cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Importance of ultrafilterable plasma factors in maintaining tubular reabsorption.

Importance of ultrafilterable plasma factors in maintaining tubular reabsorption. The recollection technique was used to measure reabsorptive rates in rat proximal tubules during in situ microperfusion with an artificial perfusate or an ultrafiltrate of rat plasma. During one minute of microperfusion reabsorptive rates were no different with the two solutions. Reabsorption decreased 34% when remeasured at ten minutes in the same tubule during continuous perfusion with the artificial solution. No decrease occurred when paired measurements were made at one and ten minutes during continuous perfusion with an ultrafiltrate of plasma. These results suggest that some constituents of plasma other than major electrolytes and glucose are necessary within the lumen to maintain a constant rate of proximal tubular reabsorption. The effect of perfusion rate on the rate of reabsorption was reinvestigated by the recollection technique using plasma ultrafiltrate as the perfusate. Overall, a two-fold change in perfusion rate did not change reabsorptive rate. When only long tubule segments were analyzed (increasing the accuracy of measuring changes) a relationship between perfusion rate and reabsorptive rate was apparent. The change in reabsorptive rate averaged 40% of the change in perfusion rate. The results of these studies indicate that unidentified constituents of normal glomerular filtrate as well as intraluminal flow rate can influence proximal tubular reabsorption. Importances des facteurs plasmatiques ultrafiltrables dans le maintien de la reabsorption tubulaire. La technique des recollections a ete utilisee pour mesurer le debit de reabsorption de tubes proximaux de rat durant la perfusion in situ par un perfusat artificiel ou un ultrafiltrat de plasma de rat. Au cours de microperfuions d'une minute les debits de reabsorption n'etaient pas differents avec les deux solutions. La reabsorption etait diminuee de 34% quand elle a ete mesuree a la 10e minute dans le meme tubule au cours d'une perfusion continue avec la solution artificielle. Aucune diminution n'a ete observee au cours de determinations comparatives apres une et 10 minutes de perfusion continue d'un ultrafiltrat de plasma. Ces resultats suggerent que certains constituants du plasma autres que les electrolytes majeurs et le glucose sont necessaires, a l'interieur de la lumiere, pour le maintien d'un debit constant de reabsorption proximale. L'effet du debit de perfusion sur le debit de reabsorption a ete etudie par la technique de recollection et en utilisant de l'ultrafiltrat de plasma comme perfusat. Dans l'ensemble, une modification d'un facteur deux du debit de perfusion n'a pas modifie le debit de reabsorption. Quand seuls des longs tubules ont ete etudies (ce qui augmente la precision des determinations) une relation entre les debits de perfusion et de reabsorption etait en moyenne 40% de celle du debit de perfusion. Ces resultats indiquent que des constituants non identifies du filtrat glomerulaire ainsi que le debit de liquide intraluminal peuvent influencer la reabsorption tubulaire proximale.
Deconstructing Sport, in Particular, Football: A Response to Boxill

In her presidential address, “Football and Feminism” (3: p. 124), Jan Boxill claims that the “more women entered into the male world, the more men turned to the area where women were excluded—football.” It is this exclusionary thesis [which stems from Nelson’s book (7)] I wish to quibble with. I am not attempting to undermine Professor Boxill’s claim that football is a place where men can show their emotions, but that women can too; and indeed the latter do show their stronger, more violent side or emotions. This circumstance provides grounds that change the way we think about sports and our conception of the feminine; hence, a deconstruction of these activities and the way we think about them is taking place before our very eyes. First let me begin, however, with an anecdote, and then I shall turn to some socioempirical examples to confirm my anecdotal evidence. Being from the center of the football universe—Texas—I have personally seen American football deconstructed by women’s participation in the sport. I first witnessed this in the early 1980s when I played in a tennis tournament in Dallas at Kiest Park. I was between matches and went to use the restroom. The men’s and women’s restrooms were adjacent to one another, and as I was about to enter the men’s room, I saw a person in full-contact football dress about to enter the women’s. I was about to inform the person where the appropriate restroom was when she took off her helmet and her long, black, curly hair fell to her shoulders. I quickly leaned back in total dismay—wondering whether she was in costume or for real. I asked around and found out that she was a member of the Dallas Diamonds—a semipro team that played against other civic franchises. (They were practicing on a field next to the tennis complex.) I went on to learn that women had a league of their own. I thought to myself, “only in Texas.” I told Professor Boxill about this incident and even gave her a news clipping about them after her presidential address in 2004. A couple of years later, I read her address and found no mention of it, and this omission prompted me to write this discussion note because this incident, and others like it, casts doubt on the exclusionary thesis between football and women (and women athletes in particular). Football—like most other sports—is being deconstructed by the widening of participation in the sport: liberating it from its male dominance. “The Women’s
On the maintenance of thermal wind balance and equatorial superrotation in Titan's stratosphere

Abstract Titan's atmospheric winds, like those on Venus, exhibit superrotation at high altitudes. Titan general circulation models have yielded conflicting results on whether prograde winds in excess of 100 m s −1 at the 1 mbar level are possible based on known physical processes that drive wind systems. A comprehensive two-dimensional (2D) model for Titan's stratosphere was constructed to systematically explore the physical mechanisms that produce and maintain stratospheric wind systems. To ensure conservation of angular momentum in the limit of no net exchange of atmospheric angular momentum with the solid satellite and no external sources and sinks, the zonal momentum equation was solved in flux form for total angular momentum. The relationships among thermal wind balance, meridional circulation, and zonal wind were examined with numerical experiments over a range of values for fundamental input parameters, including planetary rotation rate, radius, internal friction due to wave stresses, and net radiative drive. The magnitude of mid-latitude jets is most sensitive to a single parameter, the planetary rotation rate and results from the conversion of planetary angular momentum to relative angular momentum by the meridional circulation, whereas the strength of meridional circulation is mainly determined by the magnitude of the radiative drive. For Titan's slowly rotating atmosphere, the meridional temperature gradient is vanishingly small, even when the radiative drive is enhanced beyond reasonable magnitudes, and can be inferred from zonal winds in gradient/thermal wind balance. In our 2D model large equatorial superrotation in Titan's stratosphere can be only produced through internal drag forcing by eddy momentum fluxes, which redistribute angular momentum within the atmosphere, while still conserving the total angular momentum of the atmosphere with time. We cannot identify any waves, such as gravitational or thermal tides, that are sufficiently capable of generating the required eddy forcing of >50 m s −1 Titan-day −1 to maintain peak prograde winds in excess of 100 m s −1 at the 1 mbar level.
Methods in comparative phylogeography, and their application to studying evolution in the north american aridlands.

SYNOPSIS. Historical biogeography and comparative phylogeography have much in common. Both seek to discover common historical patterns in the elements of biotas, although typically at different tiers of evolutionary history. Comparative phylogeography is based on phylogeographic analyses of multiple taxa, usually widespread species. By comparing the phylogeographic structures of numerous widespread sympatric species, one can infer whether the current fauna has been historically stable, as evidenced by the relative frequency of geographically congruent reciprocally monophyletic groups. Alternatively, if species distributions are ephemeral over evolutionary time, a mixture of phylogeographic structures is expected. Coalescence analyses contribute information about history irrespective of whether haplotype phylogenies are structured or not. In the aridlands of North America, several isolating events are evident in the phylogeographic patterns of birds, mammals and herps. A mid-peninsular seaway in Baja California, dated at ca. one million years before present, had a pervasive effect, with 13 of 16 assayed species showing a concordant split. Hence, this community appears to have been a stable assemblage of species over the past one million years. In contrast, the avifauna of the Sonoran-Chihuahuan deserts consists of two species with a concordant split and three other species that are undifferentiated across both deserts. Hence, the species in this area have had different histories. The Baja biota appears to resemble its ancestral configuration to a greater degree than the Sonoran-Chihuahuan one. A deeper evolutionary event separated taxa in Baja California from the eastern deserts, showing that the aridlands fauna was affected by events at different times resulting in overlain tiers of history.
Different sensitivities of rat and human red cells to exogenous Ca2

During an examination of the effects of shear and of the Ca2+ ionophore A23187 on Ca2+ entry into erythrocytes of rats and humans, we noted that rat erythrocytes were much more sensitive to Ca2+-induced hemolysis than the human cells. An examination of the effect of Ca2+ on transglutaminase, a cytosolic enzyme in the erythrocyte which cross-links membrane proteins and renders cells less deformable, demonstrated a correlation between enzyme activity and Ca2+-induced hemolysis. Both rat and human cells subjected to shear-induced Ca2+ entry exhibited increased enzyme activity and altered membrane protein SDS-PAGE patterns. Twenty micromolar A23187 with Ca2+ at concentrations above 80 microM caused hemolysis of rat erythrocytes. In contrast to human erythrocytes, under these conditions no membranes were recoverable from rat erythrocytes. At lower concentrations of Ca2+ (25 and 50 microM), however, rat erythrocytes maintained integrity, and exhibited enhanced transglutaminase activity and cross-linking of membrane proteins. The rat enzyme can be activated 30% by 10 microM Ca2+, while 50 microM Ca2+ was necessary to achieve a similar activation of the enzyme from human red blood cells. In studies of shear-stimulated Ca2+ uptake by erythrocytes the rat red cell enzyme was more readily activated. The SDS-PAGE pattern of rat red cell membranes after a 30 sec shear showed specific changes in protein banding, including the appearance of bands greater than 330 kDa. Changes in protein banding were also apparent in cytosolic proteins. This work supports the view that shear-induced Ca2+ entry activates transglutaminase that leads to cross-linking of membrane components, a loss of cell integrity, and eventual cell death.
Ray tracing to evaluate smart antenna system performance for wireless communications

This paper motivates the use of electromagnetic ray tracing for the study of smart antennas in Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) systems. Whereas past ray tracing studies applied to the study of wireless communications systems have been conducted at low spatial resolution for cell-site design, this study makes use of high resolution data so that fast fading effects could be observed. Uplink diversity gain and downlink signal to interference ratio data is simulated for several mobile user environments to gain insight into the fundamental performance limiting criteria of SDMA systems. Mobile environments were varied from several simple artificial urban environments to a simulation of downtown Austin, Texas. When applicable, all simulation results compare favorably with measurement data taken using the smart antenna testbed at the University of Texas at Austin.
Nauman's Body of Sculpture

OCTOBER 120, Spring 2007, pp. 53–70. © 2007 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The year was 1966. In May, Bruce Nauman earned a master’s degree in art with an emphasis on sculpture from the University of California at Davis. That fall he moved to San Francisco, laid claim to the seedy premises of what had once been the California Grocery, and put his training to work teaching sculpture at the San Francisco Art Institute. Eighteen months later, he was still there, directing three studios for a total of ten contact hours per week, a class load that nowadays would amount to more or less a full-time job. It saw him putting beginners in touch with the most basic sculptural materials—clay, plaster, wood—and expected him to have sufficient maturity, as the course catalog phrased it, “to present material from his experience, convictions, and technical knowledge in the order and at the rate which, in his judgment, will be best related to the needs of the individual student.”1 Nineteen sixty-six, in other words, is the year that Bruce Nauman went professional, the year that, age twenty-four, he got a job. And it is also, for all intents and purposes, the moment when Nauman became Nauman—when the Nauman name, as the subpsychedelic lettering with which his friend Jack Fulton framed a photo (from 1966) of studio-plus-occupant testified, emerged as a real substantive, stood for something to which its bearer could now lay proper claim. Fulton records, but does not reveal, where that transformation happened: in the California Grocery, behind grubby windows that had once promised simple pleasures: a bag of candy, a bottle of wine. These are the same windows whose plate-glass surfaces Nauman (formerly the artist) soon washed, then lined with a Mylar window shade, its blocked-out legend—“The true artist is an amazing luminous fountain”—assertively framing whatever was (or was not) going on inside. Does the significance of this year need further emphasis? In 1966 Nauman emerged from the university as a professional sculptor in the making (or so his Davis diploma promised), and it was as an instructor of sculpture (what the Art
A note on the two machine job shop with exponential processing times

Consider two machines, labeled 1 and 2. A set of tasks has to be processed first on machine 1 and after that on machine 2. A second set of tasks has to be processed first on machine 2 and after that on machine 1. All the processing times are exponentially distributed. We present a policy which minimizes the expected completion time of all tasks.
Analysis of variability and diurnal range of daily temperature in a nested regional climate model: comparison with observations and doubled CO2 results

Analysis of daily variability of temperature in climate model experiments is important as a model diagnostic and for determination of how such variability may change under perturbed climate conditions. The latter could be important from a climate impacts perspective. We analyze daily mean, diurnal range and variability of surface air temperature in two continuous 3 1/2 year long climate simulations over the continental USA, one for present day conditions and one for conditions under doubled carbon dioxide concentration, conducted with a regional climate model (RegCM), on a 60 km grid, nested in a general circulation model (GCM). Model output is compared with a 30-year daily observational data set for various regions of the USA. In comparison with observations the diurnal range in the model control run is somewhat too low although the daily temperature mean is often well reproduced. The daily variability of temperature is underestimated by the model in all areas, but particularly when and where the observed variability is relatively high. Causes for these underestimations are traced to deficiencies in the general circulation of the driving GCM. With doubled CO2, both maximum and minimum temperatures increase, but the change in the diurnal temperature range (DTR) varies spatially and seasonally. On an annual average over the land domain, the DTR decreases by 0.25'C. Changes in DTR are most strongly correlated with changes in absorbed shortwave radiation at the surface, which explains 72% of the variance in DTR on an annual basis. Change in evaporation was a factor affecting DTR only in the summer when it explained 52% of the variance. The most significant findings with CO2 doubling are substantial decreases in daily variability in winter over large portions of the domain, and localized increases in summer. Causes for these changes are traced to fluctuations in the intensity and position of the jet stream.
Theoretical aspects of laminar flow in a channel-type electrochemical cell as applied to in situ attenuated total reflection-infrared spectroscopy

Analytic expressions are derived, within the Leveque approximation, for the steady-state concentration profile of a reactant or a stable product generated via first-order kinetics at an electrode in a channel-type electrochemical cell under fully developed laminar flow. It is shown that for cell geometries and other experimental conditions easily realizable in the laboratory, the concentration of species directly above the insulating flat surface adjacent to the downstream edge of the electrode c(x,y), where x is the direction of fluid flow and y is the distance normal to the electrode surface, differs only slightly (less than 5%) from c(x,0), the concentration on the surface at the prescribed x, for values of y on the order of microns. Implications of these results to the quantitative analysis of in situ attenuated total reflection-infrared spectroscopy in a channel-type spectroelectrochemical cell (Barbour et al. 6 ) are discussed.
Measures of meaningfulness and ease of free recall

Association value (AV) and pronunciability rating (PR) were pitted against each other as predictors of free recall. AV but not PR predicted recall for critical items in which AV and PR were not closely related. Rated ease of learning, with either pronouncing instructions (RELP) or spelling instructions (RELS), also did not fare well as a predictor of recall of the critical items. The correlation ( r ) between PR and latency of pronunciation (PL) was .90 over a wide range of meaningfulness and .70 over a narrow range. Neither PR, RELP, RELS, nor PL appears to be critically related to ease of free recall.
Measuring a mitotic oscillator: the arc discontinuity.

Mitosis occurs synchronously in up to 108 nuclei in the syncytial plasmodium ofPhysarum polycephalum. Any two phases of the mitotic cycle may be mixed by fusing plasmodial pairs. A topological property of the synchronized phase of the fused pair as a function of parental phases, the arc discontinuity, characterizes the underlying oscillator, and indicates mitosis is controlled by a moderate relaxation oscillator which rotates more rapidly near its singularity than its limit cycle. A model oscillator is briefly described.
OCULAR EFFECTS OF TOPICAL AND SYSTEMIC CORTICOSTEROIDS

Abstract Elevation of intraocular pressure is a well-documented side-effect of both topical and systemic administration of corticosteroids. The onset is usually in a matter of weeks after topical, and months after systemic, therapy. The fact that some individuals have high intraocular-pressure responses to corticosteroids does not necessarily indicate they are in a " preglaucoma " state. Although the tendency to this response is probably hereditary, the exact mode of inheritance is still unsettled. The relationship of posterior subcapsular cataracts to corticosteroid therapy needs further clarification. There have been only a few reports of lens changes related to topical corticosteroids, as opposed to the frequent reports of " steroid cataract " associated with systemic therapy. Many of the reports indicate that cataracts develop when the dose is 15 mg. or more of prednisone a day for 1 or more years, and that children with rheumatoid arthritis are especially susceptible. Although it seems that the " steroid cataract " is related to dose and duration of therapy, there is still an ill-defined relationship between the use of corticosteroids and the underlying systemic disease being treated. Some of the other ocular complications of corticosteroid therapy include decreased wound healing, increased susceptibility to infection especially by viral and fungal agents, and hypertensive retinopathy. If there is great therapeutic benefit to be derived from corticosteroid therapy, their use is justified in spite of the fear of complications, but an initial and frequent periodical ophthalmological examination of the patient is a necessary part of good management.
The validity of using a single soybean variety to evaluate the growth regulatory activity of chemicals

Forty six soybean (Glycine max [L.] Merr.) varieties were evaluated for their vegetative response to a foliar application of abscisic acid, benzyladenine, or o-methoxyphenyl phosphinic acid (OMPA). Varietal responses to each chemical ranged from no effect to severe growth retardation. When the same varieties were evaluated for their response to water stress, the length of time required for severe wilting ranged from 48 h to 120 h. A cluster analysis was used to relate the coefficient of parentage of the varieties with their response to chemicals or water stress. The response of a variety to one of the chemicals did not predict the response to a different chemical. Further, the response of a variety to a chemical did not predict the response of a similar variety to the same chemical. The water stress rating was neither related to the chemical responses nor to the coefficient of parentage for the varieties in the test. The effects of night interruption and darkness were more pronounced on northern than on southern varieties, analogous with the pattern of reproductive regulation by photoperiod.
MDL-based time series clustering

Time series data are pervasive across all human endeavors, and clustering is arguably the most fundamental data mining application. Given this, it is somewhat surprising that the problem of time series clustering from a single stream remains largely unsolved. Most work on time series clustering considers the clustering of individual time series that have been carefully extracted from their original context, for example, gene expression profiles, individual heartbeats, or individual gait cycles. The few attempts at clustering time series streams have been shown to be objectively incorrect in some cases, and in other cases shown to work only on the most contrived synthetic datasets by carefully adjusting a large set of parameters. In this work, we make two fundamental contributions that allow for the first time, the meaningful clustering of subsequences from a time series stream. First, we show that the problem definition for time series clustering from streams currently used is inherently flawed, and a new definition is necessary. Second, we show that the minimum description length framework offers an efficient, effective, and essentially parameter-free method for time series clustering. We show that our method produces objectively correct results on a wide variety of datasets from medicine, speech recognition, zoology, gesture recognition, and industrial process analyses.
Numerical modeling of cavities with low external Q

We describe a new simulation technique to find the resonant frequencies and Qs of cavity eigenmodes when the cavity is coupled to an external waveguide. The method treats the cavity first as a closed system to find a set of lossless eigenmodes, then couples this system to a representation of the external waveguide to determine the coupled mode frequency and Qexternal. There is no assumption of weak coupling, and the technique is ideal for the analysis of very low-Q output cavities for RF amplifiers.
The Role of Slotting Fees in the Coordination of Assortment Decisions

Large numbers of new products introduced annually by manufacturers may strain the relationship between retailers and manufacturers regarding assortments carried by retailers. For example, many retailers in the grocery industry will agree to broaden their assortments only if the manufacturer agrees to pay slotting fees for the new products. We investigate the role played by slotting fees in coordinating the assortment decisions in a supply chain. To do so, we study a single-retailer, single-manufacturer supply chain, where the retailer decides what assortment to offer to end customers. Double marginalization results in a discrepancy between the retailer’s optimal assortment and the assortment that maximizes total supply chain profits. We consider a payment scheme that is analogous to slotting fees used in the grocery industry: the manufacturer pays the retailer a per-product fee for every product offered by the retailer in excess of a certain target level. We show that, if the wholesale price is below some threshold level, this payment scheme induces the retailer to offer the supplychain-optimal assortment and makes both parties better off.
Influence of Age-1 Conspecifics, Sediment Type, Dissolved Oxygen, and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Recruitment of Age-0 Red Snapper in the Northeast Gulf of Mexico during 2010 and 2011

AbstractThe Deepwater Horizon oil spill was one of the largest oil spills in U.S. history. The timing of this spill coincided with peaks in spawning and recruitment of Red Snapper Lutjanus campechanus and may have led to reduced recruitment or to year-class failure. Artificial recruitment reefs were deployed in 2010 (n = 30) and 2011 (n = 30) to measure Red Snapper recruitment off the coast of Alabama at four sites (three inshore sites, 13 km south: west, center, and east sites, each 30 km apart; and one offshore site, 25 km south). Substantial age-0 Red Snapper recruitment (density range = 0–34.5 fish/m3) occurred in 2010, with higher densities on inshore reefs than on offshore reefs. Age-0 Red Snapper recruitment was again observed in 2011 (density range = 0–108.5 fish/m3) along with age-1 Red Snapper (density range = 0–78.9 fish/m3) from the 2010 year-class. There was a negative correlation between the densities of age-0 and age-1 Red Snapper, indicating that older Red Snapper excluded younger fish fro...
Computation of thyroid doses and carcinogenic radiation risks to patients undergoing neck CT examinations

The aim of the study was to investigate how differences in patient anatomy and CT technical factors in neck CT impact on thyroid doses and the corresponding carcinogenic risks. The CTDIvol and dose-length product used in 11 consecutive neck CT studies, as well as data on automatic exposure control (AEC) tube current variation(s) from the image DICOM header, were recorded. For each CT image that included the thyroid, the mass equivalent water cylinder was estimated based on the patient cross-sectional area and average relative attenuation coefficient (Hounsfield unit, HU). Patient thyroid doses were estimated by accounting for radiation intensity at the location of the patient's thyroid, patient size and the scan length. Thyroid doses were used to estimate thyroid cancer risks as a function of patient demographics using risk factors in BEIR VII. The length of the thyroid glands ranged from 21 to 54 mm with an average length of 42 ± 12 mm. Water cylinder diameters corresponding to the central slice through the patient thyroid ranged from 18 to 32 cm with a mean of 25 ± 5 cm. The average CTDIvol (32-cm phantom) used to perform these scans was 26 ± 6 mGy, but the use of an AEC increased the tube current by an average of 44 % at the thyroid mid-point. Thyroid doses ranged from 29 to 80 mGy, with an average of 55 ± 19 mGy. A 20-y-old female receiving the highest thyroid dose of 80 mGy would have a thyroid cancer risk of nearly 0.1 %, but radiation risks decreased very rapidly with increasing patient age. The key factors that affect thyroid doses in neck CT examinations are the radiation intensity at the thyroid location and the size of the patient. The corresponding patient thyroid cancer risk is markedly influenced by patient sex and age.
Retention Patterns in a Therapeutic Community for the Treatment of Drug Abuse

The life table technique was applied to the analysis of retention in a therapeutic community for the treatment of drug abuse. The results indicate that those factors which exercise most influence on retention are sex, race, age, and probation/parole status. The higher rates of discharge among female, adolescent, and Hispanic residents raise questions concerning differential response to the program. The findings suggest that retention might be increased by modifying the treatment plans for these subgroups. Differences between the retention patterns of single/first admissions and readmissions to treatment were also found to be significant. Implications of these findings are presented.
The influence limiter: provably manipulation-resistant recommender systems

An attacker can draw attention to items that don't deserve that attention by manipulating recommender systems. We describe an influence-limiting algorithm that can turn existing recommender systems into manipulation-resistant systems. Honest reporting is the optimal strategy for raters who wish to maximize their influence. If an attacker can create only a bounded number of shills, the attacker can mislead only a small amount. However, the system eventually makes full use of information from honest, informative raters. We describe both the influence limits and the information loss incurred due to those limits in terms of information-theoretic concepts of loss functions and entropies.
Base Flow Recession Rates, Low Flows, and Hydrologic Features of Small Watersheds in Pennsylvania, USA

This paper examines the relationships between measurable watershed hydrologic features, base flow recession rates, and the Q 7,10 low flow statistic (the annual minimum seven-day average streamflow occurring once every 10 years on average). Base flow recession constants were determined by analyzing hydrograph recession data from 24 small (<130 km 2 ), unregulated watersheds across five major physiographic provinces of Pennsylvania, providing a highly variable dataset. Geomorphic, hydrogeologic, and land use parameters were determined for each watershed. The base flow recession constant was found to be most strongly correlated to drainage density, geologic index, and ruggedness number (watershed slope); however, these three parameters are intercorrelated. Multiple regression models were developed for predicting the recession rate, and it was found that only two parameters, drainage density and hydrologic soil group, were required to obtain good estimates of the recession constant. Equations were also developed to relate the recession rates to Q 7,10 per unit area, and to the Q 7,10 /Q 50 ratio. Using these equations, estimates of base flow recession rates, Q 7,10 , and streamflow reduction under drought conditions can be made for small, ungaged basins across a wide range of physiography.
Cryptogenic stroke: A diagnostic challenge.

Summary Cryptogenic, or unexplained, stroke is present in about 30%–40% of ischemic stroke patients. Pursuing a stroke mechanism is important in such patients to better choose therapy to reduce the stroke recurrence risk. Intracranial vessel imaging and cardiac evaluation with transesophageal echocardiogram and outpatient cardiac monitoring may help identify the stroke mechanism. This article highlights the diagnostic yield of various tests in identifying a stroke mechanism in stroke patients whose initial diagnostic evaluation is negative, and the implications for treatment.
Identification of the gene encoding homoserine kinase from Arabidopsis thaliana and characterization of the recombinant enzyme derived from the gene.

Abstract Homoserine kinase (EC 2.7.1.39) catalyzes the formation of O-phospho- l -homoserine, a branch point intermediate in the pathways for Met and Thr in plants. A genomic open reading frame located on the top arm of chromosome II and a corresponding cDNA have been identified from Arabidopsis thaliana that encode homoserine kinase. The HSK gene is composed of an 1113-bp continuous open reading frame that could produce a 38-kDa protein. The gene product has homology with homoserine kinase from bacteria and fungi. It contains a conserved motif, known as GHMP, found in a group of ATP-dependent metabolite kinases and thought to comprise the ATP binding site. The amino-terminal 50 amino acids of the HSK protein show features of a transit peptide for localization to plastids. Genomic blot analysis revealed that there is a single locus in A. thaliana to which the HSK cDNA hybridizes. The HSK protein expressed as a His-tagged construct in Escherichia coli shows a specific activity in an l -homoserine-dependent ADP synthesis assay of 3.09 ± 0.25 μmol min−1 mg−1 protein at pH 8.5 and 37°C. The apparent Km values are 0.40 mM for l -homoserine and 0.32 mM for Mg-ATP. Other hydroxylated compounds are not used as substrates. The enzyme requires 40 mM K+ and 3 mM Mg2+ for activity. It has an unusually high temperature optimum, yet it is very unstable, losing more than 80% of its activity after a single cycle of freeze–thawing. The HSK enzyme shows no significant regulation by amino acids in vitro.
Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis

The eurozone, composed of 17 countries which have adopted the euro as their currency, has been struggling with an apparently-intractable crisis over the enormous debts faced by its weakest economies and by countries impacted by the bursting of the housing boom in the past global recession of 2007-09. “Fiscally-distressed” countries now include Italy and Spain, both too big to bail out, along with Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Major contributing factors are the sizes of net government debt, primary budget deficits and negative current account (trade) balances, each expressed as a percent of GDP. With potential loss of access to bond markets, inability to devalue and failure of the European Central Bank (ECB) to intervene, stern demands by Germany for adoption of severe austerity programs and reform could lead to a deeper recession, bond restructurings, bailouts, and even defaults on sovereign debt. The only resolution now apparently demanded by bond markets and deficit hawks is unequivocal confirmation of the ECB as lender-of-last-resort for Italy and Spain. However, Germany’s leaders are firmly opposed to expansion of ECB’s role due to concerns of inflation, devaluation of its assets, and moral hazard (rewarding risky behavior’s losses). Quickly-moving bond markets may provide a stern test of the slowly-unfolding, “just-in-time” crisis management led by Germany, which currently is proposing a “fiscal union” with enforceable deficit limits. Underlying structural factors associated with peripheral eurozone countries – overspending, imports exceeding exports, higher real labor costs, lower productivity, real appreciation, tax avoidance and the reluctance to radically reform – reflect national traits and behavior which may be difficult to change quickly. Over 40 charts support paper’s observations.
A concept prototype for integrated gaming and simulation for incident management

This paper describes a prototype that has been developed to demonstrate the concept of integrated gaming and simulation for incident management. An architecture for the purpose was developed and presented at the last conference. A hypothetical emergency incident scenario has been developed for demonstrating the applicability of integrated simulation and gaming. A number of simulation and gaming modules have been utilized to model the major aspects of the hypothetical scenario. The modules demonstrate the value of utilizing simulation for incident management applications. They can be used to highlight the value of simulation and gaming for training applications in particular. Two of the simulation modules have been integrated using a modified implementation of the High Level Architecture to give an idea of the advantages. Technical issues in integration are identified.
Architecture driven filter transformations

In this paper, we present the sum of powers-of-two (SPOT) algorithm transformation that results in a high-speed IIR filter architecture by forcing the first few coefficients of lhe denominator polynomial to powers of two or sums of powers of two. The SPOT transform achieves the same result as achieved by conventional pipelining techniques such as scattered look-ahead and minimum order augmentation but with significantly smaller pipelining overhead and similar sensitivity to coefficient quantization. For typical examples, the SPOT transform roughly saves 30% hardware complexity over existing techniques. Architectures for implementation of the transformed filter transfer functions have also been described.
A Simple and Rapid Method for the Determination of Thiocyanate in Serum

Studies were performed to evaluate ultrafiltration as a means for isolating thiocyanate from serum prior to its colorimetric determination as a ferric chloride complex. Recovery of thiocyanate from serum was enhanced by addition of alkali prior to preparation of the ultrafiltrate, and averaged 96.8%. The reproducibility (CV) of test was 2.3%, within-day; and 3.3%, between-day. The colorimetric reaction was linear to 100 micrograms/mL. The method was tested by determining thiocyanate concentrations in samples collected from smoking and nonsmoking individuals. Thiocyanate concentrations in patient samples, collected after IV-infusion of nitroprusside, were scattered around those of the general population, and ranged from 0.3 to 20 micrograms/mL.
Engineering overview of the Fusion Ignition Research Experiment (FIRE)

FIRE is an option for the next step in the US magnetic fusion energy program. The primary engineering requirement is to produce a pulse length of greater than 10 s with a plasma current of about 6.6 MA. The FIRE tokamak has a major radius of 2 m, and a minor radius of 0.525 m. Liquid nitrogen cooled copper coils are used for both the toroidal field (TF) and poloidal field (PF) coils. The overall engineering features of FIRE are outlined in this paper.
Is transpiration efficiency a viable plant trait in breeding for crop improvement

Increased transpiration efficiency - commonly the ratio of mass accumulation to transpiration - is often suggested as a critical opportunity for genetic improvement for increased crop yields in water-limited environments. However, close inspection of transpiration efficiency (TE) shows that it is a complex term that is explicitly dependent upon both physiological and environmental variables. Physiological variables include leaf photosynthetic capacity, biochemical composition of the plant productions and possible hydraulic limitation on water flow in the plant. Environmental variables include atmospheric CO2 concentration and atmospheric vapour pressure deficit. To complicate the resolution of transpiration efficiency, a weighted integration over the daily cycle and over the dates of interest needs to be resolved. Consequently, it is concluded that transpiration efficiency is not a variable easily resolved for use in many breeding programs. Instead, component traits contributing to TE need to be studied to increase the effective use of available water through the growing season to ultimately maximise growth and yield of the crop.
Dynamics of Spiking Neurons with Electrical Coupling

We analyze the existence and stability of phase-locked states of neurons coupled electrically with gap junctions. We show that spike shape and size, along with driving current (which affects network frequency), play a large role in which phase-locked modes exist and are stable. Our theory makes predictions about biophysical models using spikes of different shapes, and we present simulations to confirm the predictions. We also analyze a large system of all-to-all coupled neurons and show that the splay-phase state can exist only for a certain range of frequencies.
A new PET/CT volumetric prognostic index for non-small cell lung cancer

Objectives Whole-body metabolic tumor volume (MTVWB) has been shown of prognostic value for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) beyond that of TNM stage, age, gender, performance status, and treatment selection. The current TNM staging system does not incorporate tumor volumetric information. We propose a new PET/CT volumetric prognostic (PVP) index that combines the prognostic value of MTVWB and TNM stage.
Gene expression profiling of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in the setting of peripheral arterial disease

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a relatively common manifestation of systemic atherosclerosis that leads to progressive narrowing of the lumen of leg arteries. Circulating monocytes are in contact with the arterial wall and can serve as reporters of vascular pathology in the setting of PAD. We performed gene expression analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in patients with PAD and controls without PAD to identify differentially regulated genes. PAD was defined as an ankle brachial index (ABI) ≤0.9 (n = 19) while age and gender matched controls had an ABI > 1.0 (n = 18). Microarray analysis was performed using Affymetrix HG-U133 plus 2.0 gene chips and analyzed using GeneSpring GX 11.0. Gene expression data was normalized using Robust Multichip Analysis (RMA) normalization method, differential expression was defined as a fold change ≥1.5, followed by unpaired Mann-Whitney test (P < 0.05) and correction for multiple testing by Benjamini and Hochberg False Discovery Rate. Meta-analysis of differentially expressed genes was performed using an integrated bioinformatics pipeline with tools for enrichment analysis using Gene Ontology (GO) terms, pathway analysis using Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), molecular event enrichment using Reactome annotations and network analysis using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis suite. Extensive biocuration was also performed to understand the functional context of genes. We identified 87 genes differentially expressed in the setting of PAD; 40 genes were upregulated and 47 genes were downregulated. We employed an integrated bioinformatics pipeline coupled with literature curation to characterize the functional coherence of differentially regulated genes. Notably, upregulated genes mediate immune response, inflammation, apoptosis, stress response, phosphorylation, hemostasis, platelet activation and platelet aggregation. Downregulated genes included several genes from the zinc finger family that are involved in transcriptional regulation. These results provide insights into molecular mechanisms relevant to the pathophysiology of PAD.
A publish and subscribe collaboration architecture for web-based information

Markup languages, representations, schemas, and tools have significantly increased the ability for organizations to share their information. Languages, such as the Extensible Markup Language (XML), provide a vehicle for organizations to represent information in a common, machine-interpretable format. Although these approaches facilitate the collaboration and integration of inter-organizational information, the reality is that the schema representations behind these languages are reasonably difficult to learn, and automated schema integration (without semantics or ontology mappings) is currently an open problem. In this paper, we introduce an architecture and service-oriented infrastructure to facilitate organizational collaboration that combines the push features of the publish/subscribe protocol with storage of distributed registry capabilities.
An algorithm and a modular subroutine for the CAP model

A cap model algorithm and the associated FORTRAN subroutine, CAP, are presented. The algorithm lends itself to a wide range of soil and rock cap models, and can easily be incorporated into most dynamic codes. The routine permits the user to obtain flexibility with respect to changes in functional forms and parameters with minor coding changes.
Can King's Ecological Inference Method Answer a Social Scientific Puzzle: Who Voted for the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany?

Book reviewed in this article: Gary King, On A Solution to the Ecological Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data
Why the racial gap in life expectancy is declining in the United States.

Background Blacks have lower life expectancy than whites in the United States. That disparity could be due to racial differences in the causes of death, with blacks being more likely to die of causes that affect the young, or it could be due to differences in the average ages of blacks and whites who die of the same cause. Prior studies fail to distinguish these two possibilities. Objective In this study we determine how much of the 2000-10 reduction in the racial gap in life expectancy resulted from narrowing differences in the cause-specific mean age at death for blacks and whites, as opposed to changing cause-specific probabilities for blacks and whites. Method We introduce a method for separating the difference-in-probabilities and difference-inage components of group disparities in life expectancy. Results Based on the new method, we find that 60% of the decline in the racial gap in life expectancy from 2000 to 2010 was attributable to reduction in the age component, largely because of declining differences in the age at which blacks and whites die of chronic diseases. Conclusion Our findings shed light on the sources of the declining racial gap in life expectancy in the United States, and help to identify where advances need to be made to achieve the goal of eliminating racial disparities in life expectancy.
Integral Membrane Adhesion Glycoproteins: What is their Fate During Metastasis?

Data from a large number of laboratories over several decades have shown that adhesive interactions among cells and between cells and extracellular matrix (ECM) are essential to early cell lineage segregation, cell recognition, cell migration and maintenance of normal tissue architecture in the adult. Adhesive interactions are also a fundamental feature of the complex metastatic process. Part of the job of understanding both normal and aberrant adhesive behavior is very basic: identification of the molecules involved at adhesion sites. This job is becoming increasingly complicated for several reasons. We have learned that any one cell type has the ability to adhere to more than one type of extracellular matrix ligand (1, 2) and that cells can adhere to one another not by one, but by several kinds of adhesive complexes (reviewed in 3). Thus, the cells of mature tissues appear to express a repertoire of adhesive molecules. In several well-documented situations, it is clear that the repertoires of different tissue types are distinct. For example, nervous tissue expresses calcium dependent and independent cell-cell adhesion molecules that are distinguishable from analagous molecules expressed by epithelial or connective tissue cells (4, 5, 6, 7).