cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Axial compression generated by cortical and cancellous lag screws in the equine distal phalanx.

Abstract Lag screw fixation using single 4.5 mm cortical bone screws is a recommended technique for repair of mid-sagittal plane fractures of the distal phalanx in adult horses. However, implant infection and technical difficulties in obtaining adequate interfragmentary compression have made this surgical procedure somewhat controversial. We hypothesized that use of larger diameter screws would result in increased axial compression and improved stability of this fracture. Paired distal phalanges from the forelimbs of 10 adult horses were collected at necropsy and divided in half in the midsagittal plane. Using a randomized block study design, four types of bone screws (4.5 mm cortical, 5.5 mm cortical, 6.5 mm cancellous pre-tapped, and 6.5 mm cancellous non-tapped) were inserted to a depth of 15 mm. During screw insertion, the axial force generated under the screw head was measured with a load washer containing a piezoelectric force transducer, while torque of insertion was recorded with a torsional testing machine. The 6.5 mm screw inserted after pre-tapping generated significantly greater axial force (2781 N) than the 4.5 mm (1522 N), 5.5 mm (2073 N) or 6.5 mm non-tapped (2295 N) screws. The relationship between maximal applied torque and axial force generated was linear for each screw type. Each unit of torque applied during insertion of cortical screws resulted in a greater increase in axial compression, as compared to cancellous screws. These data suggest that use of larger diameter screws would result in improved interfragmentary compression of distal phalangeal fractures.
The 2'-deoxyadenosine-5'-phosphate anion, the analogous radical, and the different hydrogen-abstracted radical anions: molecular structures and effects on DNA damage.

The 2‘-deoxyadenosine-5‘-phosphate (5‘-dAMP) anion and its related radicals have been studied by reliably calibrated theoretical approaches. This study reveals important physical characteristics of...
The Q-sort method in personality assessment and psychiatric research

Just about a dozen years ago William Stephenson, then teaching in the University of Chicago, introduced American psychology to his Q-technique. As doctorate researches and publications appeared out of various teaching centers, and especially following publication of Stephenson's book, the turbulence of controversy filled the air. The high and low pressures of warm enthusiasms and cold, or acerb, criticisms were in collision. The atmosphere has now quieted, and the time is appropriate for a calm exposition and evaluation of the Q-technique. This is what the book under review is achieving. Within a fairly small volume, as such expositions go, Block provides a helpful orientation to this method. It undertakes, he states, to devise a language instrument for describing a personality in psychodynamic terms so that it can be subjected to quantitative comparisons and analysis. The major portion of the book describes the theoretical foundations for Q-technique, surveys the
Holocene Sea-Level Changes in Palau, West Caroline Islands ☆

14C ages supplemented by 230Th/234U determinations have been obtained for calcareous deposits on Koror, Babelthuap, Auluptagel, and Adorius Islands in the Palau Group, West Caroline Islands. Test borings for a bridge between Koror and Babelthuap reveal shoreface terraces consisting largely of bioclastic sand, but resembling fringing reefs. The base of the shoreface terraces dates to between 7000 and 8000 14C yr B.P. and the upper surfaces are slightly younger than 4000 yr B.P. Spacing of the subsurface isochrons indicates that the rate of sedimentation increased up-section on Koror terrace and decreased up-section on Babelthuap terrace. The average rate of deposition in the terraces was 0.5 cm/yr. Isochrons in the Babelthuap shoreface terrace are 7 m higher than those in the Koror terrace. If deposition was sufficient to keep the surfaces of the terraces at low tide level, then the Babelthuap side was essentially stable and the Koror side was uplifted between about 8000 and 6300 yr ago, and then subsided until 4000 yr ago; since then there has been about 2 m of uplift. “Top hat” microatolls on Koror terrace indicate that relative sea level has dropped about 30 cm in the past 75 yr. In the absence of good evidence for changes of level in water ponded in a moat, it is likely that the microatolls indicate uplift of the terrace. On the other hand, if tectonic activity was minimal, then differences in the two terraces are due to differences in sedimentation with the Koror side of the channel being substantially subtidal between about 7000 and 5000 yr B.P. Taking the composite eustatic sea-level curve of Hawaii and elsewhere as a reference standard, it is deduced that Auluptagel Island has risen 0.8 m in the last 2900 yr, and Adorius Island has risen approximately 8 m in the last 5000–6000 yr.
Women's smoking trends and awareness of health risk

Abstract National data on smoking cessation rates indicate that female smokers may have more difficulty than male smokers in quitting smoking. To test the hypothesis that awareness of risk of smoking and personal vulnerability may be not as strong in female as in male smokers, we conducted a series of telephone interviews dealing with smokers' awareness and knowledge of the recent Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health, and their perception of and attitudes toward personal risk. The results indicated no marked sex difference in awareness of the Surgeon General's Report, but showed that significantly more female than male smokers worried about what they heard and read about the risk of smoking. A larger percentage of female smokers attributed a greater health risk from smoking to men than to women, thus suggesting that women's feelings of personal vulnerability may be weaker than men's.
Interrelating Different Types of Genomic Data, from Proteome to Secretome: 'Oming in on Function

With the completion of genome sequences, the current challenge for biology is to determine the functions of all gene products and to understand how they contribute in making an organism viable. For the first time, biological systems can be viewed as being finite, with a limited set of molecular parts. However, the full range of biological processes controlled by these parts is extremely complex. Thus, a key approach in genomic research is to divide the cellular contents into distinct sub-populations, which are often given an "-omic" term. For example, the proteome is the full complement of proteins encoded by the genome, and the secretome is the part of it secreted from the cell. Carrying this further, we suggest the term "translatome" to describe the members of the proteome weighted by their abundance, and the "functome" to describe all the functions carried out by these. Once the individual sub-populations are defined and analyzed, we can then try to reconstruct the full organism by interrelating them, eventually allowing for a full and dynamic view of the cell. All this is, of course, made possible because of the increasing amount of large-scale data resulting from functional genomics experiments. However, there are still many difficulties resulting from the noisiness and complexity of the information. To some degree, these can be overcome through averaging with broad proteomic categories such as those implicit in functional and structural classifications. For illustration, we discuss one example in detail, interrelating transcript and cellular protein populations (transcriptome and translatome). Further information is available at http://bioinfo.mbb.yale.edu/what-is-it.
A peptide sequence-YSGVCHTDLHAWHGDWPLPVK [40-60]-in yeast alcohol dehydrogenase prevents the aggregation of denatured substrate proteins.

The structural and functional characteristics of a yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) peptide (YSGVCHTDLHAWHGDWPLPVK, residues 40–60) have been studied in detail. The peptide is hydrophobic in nature, binds the hydrophobic probe bis-ANS, and is mostly present in a random coil conformation. It shows chaperone-like activity by preventing dithiothreitol (DTT)-induced aggregation of insulin at 27 °C, oxidation-induced aggregation of γ-crystallin at 37 °C, and aggregation of thermally denatured ADH and βL-crystallins at 52 °C. However, the ADH peptide does not solubilize protein aggregates as do surfactants. Substitution of Pro for His in the ADH peptide leads to diminished anti-aggregation activity. Further, analysis of ADH incubated at 47 °C suggests that a significant portion of the enzyme remains as soluble inactive protein with negligible conformational change. Therefore, we propose that the residues 40–60 in native protein may be an intramolecular chaperone site of yeast ADH.
RADIATION INDUCED DELETIONS IN SPERMATIDS AND SPERMATOCYTES OF DROSOPHILA.

Males of the composition XC2/B S Yy + were collected as prepupae, aged an additional 48 hours, then irradiated with 1000 r and brooded individually for eight days with three virginy w f females each day. Analysis suggests that brood days 1–3 represent the recovery of cells which were predominantly spermatids at the time of treatment, those from brood days 4–6 predominantly spermatocytes, and those from brood days 7–8 predominantly spermatogonia. The highest frequency of loss of individual Y markers and “X0” males, as well as the smallest F1 population size was found in broods 5 and 6, and especially in brood 6. Further analysis suggests that the vast majority of individual Y-marker losses recovered from diploid cells (spermatocytes, spermatogonia) arose independent of inter-Y arm exchange and Y-autosome translocations. In general, the data confirm the suggestive results of other investigators that deletions are recovered most readily from spermatocytes than from any other stage in spermatogenesis.
Sparse Regeneration in Translucent Wavelength-Routed Optical Networks: Architecture, Network Design and Wavelength Routing

In this paper we study an alternate network architecture, called translucent network, to the fully transparent and fully opaque network architectures. In a translucent wavelength-routed optical network, a technique called sparse regeneration is used to overcome the severe lightpath blocking due to signal quality degradation and wavelength contention in a fully transparent network while using much less regenerators than in a fully opaque network. In this paper, we present a node model and a network model that perform sparse regeneration. We address the problem of translucent network design by proposing several regenerator placement algorithms based on different knowledge of future network traffic patterns. We also address the problem of wavelength routing under sparse regeneration by incorporating two regenerator allocation strategies with heuristic wavelength routing algorithms. We compare the performance of different regenerator placement algorithms and wavelength routing schemes through simulation experiments. The benefit of sparse regeneration is quantitatively measured under different network settings.
TopicNets: Visual Analysis of Large Text Corpora with Topic Modeling

We present TopicNets, a Web-based system for visual and interactive analysis of large sets of documents using statistical topic models. A range of visualization types and control mechanisms to support knowledge discovery are presented. These include corpus- and document-specific views, iterative topic modeling, search, and visual filtering. Drill-down functionality is provided to allow analysts to visualize individual document sections and their relations within the global topic space. Analysts can search across a dataset through a set of expansion techniques on selected document and topic nodes. Furthermore, analysts can select relevant subsets of documents and perform real-time topic modeling on these subsets to interactively visualize topics at various levels of granularity, allowing for a better understanding of the documents. A discussion of the design and implementation choices for each visual analysis technique is presented. This is followed by a discussion of three diverse use cases in which TopicNets enables fast discovery of information that is otherwise hard to find. These include a corpus of 50,000 successful NSF grant proposals, 10,000 publications from a large research center, and single documents including a grant proposal and a PhD thesis.
260 FETAL NUTRITION: CALCIUM REGULATES HUMAN PLACENTAL UPTAKE OF AMINO ACID

Intracellular calcium regulates numerous cell functions, including amino acid uptake by rat diaphragm and hepatocytes (Arch Biochem 23:96; Proc Nat Acad Sci 77:5953). Therefore, we studied the effect of calcium (Ca) on the uptake of α−amino isobutyric acid (AIB) by human placental slices. During 45 minutes preincubation, tissue calcium was maintained (CaM), or was depleted (CaD) by 2.0 mM EGTA in Ca-free medium. Tissues were then incubated with 125 uM 14C-AIB for 60 minutes in medium with (+) or without (−) Ca. AIB uptake, expressed as the ratio of intracellular to extracellular AIB concentrations (Ci/Co), was 3 53 ± 0.13 (mean ± SE) in controls (CaM+), but was markedly reduced in CaD slices incubated without Ca repletion (CaD−): Ci/Co = 1.66 − 0.08 (p<0.001). Ca repletion during incubation (CaD+) resulted in partial restoration of 60 min AIB uptake: Ci/Co = 2.64 ± 0.11 (p<0.01, compared to either CaM+ or CaD−). In time-course experiments, the slope of AIB uptake for CaD+ was parallel to CaM+ by 15 minutes and linear through 60 minutes. However, CaD− showed no AIB uptake after 30 minutes. Finally, 10 uM verapamil, a calcium channel blocker, reduced 60 minute AIB uptake by 17.5% (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Calcium regulates human placental uptake of the actively transported, neutral amino acid, AIB. SPECULATION: The placenta may serve as a model for studying calcium regulated amino acid transport in human tissue.
Self-Reported Physical Activity Is Associated With β-Cell Function in Mexican American Adults

OBJECTIVES To examine the association between self-reported physical activity (PA) and diabetes-related quantitative traits. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The observational cohort was 1,152 Mexican American adults with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, oral and intravenous glucose tolerance tests, and self-reported dietary and PA questionnaires. PA was categorized into three mutually exclusive groups according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services PA guidelines for Americans: low (vigorous RESULTS The participants’ mean age was 35 years (range, 18–66 years), mean BMI was 29.6 kg/m 2 , and 73% were female. Among them, 501 (43%), 448 (39%), and 203 (18%) were classified as having low, moderate, and high PA, respectively. After adjustment for age, a higher PA was significantly associated with lower 2-h glucose, fasting insulin, and 2-h insulin and greater β-cell function ( P = 0.001, 0.0003, 0.0001, and 0.004, respectively). The association did not differ significantly by sex. Results were similar after further adjustment for age, sex, BMI, or percent body fat. CONCLUSIONS An increasing level of PA is associated with a better glucose and insulin profile and enhanced β-cell function that is not explained by differences in BMI or percent body fat. Our results suggest that PA can be beneficial to β-cell function and glucose regulation independent of obesity.
Energy policy: A federal decision

The policies for development of the nation's energy needs for the remainder of this century are being formulated at the highest levels. The Reagan administration has stated consistently that ‘energy goals’ of the kind Carter proposed for solar power (20% of the nation's energy was to be supplied by renewable resources by the year 2000) will not be set, per se. The role of market forces in setting energy demand and the pace of development and supply will be emphasized. The recent National Energy Policy Plan released by the Reagan administration is a comprehensive statement of how the federal government will restructure its efforts to solve the energy problem. It would appear that fossil fuels will be the mainstay. Federal decontrol and deregulation will be in support of the forces of the market place. Nuclear energy will gain impetus by the deregulation efforts.
On-Off Control With Specified Fuel Usage

A method for generating on-off command profiles for flexible systems is presented. The command profiles move a system without residual vibration while using a specified amount of actuator fuel, Robustness to modeling errors can be incorporated into the design of the command signals. Techniques are presented that facilitate implementation and indicate prudent choices for the amount of fuel to be used. The method is compared to other command generation techniques that balance fuel usage and slew time.
Capillary Distribution and Fiber Characteristics in Skeletal Muscle of Stress-Susceptible Animals

SUMMARY Muscle from stress-susceptible and stress-resistant pigs was studied for capillary distribution and fiber characteristics. More capillaries were associated with red fibers than white fibers and there was a greater capillary to fiber ratio in red than white muscle. There was no difference in capillary fiber ratio between normal (from stress-resistant pigs) and PSE (from stress-susceptible pigs) muscle. Muscle from stress-susceptible animals had more intermediate fibers than did muscle from stress-resistant animals. Certain intermediate fibers from stress-susceptible animals had a high amylophosphorylase and ATPase activity. It was postulated that such fibers are important in the drastic post-mortem muscle behavior in stress-susceptible animals and may represent the characteristic which causes muscle to become PSE.
Heat shock in plants

Abstract The heat shock response is a ubiquitous phenomenon in all prokaryotes and eukaryotes that have been studied. In higher plants, the general characteristics of this response have much in common wi role in the development of short-term thermal tolerance. As research on the response in higher plants continues, the focus is on understanding the regulation of the heat shock genes and the function of the heat shock proteins.
Reduced Neuronal Inhibition and Coordination of Adolescent Prefrontal Cortex during Motivated Behavior

Adolescence is a time of both cognitive maturation and vulnerability to several major psychiatric illnesses and drug dependence. There is increasing awareness that behavioral or pharmacological intervention during this period may be critical for disease prevention in susceptible individuals. Therefore, we must attain a deeper understanding of how the adolescent brain processes salient events relevant to motivated behavior. To do this, we recorded single-unit and local field potential activity in the orbitofrontal cortex of rats as they performed a simple reward-driven operant task. Adolescents encoded basic elements of the task differently than adults, indicating that neuronal processing of salient events differs in the two age groups. Entrainment of local field potential oscillations, variance in spike timing, and relative proportions of inhibitory and excitatory responses differed in an event-specific manner. Overall adolescent phasic neural activity was less inhibited and more variable through much of the task. Cortical inhibition is essential for efficient communication between neuronal groups, and reduced inhibitory control of cortical activity has been implicated in schizophrenia and other disorders. Thus, these results suggest that reduced inhibitory responses of adolescent cortical neurons to salient events could be a critical mechanism for some of the increased vulnerabilities of this period.
Monetary value of the environmental and health externalities associated with production of ethanol from biomass feedstocks.

Abstract This research is aimed at monetizing the life cycle environmental and health externalities associated with production of ethanol from corn, corn stover, switchgrass, and forest residue. The results of this study reveal current average external costs for the production of 1 l of ethanol ranged from $0.07 for forest residue to $0.57 for ethanol production from corn. Among the various feedstocks, the external costs of PM 10 , NO X , and PM 2.5 are among the greatest contributors to these costs. The combustion of fossil fuels in upstream fertilizer and energy production processes is the primary source of these emissions and their costs, especially for corn ethanol. The combined costs of emissions associated with the production and use of nitrogen fertilizer also contribute substantially to the net external costs. For cellulosic ethanol production, the combustion of waste lignin to generate heat and power helps to keep the external costs lower than corn ethanol. Credits both for the biogenic carbon combustion and displacement of grid electricity by exporting excess electricity substantially negate many of the emissions and external costs. External costs associated with greenhouse gas emissions were not significant. However, adding estimates of indirect GHG emissions from land use changes would nearly double corn ethanol cost estimates.
Oil stability index correlated with sensory determination of oxidative stability in light-exposed soybean oil

Validity of the oil stability index (OSI) as an accelerated test of oxidative stability has been questioned because of its high holding temperature, 110°C, which may cause reactions that would not occur at lower temperatures. The purpose of this study was to characterize the usefulness of OSI as an accelerated oxidative stability test for oil of varying metal catalyst content by correlating OSI with the sensory induction period of light-exposed soybean oil. Five 400-g aliquots of soybean oil were placed in Erlenmeyer flasks and treated with increasing levels of a metal pro-oxidant, Cu2+ 2-ethylhexanoate. Pro-oxidant concentration ranged from 0 to 3.13×10−5 M. Five-gram aliquots were taken from duplicate flasks and immediately tested using the Oxidative Stability Instrument. Heating block temperature was 110°C. Sample flasks were then exposed to 800 footcandles of light and held at ambient temperature for 3 wk. One-gram aliquots were regularly withdrawn and evaluated for rancidity by 10 trained panelists to determine the sensory induction period of each sample. Aliquots were also taken to determine OSI of light-exposed oil samples. Sensory induction periods were correlated with OSI, resulting in a squared partial correlation coefficient (r 2) of 0.920. The r 2 for OSI of light-exposed oil samples ranged from 0.897 to 0.979. OSI appears to be an acceptable accelerated method for measuring the oxidative stability of light-exposed soybean oil that varies in metal catalyst content.
Cortical morphogenesis during the cell division cycle in Euplotes: An integrated study using light optical, scanning electron and transnlission electron microscopy

Hypotrichs are among the most complex ciliates in terms of morphology and development. To study the fine structure of cortical morphogenesis associated with cell division in Euplotes eurystomus, three different methods of observation were employed: light microscopy of protargol-stained specimens, scanning electron microscopy of cells prepared by critical point drying, and transmission electron microscopy of sectioned material. Observations on the stages of morphogenesis give much new information about cortical development, particularly about proliferation and aggregation of kinetosomes (basal bodies), ciliary outgrowth, the topography of morphogenesis, cirrus resorption, and growth of the pellicle. During the formation of new cirrus the process of kinetosome proliferation is atypical, i.e., groups of prokinetosomes are seen oriented at random and, in some cases, prokinetosomes apparently are formed at a distance from nearby young kinetosomes. That the new cirri develop in surface grooves, the grooves elongate into "tracks," and (in some cases) grooves are partitioned into separate tracks suggests that the grooves play a role in the orderly migration of the new cirri on the cell surface. Conspicuous morphogcnctic changes in the cell surface involve local growth of the pellicle. The process of pellicle growth apparently involves two basic steps: (a) growth of the outer cell membrane to form "bare regions," and (b) formation of alveoli in the bare regions. Alveolar sheets are formed by fusion of alveolus precursor particles. Cirrus resorption is sequential over several stages of development, and old cirri are resorbed as the new cirri impinge on them. As the old cirri regress, both in situ resorption and retraction of axonemes into the cytoplasm occur.
Study of deep levels in InAlAsSb grown via organometallic vapor phase epitaxy

Triple junction solar cells lattice matched to InP have the potential to exceed 50% efficiency under AM1.5 500× illumination with a bandgap stack of 1.74 / 1.1 / 0.7 eV. A top cell having 1.74 eV requires development of high-quality InAlAsSb, which currently has very little development effort reported. Preliminary deep-level transient spectroscopy results in p-type InAlAsSb indicate the presence of deep-levels 0.20 eV and 0.44 eV above the valence band with concentration ∼1015 cm−3. Experiments such as spectral response and dark IV analysis reveal poor solar cell metrics, which may be a direct consequence of the detected defects. The InAlAsSb deep-levels are compared to the better-understood levels found in InAlAs, however, no evidence of a correlation is found.
The measurement of small phase angles in the subaudio frequency range

A method is described which allows for the measurement of small phase angles in the subaudio and audio frequency range. The signal representing the difference of the two primary signals is displayed against either primary on an oscilloscope. This results in an ellipse which may be rotated by changing the amplitude of one of the primaries. When the angle of tilt of the ellipse is zero, the tangent of the phase angle is obtained as the ratio of the minor to the major axis.
Are Lawyers Liars?: The Argument of Redescription

In “Professional Detachment: The Executioner of Paris,” I concluded with the cheap and some would say libelous suggestion that lawyers might accurately be described as serial liars, because they repeatedly try to induce others to believe in the truth of propositions or in the validity of arguments that they believe to be false. Good lawyers have responded with some indignation that, in calling zealous advocacy “lying,” I have misdescribed the practice of law. I wish to explain why I believe that it is the practice of lawyering that engages in misdescription.
Convergence of Different Versions of the Continuous Performance Test: Clinical and Scientific Implications

The Continuous Performance Test has been used for the last 40 years to measure sustained attention or vigilance in many different populations. Different versions of the test have been developed, but little is known about how similar these tests are, and to what extent performance on different versions of these tests overlaps. In order to examine convergence of the different versions of the CPT, three different CPTs were administered in both the Auditory and Visual Sensory Modalities. Subjects were selected from consecutive admissions to adolescent acute care units at a private psychiatric hospital (n=100). Auditory test modalities uniformly elicited poorer performance than visual tests, while each set of task demands consistently elicited differences in performance. Despite the high test-retest reliability of the individual subtests, the average correlation between tests was r=.42, with the average correlation between visual tests at r=.48 and the average correlation between the auditory tests was r=.45. The correlations within task demands across sensory modalities ranged from a low of.37 to a high of.52. Controlling for IQ did not influence the correlations to a substantial degree. These data suggest different versions of the CPT are correlated with each other at a level consistent with construct validity, but that they do not constitute alternate forms of the same test.
Rapid modeling of animated faces from video images

Generating realistic 3D human face models and facial animations has been a persistent challenge in computer graphics. We have developed a system that constructs textured 3D face models from videos with minimal user interaction. Our system takes images and video sequences of a face with an ordinary video camera. After five manual clicks on two images to tell the system where the eye corners, nose top and mouth corners are, the system automatically generates a realistic looking 3D human head model and the constructed model can be animated immediately. A user, with a PC and an ordinary camera, can use our system to generate his/her face model in a few minutes. We will demonstrate the system at the conference.
Study of a non-leading QCD correction to hadron calorimeter reactions

Abstract We compute the first non-leading QCD correction to one subprocess which contributes to the cross section for the process hadron + hadron → jet + anything, where the jet is an arbitrary set of hadrons contained within a cone of given opening angle 2δ, and with fixed total momentum. A previous calculation is extended so that here the jet is not required to be energetic, the main new ingredient being the contribution of single gluons radiated inside the cone. We find the correction to be quite sensitive to δ and to the choice for the scale-breaking variable Q 2 . For a given value of δ in a certain range it is possible to find a reasonable Q 2 which makes the correction small. The angular dependence of the correction is sensitive to Q 2 but not to δ. Because of the sensitivity to Q 2 it is not clear whether or not the perturbation expansion will be well-behaved in higher orders.
An acquired state: epigenetic mechanisms in transcription

Even when we know the primary sequences and binding specificities of every transcriptional activator and repressor, our understanding of transcriptional regulation will be rudimentary. This is partly because major aspects of gene expression are governed by epigenetic mechanisms. These mechanisms may be responsible for apparently identical sequences being read by the transcriptional machinery in two different but heritable ways: active or repressed. Epigenetic transcriptional states have been encountered in a number of recent experiments.
The Influence of Acculturation and In-Group Bias on Source Credibility: The Case of Asian American Female Consumers

While research on cultural variables influencing source credibility has been called for by scholars, very few studies have made attempts thus far. In this study, an experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of acculturation and in-group bias on Asian Americans’ perceived source credibility and advertising effectiveness. The results indicate that while acculturation had some effects on the subcomponents of credibility, in-group bias did not have an effect on credibility and Asian Americans’ advertising responses.
HST/FOC Imaging of Triton

Abstract We present an analysis of HST/FOC images of Triton obtained on 20–24 September 1995. Images were taken in two wavelength bands using the F278M and F410M filters in order to obtain the first mid-UV map of Triton and to place further compositional constraints on Triton's surface by imaging farther into the UV than did Voyager. Our disk-resolved images provide full (if sparse) longitudinal coverage, with image sets taken at Triton central meridian longitudes of 100°, 210°, and 330°. We compare FOC-derived lightcurves and geometric albedo maps with 1989 Voyager imaging data and 1993 HST/FOS disk-averaged albedos. We find that Triton's disk-averaged albedo has decreased at both 2780 (12%) and 4100 A (8%) and that an extensive region near longitude 340° has reddened significantly, with a 4100:2780 A albedo ratio that is 15% lower than average. We conclude that these changes are evidence of recent, large-scale volatile transport on Triton.
Condensation and gelation: Clarification of Stockmayer's analogy

To explore the analogy, originally noted by Stockmayer, between vapor condensation and gelation in ``three‐dimensional'' chemical polymerizations, we here explore the special case of reversible gelation in more detail. We show how the partition function of a one component system the molecules of which reversibly form branched‐chain clusters can be adapted, under certain approximations, to display its correspondence to Stockmayer's formulation of the molecular size distribution in branched‐chain polymers formed from random chemical polymerization of polyfunctional monomers. Thus, we obtain, for the reversible case, a statistical thermodynamic counterpart to Stockmayer's purely statistical calculations concerning gelation by relating his ``extent of reaction'' α to the thermodynamic variables temperature and density. The relation between Stockmayer's gelation theory and Mayer's condensation theory is accordingly clarified. A key step in this analysis involves the use of Hill's criterion for a ``bond.'' The similarity of condensation to gelation is noted to be particularly close in the case of liquids with directional interactions which saturate at low coordination numbers. In such cases, of which water is the outstanding example, the condensation‐gelation analogy provides a helpful physical picture of the liquid state.
The Effects of Impact Fees on the Price of Housing and Land: a Literature Review:

Since the 1970s, development impact fees have emerged as a way to pass the cost of new infrastructure to the development community. Although development impact fees intend to transfer the burden of...
Human-Agent Teaming for Multi-Robot Control and Effects of Individual Differences

A military multitasking environment was simulated and three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of an intelligent agent, RoboLeader, on the performance of robotics operators. In the first experiment, RoboLeader was perfectly reliable; in the second experiment, RoboLeader’s recommendations were manipulated to be either false-alarm prone or miss prone, with a reliability level of either 60% or 90%; in the third experiment, the capabilities of RoboLeader were expanded to deal more specifically with dynamic retasking requirements based on various battlefield developments in pursuit of moving targets in urban environments. Results of Experiment 1 showed that RoboLeader, when perfectly reliable, was effective in reducing the operators’ mission times in target search tasks, although significant benefits of RoboLeader on the operators’ concurrent task performance and workload were not observed. Results of Experiment 2 show that the type of RoboLeader imperfection affected operator’s performance of tasks involving visual scanning (target detection, route editing, and situation awareness). Results of Experiment 3 showed that participants’ primary task benefited from RoboLeader on all level-of-autonomy conditions compared with the manual performance. Across the experiments, participants with higher spatial ability consistently outperformed those with lower spatial ability in tasks that required the most visual scanning, regardless of the experimental conditions. Participants’ self-assessed attentional control and video gaming experience were found to impact their overall multitasking performance. Frequent video gamers also demonstrated significantly better situation awareness of the mission environments.
Activation of the Notch pathway in the hair cortex leads to aberrant differentiation of the adjacent hair-shaft layers

Little is known about the mechanisms underlying the generation of various cell types in the hair follicle. To investigate the role of the Notch pathway in this process, transgenic mice were generated in which an active form of Notch1 (Notch(DeltaE)) was overexpressed under the control of the mouse hair keratin A1 (MHKA1) promoter. MHKA-Notch(DeltaE) is expressed only in one precursor cell type of the hair follicle, the cortex. Transgenic mice could be easily identified by the phenotypes of curly whiskers and wavy, sheen pelage hair. No effects of activated Notch on proliferation were detected in hair follicles of the transgenic mice. We find that activating Notch signaling in the cortex caused abnormal differentiation of the medulla and the cuticle, two neighboring cell types that did not express activated Notch. We demonstrate that these non-autonomous effects are likely caused by cell-cell interactions between keratinocytes within the hair follicle and that Notch may function in such interactions either by directing the differentiation of follicular cells or assisting cells in interpreting a gradient emanating from the dermal papilla.
Comparative evaluation of laboratory teaching in an AC Circuit Analysis course

The AC Circuit Analysis course is a requirement for electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology curricula. In the traditional teaching method, concepts are introduced during lectures. The students conduct experiments to observe these concepts during laboratory. Recently, new techniques based on the CLABS model developed at University of Houston (UH) that rely on real-world problem-based laboratory experiments have been adopted at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC). In this paper, a direct comparison between the traditional method and the new CLABS method within one class at TAMU-CC is reported. The results obtained at UH are presented for a comparative evaluation. The results from TAMU-CC show that CLABS experiments are perceived to have a higher learning impact in new practical applications. Results obtained at UH show high student satisfaction in most aspects of the CLABS pedagogy. This work also revealed challenges in within-class comparative studies.
A Comparison of Motorist Delays for Different Merging Strategies

Investigations of motorist delays at the intersection of a major and minor road have involved variations of one or the other of two merging strategies: (i) Miller's (Miller, A. J. 1961. A queueing model for road traffic flow. J. R. Statist. Soc. B 23 64–75.) model that assumes that a minor-road motorist makes consecutive decisions consistently, and (ii) that of Weiss and Maradudin’ (Weiss, G. H., A. A. Maradudin. 1962. Some problems in traffic delay. Opns. Res. 10 74–104.) that assumes that a different, independent decision is made for each headway. In this paper we show that results for both models may be obtained easily, using the results of queuing theory, if certain reasonable assumptions are made. Simple expressions for the Laplace-Stieltjes transforms and means of the delays are derived in the case of independent major-road headways with a common, general distribution. For exponential headways, a numerical study shows the mean Miller delay to increase with the variation in the merge times, while the...
Haemodynamic changes during modified ultrafiltration immediately following the first stage of the Norwood reconstruction.

Background: Modified ultrafiltration has been shown to reverse haemodilution and improve ventricular function following cardiopulmonary bypass. There has been concern, however, about the safety and efficacy of modified ultrafiltration after the first stage of Norwood reconstruction for palliation of neonates with hypoplasia of the left heart and its variants. Methods: We reviewed the intraoperative course of all patients undergoing the first stage of Norwood reconstruction between September 1, 2000, and August 31, 2002. Results: The first stage of reconstruction was performed in 99 neonates, 78 with classical hypoplasia of the left heart, and 21 with variants. Mean weight at surgery was 3.1 plus or minus 0.7 kilograms. Genetic syndromes, weight less than or equal to 2.5 kilograms, and/or major additional cardiac or non-cardiac anomalies, were present in 44 patients. We deemed these patients to constitute the group at high risk. A modified Blalock–Taussig shunt was utilized in 95 patients, and a conduit from the right ventricle to the pulmonary arteries in 4. Deep hypothermic circulatory arrest was used in all patients for a mean period of 45 minutes, plus or minus 15 minutes. Total support time on cardiopulmonary bypass plus deep hypothermic circulatory arrest was 100 minutes plus or minus 26 minutes. Modified ultrafiltration was performed in all patients. The mean duration of modified ultrafiltration was 10 plus or minus 2 minutes, and the total volume of filtrate removed was 104 plus or minus 29 millilitres per kilogram. There were no complications from modified ultrafiltration, and no patient required discontinuation of modified ultrafiltration for haemodynamic instability. During modified ultrafiltration, the haematocrit increased from 31 percent plus or minus 4 to 46 percent plus or minus 6. Heart rate decreased from 170 plus or minus 17 beats per minute to 158 plus or minus 16 beats per minute. Systolic blood pressure increased from 57 plus or minus 12 to 63 plus or minus 13 millimetres of mercury, and diastolic blood pressure from 30 plus or minus 8 to 35 plus or minus 7 millimetres of mercury. All these values are significant at a p value of less than 0.0001. Hospital morality in the patients at low risk was 3 of 55 (5.5 percent), but was 12 of 44 (27.3 percent) in the patients deemed to be at high-risk. Conclusions: Modified ultrafiltration is safe procedure following the first stage of Norwood reconstruction, with improvement in all haemodynamic parameters measured. Modified ultrafiltration is an additional incremental strategy, which may contribute to the overall improvement in outcome following surgical palliation of patients with hypoplasia of the left heart or its variants.
Preparation of a γ-glutamylcysteine-enriched yeast extract from a newly developed GSH2-deficient strain.

Gamma-glutamylcysteine (γ-GC), the precursor of glutathione (GSH), may have significant health benefits as a dietary supplement, but there are few cost-effective methods available for its large-scale production. We developed an efficient method for producing γ-GC in a mutant yeast strain using a three-step breeding procedure and a unique cultivation process. In the first breeding step, we prepared a glutathione synthetase (GSH2)-deficient yeast mutant. In the second step, selenate ( Se O 4 2 − ) sensitivity was introduced by crossing the GSH2-deficient mutant with a strain harboring the met30 mutation. In the final step, pantothenic acid auxotrophy was introduced by ethyl methanesulfonate mutagenesis. The isolated strain displayed significantly enhanced cellular γ-GC when cultivated in synthetic medium without pantothenic acid, reaching a maximum level of 4.39% of dry cell weight. Using this strain, we were able to prepare a yeast extract containing approximately 13% γ-GC (w/w), which is markedly higher than the reported value (0.3%) of commercially available yeast extracts. The present method may facilitate large-scale γ-GC production for investigating the nutritive value and other benefits of dietary γ-GC.
Historical changes in terrestrially derived organic carbon inputs to Louisiana continental margin sediments over the past 150 years

[1] Major rivers (and associated deltaic environments) provide the dominant pathway for the input of terrestrial-derived organic carbon in sediments (TOCT) to the ocean. Natural watershed processes and land-use changes are important in dictating the amount and character of carbon being buried on continental margins. Seven core sites were occupied on the Louisiana continental margin aboard the R/V Pelican in July 2003 along two major sediment transport pathways south and west of the Mississippi River mouth. Lignin profiles in these age-dated cores (210Pb geochronology) indicate artificial reservoir retention as a primary control on organic carbon quantity and quality reaching the margin post-1950, whereas pre-1950 sediments may reflect soil erosion due to land clearing and farming practices. Lignin (Λ8) concentrations (range 0.2 to 1.7) also indicate that TOCT delivery rates/decay processes have probably remained relatively consistent from proximal to distal stations along transects. The down-core profile at the Canyon station seems to be temporally linked and connected to inner shelf deposition, suggestive of rapid cross-shelf transport. Sources of terrestrially derived organic carbon were reflective of mixed angiosperms over the last 150 years in cores west and south of the Mississippi River delta. The lignin-phenol vegetation index (LPVI) (range 130.0 to 510) proved to be a sensitive indicator of source changes in these sediments and eliminated some of the variability compared to C/V (range 0.01 to 0.4) and S/V (range 0.9 to 2.1) ratios. Stochastic events such as hurricanes and large river floods have a measurable, albeit ephemeral, effect on the shelf TOCT record. Burial of TOCT on the river-dominated Louisiana continental margin is largely driven by anthropogenic land-use alterations in the last 150 years. Land-use changes in the Mississippi River basin and river damming have likely affected carbon cycling and TOCT burial on the Louisiana continental margin over a large spatial extent as observed by similar trends in cores from across and along the margin.
Gene transfer and expression in human neutrophils. The phox homology domain of p47phox translocates to the plasma membrane but not to the membrane of mature phagosomes.

Neutrophils are non-dividing cells with poor survival after isolation. Consequently, exogenous gene expression in neutrophils is challenging. We report here the transfection of genes and expression of active proteins in human primary peripheral neutrophils using nucleofection. Exogenous gene expression in human neutrophils was achieved 2 h post-transfection. We show that neutrophils transfected by nucleofection are functional cells, able to respond to soluble and particulate stimuli. They conserved the ability to undergo physiological processes including phagocytosis. Using this technique, we were able to show that the phox homology (PX) domain of p47 phox localizes to the plasma membrane in human neutrophils. We also show that RhoB, but not the PX domain of p47 phox , is translocated to the membrane of mature phagosomes. We demonstrated that cDNA transfer and expression of exogenous protein in human neutrophils is compatible with cell viability and is no longer a limitation for the study of protein function in human neutrophils.
Trends in Family Effects on the Education of Black and White Brothers.

Les AA. estiment qu'en ce qui concerne les hommes, qu'ils soient blancs ou noirs, l'arriere-plan familial intervient de facon notable dans la reussite scolaire. Le niveau d'instruction des parents, le statut occupationnel du pere, la taille de la famille, la presence des deux parents, l'appartenance au milieu rural et le fait d'etre originaire des etats du sud des Etats-Unis, tout cela influerait sur la trajectoire personnelle des individus nes entre 1907 et 1946. Les AA. etudient les facteurs sociaux et individuels de la reduction des inegalites en matiere de reussite scolaire
Minimization of a Non-Separable Objective Function Subject to Disjoint Constraints

We consider an important class of mathematical programs, in which the vector variable can be partitioned into two subvectors corresponding to independent constraint sets. Necessary and sufficient conditions for optimal solutions are developed, and two approaches for obtaining solutions are reviewed. We present an enumeration approach, reducing the problem to a finite number of subproblems, and show that duality makes the solution of many of the subproblems unnecessary. Next, we develop an alternating approach, wherein the problem is solved for one of the subvectors while the other is held constant, and then the subvector roles are reversed. This procedure is observed to converge to partial optimum solutions. A widely applicable subclass of problems includes a linear program in one of the subvectors. For this subclass a sufficient condition for local optimality is determined. The condition is easily testable and fails to hold, in many cases, only if a better solution is obtained. Also, this condition shows that partial optimum solutions are almost always local optima.