kinetically stable, dimeric capsule is formed by tetrahydroxyresorcinarene in methanol; it encapsulates tropylium and tetramethylammonium cations.
Calpain inhibition decreases myocardial apoptosis in a swine model of chronic myocardial ischemia

Introduction Calpain is a family of cysteine proteases that has an important role in the initiation, regulation, and execution of cell death. Our recent studies using a hypercholesterolemic swine model demonstrated that in the setting of the metabolic syndrome, calpain inhibition (CI) improved collateral-dependent perfusion and increased expression of proteins implicated in angiogenesis and vasodilation. In this study, we hypothesized that CI (by MLD28170) would decrease myocardial apoptosis in the same model. Methods Yorkshire swine, all fed a high-cholesterol diet for 4 weeks underwent placement of an ameroid constrictor on the left circumflex coronary artery. Three weeks later, animals received either no drug, termed the high-cholesterol control group (HCC; n = 8); low-dose CI (0.12 mg/kg; LCI, n = 9); or high-dose CI (0.25 mg/kg; HCI, n = 8). The high-cholesterol diet and the CI were continued for 5 weeks, after which the pig was humanely killed and the left ventricular myocardium was harvested and analyzed via terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining, oxyblot analysis, and Western blots. Data were analyzed using the Kruskal–Wallis test. Results The percentage of apoptotic cells to total cells in ischemic myocardial territory was decreased in the LCI and HCI groups compared with the HCC group as shown by TUNEL staining (P = .018). There was a decrease in proapoptotic proteins, including cleaved caspase 3, caspase 9, cleaved caspase 9, Bax, BAD, p-BAD, and Erk 1/2 (P ≤ .049 each), but no decrease in caspase 3 (P = .737). There was also an increase in antiapoptotic proteins, including BCL-2 and p-BCL2 (P ≤ .025 each). In the ischemic myocardium, several proangiogenic proteins were increased in the LCI and HCI groups compared with the HCC group, including p-AKT, p-eNOS, and eNOS (P ≤ .006 each) but there was no increase in AKT (P = .311). CI decreased tissue oxidative stress in both the LCI and HCI groups compared to the HCC group as shown by oxyblot analysis (P = .021). Conclusion In the setting of hypercholesterolemia, CI decreases apoptosis and the expression of proteins in proapoptotic signaling pathways. CI also increased expression of proteins implicated in anti apoptotic pathways and improves oxidative stress in ischemic myocardial tissue.
Effects of pressure on biomass pyrolysis. I. Cellulose pyrolysis products

Abstract A three phase research program, using a tubular, laminar flow, micro reactor system, was undertaken to study the effects of pressure on biomass pyrolysis. Results of the first two phases indicate that increasing pressure increases the yields of char and CO 2 , and decreases the yields of CO, CH 4 , C 2 H 6 and C 3 H 6 . Increased volatile residence time favors the formation of char, and increases yields of C 2 H 6 at the expense of CO and C 3 ,'s. The addition of small amounts of O 2 reduces the yields of all hydrocarbons, but has little effect on char formation.
Elvax 40P implants: Sustained, local release of bioactive molecules influencing mammary ductal development

Elvax 40P (EVX), an ethylene vinyl-acetate copolymer, has been well characterized as an implant material that causes no inflammatory response and is capable of the sustained, local release of a wide variety of undenatured macromolecules in vivo. To investigate the usefulness of this material in developmental studies we examined the effect of EVX implants containing either deoxycorticosterone acetate (DCA) or testicular hyaluronidase on alveolar differentiation and ductal growth in the mouse mammary gland. DCA implants produced localized alveolar differentiation on ducts, while implants containing Thase caused basal lamina disruption at the duct's growing tip, resulting in epithelial dysplasias. We conclude that EVX implants allow assessment of the primary (nonsystemic) effects of biologically active molecules on developing tissue and should therefore have a variety of interesting experimental uses.
Influence of muscle cell substrates on differentiation of intrafusal fiber types in neonatal rats.

Abstract Rat muscle spindles contain one nuclear bag2, one nuclear bag1, and two nuclear chain fibers. The three different types of intrafusal fiber in spindles may be a reflection of concomitant changes in proportions of slow primary, slow/fast secondary, and fast secondary myotubes during the period of spindle development. We examined whether experimentally altering the available muscle substrates would impact the intrafusal fiber type composition of spindles. De novo formation of spindles in muscles devoid of primary myotubes was induced by crushing the nerve to the medial gastrocnemius muscle in newborn rats and administering nerve growth factor for ten days afterwards. Encapsulated fibers of the reinnervated muscles examined one month after nerve crush had myofibrillar adenosine triphosphatase and myosin heavy chain profiles similar to normal bag2, bag1, or chain intrafusal fibers. However, spindles in reinnervated muscles contained fewer fibers than controls. Most experimental spindles contained chain and/or bag1 fibers, the two fiber types which ordinarily arise during secondary myogenesis. In contrast, bag2 fibers, fibers that normally form concomitant with primary myogenesis, were absent from nearly 90% of spindles in reinnervated muscles. The paucity of bag2 fibers may reflect the absence of primary myotubes, whereas the prevalence of chain and/or bag1 fibers may reflect that secondary myotubes or myofibers that descended from the secondary myotubes were the principal muscle substrates available for spindle formation in the nerve-crushed muscles. The paucity of bag2 fibers in spindles formed in muscles devoid of primary myotubes suggests that the types of muscle substrates available to afferents are an important determinant of intrafusal fiber types in muscle spindles, and that the formation of a bag2 fiber in an intrafusal bundle is not essential for the subsequent differentiation of chain and/or bag1 fibers.
Neurofibromatosis, factor IX deficiency, and rhabdomyosarcoma

A paratesticular rhabdomyosarcoma occurred in a child with factor IX deficiency and neurofibromatosis, illustrating the need to consider carefully the various etiologic possibilities of a soft-tissue mass in a child with neurofibromatosis and/or a bleeding disorder.
Four-wave mixing signatures of exciton Bose condensation

Abstract We propose a transient grating experiment in order to observe exciton Bose condensation. We show that for typical parameters in semiconductors the velocities of first and second sound are comparable, resulting in a characteristic behavior of the decay of the longitudinal modes.
T cells need Nod too

Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain 2 (Nod2) is required for sensing of intracellular bacteria and subsequent inflammatory responses. Unexpectedly, new evidence suggests that Nod2 influences T helper cell signaling, proliferation and differentiation and effector responses against Toxoplasma gondii.
Models and molecules

Receptors: Models for Binding, Trafficking and Signalling. By Douglas A. Lauf-fenburger and Jennifer J. Linderman, Oxford University Press: 1993. Pp. 365. £50, $69.95.
Secondary ion mass spectroscopy depth profiles of heterojunction bipolar transistor emitter-base heterojunctions grown by low pressure OMVPE

Abstract Depth profiles of zinc in heteojunction bipolar transistor emitter-base heteterojunctions have been studied with secondary ion mass spectroscopy in order to evaluate zinc diffusion. The tellurium doping concentration used in the emitter is found to be parameter primarily responsible for inducing zinc diffusion. Base doping densities ≈ 10 20 cm −3 were achieved without significant zinc diffusion.
Reliability and validity of observer ratings of neighborhoods.

OBJECTIVES The objectives were to examine the validity and reliability of a five-item neighborhood measurement scale. METHODS Respondents were enrolled from two catchment areas: a poor inner city and a heterogeneous suburban area. Items combine for a total score of 5 (best) to 20 (worst). The authors compared scales across catchment areas and respondent ratings and assessed interviewer effects and retest reliability. RESULTS Suburban neighborhood scale scores were 3 points lower (higher socioeconomic status, SES) than the inner-city scores. There was a strong relationship between scores and participants' neighborhood ratings. The retest correlation was substantial (.81), but only two of five items achieved kappas above .75. In regression models, interviewer experience and residence and individual interviewers contributed to different ratings, although there was still a marked difference between catchment areas. DISCUSSION Observer ratings of neighborhoods show promise as a measure of neighborhood SES, despite problems with interviewer effects. Future work should improve objective criteria for ratings.
A simulation study of the formation of a bipolar magnetic structure

Abstract Some recent solar observations show that a bipolar magnetic flux in an active region tends to disappear in situ, in less than one solar rotation, without evidence of spreading. This feature is difficult to explain if it is assumed that magnetic buoyancy is the dominant force in controlling dynamics of a magnetic flux tube, since the assumption implies no other force to submerge the tube. These observations may be explained by assuming that a convective motion is the major cause for the formation of a Ω -shaped geometry of the magnetic flux tube, but that the flux tube thus arisen is submerged by the counteracting Lorentz force as the convective motion decays. A two-dimensional MHD simulation method is used to demonstrate this possibility.
Temporal Summation Phenomena at Threshold: Their Relation to Visual Mechanisms

Threshold energies were determined for brief flashes as a function of their duration in order to determine the maximum duration for which the flash intensity and duration could be varied reciprocally without affecting detectability (the Bunsen-Roscoe effect). A pair of threshold-level flashes for which reciprocity obtained in the determination of threshold were shown to be discriminable from each other at several imperfectly detectable energy levels. Thus equal detectability of flashes of equal energy does not imply identical neural responses to such stimuli. It is suggested that the summation reflects primarily the operation of the detection mechanism rather than of the peripheral visual mechanism. Some general implications for the interpretation of threshold measures are also discussed.
DIFFUSION APPROXIMATION OF RADIATIVE TRANSFER EQUATIONS IN A CHANNEL

We address the propagation of elastic waves generated by an earthquake in the earth crust modeled by a channel separated from the atmosphere and the mantel by two horizontal interfaces. Geophysical studies have shown the validity of radiative transfer in this frequency regime to describe the phase space energy density of seismic waves. For long times and large distances, radiative transfer in weakly absorbing media can be approximated by a diffusion equation. However, the thickness of the crust is of the order of the transport mean free path, the average distance it takes for waves with a wavenumber v to be scattered into another wavenumber v′ by interaction with the inhomogeneous underlying medium. Hence there cannot be diffusion in the vertical direction. This paper shows that diffusion is still valid in the following sense. The radiative transfer solution factors asymptotically in the limit of vanishing mean free paths as the product of a two-dimensional diffusion term in the horizontal directions and ...
Magnitude of the problem. American college of surgeons database and epidemiologic study

Background. The third American College of Surgeons pattern of care survey for cancer of the prostate is underway to document the current methods and means of presentation, diagnosis, and clinical management of patients in the United States. Methods. Questions about the geographic distribution and methods of treatment by stage and grade together with patient mix and survival information will be answered from the data collected from more than 950 hospitals across the United States for the period 1984-1990. May 1992 was the final date for submission of data for this survey. Conclusions. Prostate cancer continues to be the most common cancer in men, excluding skin cancer
Transient vibrational dynamics in condensed phase reactions

Transient infrared methods are used to observe directly fast reactions and vibrational relaxation processes in solution with high spectral resolution. Bimolecular reactions of the CN radical are observed following photolysis of ICN in chloroform. The CN radicals react with solvent molecules to form HCN. In the deuterated solvent, some of the nascent DCN molecules are formed in a vibrationally excited state, which constitutes the first-observation of vibrationally excited products in a condensed phase bimolecular reaction. In a second experiment, photolysis of s-tetrazine in solution creates vibrationally hot HCN in a unimolecular reaction. Deuterated s-tetrazine creates an initially inverted vibrational distribution of DCN products. Both experiments indicate that the dynamics of reactive barrier crossings and vibrational energy redistribution are significantly altered upon solvation.
Parity determination of high-spin yrast levels in 156Er☆

Abstract Spectra of internal-conversion electrons from the 148 Sm( 12 C, 4n) 156 Er reaction have been used to show that an unusual odd-spin band in 156 Er, through which the yrast cascade proceeds at high spin, has negative parity.
Feed-forward dendritic inhibition in rat hippocampal pyramidal cells studied in vitro.

1. Intracellular recordings from CA1 pyramidal cells in the rat hippocampal slice preparation have been used to study the neuronal pathways involved in hippocampal synaptic inhibition. 2. When direct comparisons are made in a single pyramidal cell, orthodromic stimulation delivered to stratum (s.) radiatum in normal recording conditions is found to be more effective than antidromic stimulation in producing inhibitory post-synaptic potentials (i.p.s.p.s). 3. Orthodromic i.p.s.p.s in normal conditions appear to be complex, multiphasic events, whereas antidromic i.p.s.p.s are relatively simple. The orthodromic i.p.s.p. involves both a GABA-mediated dendritic component and a non-GABA-mediated component neither of which is activated by antidromic stimulation. 4. Barbiturates induce a late depolarizing phase of the orthodromic response, a `depolarizing i.p.s.p.', which is mediated by GABA. The depolarizing i.p.s.p. is not produced by antidromic stimulation. 5. Injections of tetrodotoxin and bicuculline methiodide localized to either somatic or apical dendritic regions reveal that the depolarizing i.p.s.p. is produced by GABA released from neuronal elements in the dendritic field which acts on pyramidal cell dendrites. 6. The depolarizing i.p.s.p. is strongly temperature-dependent and increases in amplitude and duration progressively as slices are cooled from 37 to 22 °C. 7. Depolarizing i.p.s.p.s can be produced by orthodromic stimulation in s. oriens as well as in s. radiatum. In each case the depolarizing i.p.s.p.s appear localized to the dendrites in the field stimulated. 8. We conclude that the depolarizing i.p.s.p. evident in the presence of barbiturates is caused by the same synaptic release of GABA which in normal conditions produces hyperpolarizing dendritic i.p.s.p.s. 9. Numerous comparisons between orthodromic and antidromic stimulation indicate that dendritic i.p.s.p.s are activated by feed-forward pathways.