cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
[3H]2-amino-6,7-dihydroxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalen (ADTN). Regional distribution and in vivo binding after acute and chronic drug treatment.

The regional distribution and in vivo binding of the dopamine analog 2-amino-6,7-dihydroxy-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphthalen (ADTN) was studied in the brain. The highest density of binding sites was in the striatum, with virtually no binding in the cerebellum. The binding of [3H]ADTN reflects an occupation of specific dopamine sites because the binding was diminished by the simultaneous administration of the dopamine antagonist haloperidol or the dopamine precursorl-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine (l-dopa). Chronic administration of haloperidol orl-dopa prior to assaying for in vivo binding resulted in an increase in the number of sites for [3H]ADTN which correlates to the increase observed in in vitro assays following long-term treatment with these agents. The subcellular distribution of in vivo labeled ADTN sites in the caudate nucleus indicate a high density of specific binding sites in the microsomal fraction, P3. Overall, these data demonstrate that the aminotetralins, such as ADTN, which bind with high affinity to the dopamine receptor in the caudate nucleus in vitro and in vivo, can provide precise information on the topography of this receptor.
Biochemistry of amphibian metamorphosis. III. Liver and tail phosphatases.

Abstract Several phosphatases were studied during normal and induced metamorphosis of amphibia. Significant increases in liver ATPase and glucose-6-phosphatase were observed during both normal and induced metamorphosis. Tail ATPase, however, declined during spontaneous metamorphosis but increased slightly after l -triiodothyronine treatment. The results are discussed in relation to other enzymic changes during metamorphosis. It is suggested that thyroid hormone causes an increase in liver protein and in the activities of certain liver enzymes of the tadpole.
ClockIt: collecting quantitative data on how beginning software developers really work

The Information Technology sector is suffering from a dramatic reduction in the number of students studying the field and subsequently entering the IT market. The number of freshmen expressing "interest in CS" has dramatically decreased since 2000 [16] and CS attrition rates are very high (DUE 0633640). As part of an effort funded by the National Science Foundation (DUE 0633640), this paper introduces the ClockIt toolset that we believe can be used to help educators understand and reduce the high attrition rates of CS 1 and CS 2 students. Using ClockIt, we can unobtrusively monitor and log student software development activities allowing us to determine what practices make a student a successful software developer and what practices do not.
Using Wiki Technology to Build a Faculty Publications Database

This article describes the use of wiki technology to create a faculty publications database at a military college. The project was undertaken to organize and promote research productivity, especially among science faculty, as the author is the liaison to those departments. WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editing, searching, and navigation capabilities available in most wiki software packages are relatively simple to master compared to the complex processes used to create and publish searchable Web-based databases. The author explains the benefits and drawbacks of peer production, describes an annual event that honored recently published faculty and launched the wiki, gives examples of other library resources that may benefit from using such a format, and outlines future plans to migrate wiki content to an external host.
A multimethod approach to the combat air forces mix and deployment problem

The purpose of military logistics is to ensure that the material elements of combat capability come together at the right place and time and in the right configuration to be useful to the supported commander. These material elements are constrained in both quantity and location. The usefulness of any element to a commander is dependent upon both its extrinsic (qualitative; situation dependent) and intrinsic (quantitative; inherent) characteristics. Our research provides a methodology for rationally assigning relative value to material resources over time, in order to improve the linkage between what arrives (becomes available for use) in theater at any given time, and what is actually needed at that time. A blend of qualitative (value focused thinking and hierarchical weighting) and quantitative (a greedy matching algorithm) methods were used against the lift-constrained combat forces material selection/movement problem. The intent is to provide a decision support tool for the formulation of force mixes that best support desired time-phased battlefield objectives, given constraints on available transportation resources. This methodology is applicable to general crisis response planning, such as for disaster relief.
Transient and steady-state deformation of synthetic rocksalt

Abstract Synthetic rocksalt with a porosity less than 2.5% and an average grain size of about 0.35 mm was made by warm-pressing at 100°C, 150 MPa and for 15 min. Cylinders of this material, 25 mm in diameter by 50 mm long, were deformed at strain rates of 0.1 ksec −1 at confining pressures of 20, 50, 100 and 200 MPa and at temperatures of 100, 200 and 300°C. The resulting stress-time data show transient-stress behavior before steady-state stress occurs. Very little variation in the stress/time data occurs for the above confining pressures at a constant temperature. Many of the tests reach steady state at 10% strain, where all the experiments were terminated. The differential stress at 10% varies from about 22 MPa at 100°C to about 6 MPa at 300°C. These “strengths” are slightly less than those measured by Heard (1972) (also on synthetic, polycrystalline rocksalt) and are similar to those measured by Wawersik and Hannum (1980) and by Hansen and Mellegard (1980) in modified creep tests on coarse-grained, natural rocksalt under similar pressure and temperature conditions. Activation energies computed from these steady-state stresses vary between 7.5 and 25 kcal/mole and are consistent with those obtained by Heard (1972) and by Parrish and Gangi (1977, 1981). The stress/time data were fit using one- and two-mechanism, transient-stress functions which assume independent mechanisms or processes. The rms errors decrease from about 1 MPa for the one-mechanism fits to about 0.2 MPa for the two-mechanism fits, indicating at least two mechanisms are operative in these tests. Similar one- and two-mechanism fits were made to creep tests performed by W. Wawersik et al. on New Mexico bedded rocksalt. Similar improvements in the fits were obtained for those tests that lasted long enough so that the effect of a second mechanism could be noted. It was found that the “steady-state” strain rate found in creep tests could be interpreted as the beginning of another mechanism. This raises the question of whether the “steady-state” phenomena exist at all or whether it is just an approximation to a mechanism with a time constant that is long compared to the length of the test.
Perceived violence climate: A new construct and its relationship to workplace physical violence and verbal aggression, and their potential consequences

Abstract Workplace accidents and violence are both potential sources of employee injuries that have been dealt with in entirely separate literatures. In this study we adapted the concept of safety climate from the accident/injury literature to violence in developing the concept of perceived violence climate. A scale was developed to assess perceived violence climate, including items about management attention, concern, and policies designed to keep employees safe from violence. Data were collected from a sample of 198 nurses from a US Hospital. Perceived violence climate was found to correlate significantly with both physical violence and verbal aggression experienced by the nurses, injury from violence, and perceptions of workplace danger. Furthermore, regression analyses showed that climate explained additional variance in psychological strain and perceptions of danger over experienced violence. These results have implications for interventions aimed at producing a good perceived violence climate in ord...
Relationship of low protein diet and ascorbic acid in estrogen inactivation by liver.

It has been shown that an adequate protein intake is necessary for estrogen inactivation by the liver (13, 14). Since it has been reported that liver glutathione and ascorbic acid are decreased in either low protein or protein free diets (16, 17, 18), this investigation was carried out to determine if ascorbic acid and glutathione are involved in estrogen metabolism in the liver. This was studied by both in vivo and in vitro experiments using Sprague-Dawley female albino rats. In the in vivo experiments adult rats were ovariectomized and implanted with a pellet of estrone according to the method of Burrill and Greene (19). The inactivation of the estrogen was followed by the vaginal smear method. After three weeks of anestrous smears, the animals were placed on an 8% casein diet and within 10 days the animals lost the ability to inactivate the estrogen.
SU-FF-T-593: The Feasibility of Volumetric Comparison Between Respiratory Gating and ABC

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility of respiratory gating with respect to Active Breathing Control (ABC) for motion reduction through quantitative comparison. Methods and Materials: 4D scans from a GE(Light speed)scanner with RPM were used for the feasibility study. Ten phase reconstructions were generated from the 4D projections and target volumes on all 10 phases were created by radiation oncologists. For free breathing treatments, target volumes from all 10 phases were added to generate the ITV used for clinical target. In order to simulate the gated treatment, the three phases of exhalation which best matched the gated delivery time period were combined. The target thus obtained was then compared with those obtained from the standard scan with the ABC device in place. Targets were contoured for the ABC scan as well. A volumetric comparison of the targets was performed for the above three methods. Results: We tested the feasibility of the method on one of our patient cases for whom we utilized the ABC device for breathing motion control. The target volume for the 10 phase target was 25.49cc. The target volume from the simulated gated phases was 12.09cc and the target volume with the ABC was 11.19cc. Both the gated technique and the ABC control are able to reduce the target volume significantly, with about the same amount of reduction (52.57% and 56.1%). Conclusions: This study established quantitatively that gated delivery technique can mimic the volumetric outcome of ABC delivery for motion control. Both are able to reduce the target volume significantly. We plan to further this study with more data collection.
The establishment of Caenorhabditis elegans germline pattern is controlled by overlapping proximal and distal somatic gonad signals

We investigated the control of proliferation and differentiation in the larval Caenorhabditis elegans hermaphrodite germ line through analysis of glp-1 and lag-2 mutants, cell ablations, and ultrastructural data. After the first several rounds of germ cell division, GLP-1, a receptor of the LIN-12/Notch family, governs germline proliferation. We analyzed the proximal proliferation (Pro) phenotype in glp-1(ar202) and found that initial meiosis was delayed and spatially mispositioned. This is due, at least in part, to a heightened response of the mutant GLP-1 receptor to multiple sources of the somatic ligand LAG-2, including the proximal somatic gonad. We investigated whether proximal LAG-2 affects germline proliferation in the wild type. Our results indicate that (1) LAG-2 is necessary for GLP-1-mediated germline proliferation and prevention of early meiosis, and (2) several distinct anatomical sources of LAG-2 in the larval somatic gonad functionally overlap to promote proliferation and prevent early meiosis. Ultrastructural studies suggest that mitosis is not restricted to areas of direct DTC-germ line contact and that the germ line shares a common cytoplasm in larval stages. We propose that downregulation of the GLP-1 signaling pathway in the proximal germ line at the time of meiotic onset is under tight temporal and spatial control.
Biochemical studies on frontal lobe white matter of young and old human brains

Frontal lobe white matter obtained at autopsy from 5 young (45–60 yr) and 5 non-demented old (77–78 yr) individuals was studied. Water, total protein, myelin basic protein (BP) content and 2′,3′-cyclic nucleotide 3′phosphohydrolase (CNP) activity in the frontal white matter of the two groups were compared. Myelin BP was measured by two different methods, RIA and batch extraction. Results indicated no significant changes in water and in total protein content. Myelin BP, as measured by both methods, however, was found to be significantly decreased in brains of the older group. CNP activity was also decreased but only slightly. This data suggests that with advancing age, myelin may undergo some qualitative changes.
Determination of Water Saturation in Relatively Dry Porous Media Using Gas-Phase Tracer Tests

Soil desiccation (drying), induced by dry air injection and moist air extraction, is a potentially robust remediation process to slow migration of inorganic or radionuclide contaminants through the vadose zone. The application of gas-phase partitioning tracer tests has been proposed as a means to estimate initial water volumes and to monitor the progress of the desiccation process at pilot tests and field sites. In this study, tracer tests were conducted in porous medium columns with various water saturations using SF 6 as the conservative tracer and trichlorofluoromethane and difluoromethane as the water-partitioning tracers. For porous media with minimal silt or organic matter fractions, tracer tests provided reasonable saturation estimates for saturations close to zero. For sediments with significant silt or organic matter fractions, however, tracer tests only provided satisfactory results when the water saturation was greater than 0.1 to 0.2. For drier conditions, the apparent tracer retardation increased due to air–soil sorption, which is not included in traditional retardation coefficients derived from advection–dispersion equations accounting only for air–water partitioning and water–soil sorption. Based on these results, gas-phase partitioning tracer tests may be used to determine initial water volumes in sediments, provided that the initial water saturations are sufficiently large. Tracer tests are not suitable for quantifying moisture content in relatively dry sediments, however, especially if significant amounts of organic matter or silt are present.
Effects of Dichotically Enhanced Electronic Communication on Crash Risk and Performance during Simulated Driving

In a driving simulator experiment, male and female college students received turn-by-turn driving directions and cognitive tasks while interacting with an experimenter via an audio communication system. In an Enhanced condition (n = 29), lower speech frequencies (containing the speech fundamental frequency) were routed to participants' left ears (with right cerebral-hemisphere processing) and verbal frequencies above the speech fundamental frequency were routed to right ears (with left hemisphere processing). A control group (n = 31) heard unfiltered communications in both ears. Compared to those in the Control condition, participants in the Enhanced condition were significantly less likely to crash and had nonsignificantly lower rates of driving errors (speed infractions, improper lane position, and following distance errors). The results suggest a means of alleviating cognitive load pressure and mitigating crash risk when complex equipment is operated concurrently with two-way electronic communications (cell phone communication while driving, air-to-air and air-to-ground communications, etc.). Language: en
Pareto-Path Multitask Multiple Kernel Learning

A traditional and intuitively appealing Multitask Multiple Kernel Learning (MT-MKL) method is to optimize the sum (thus, the average) of objective functions with (partially) shared kernel function, which allows information sharing among the tasks. We point out that the obtained solution corresponds to a single point on the Pareto Front (PF) of a multiobjective optimization problem, which considers the concurrent optimization of all task objectives involved in the Multitask Learning (MTL) problem. Motivated by this last observation and arguing that the former approach is heuristic, we propose a novel support vector machine MT-MKL framework that considers an implicitly defined set of conic combinations of task objectives. We show that solving our framework produces solutions along a path on the aforementioned PF and that it subsumes the optimization of the average of objective functions as a special case. Using the algorithms we derived, we demonstrate through a series of experimental results that the framework is capable of achieving a better classification performance, when compared with other similar MTL approaches.
A 13C NMR investigation of restricted rotation and dimerization in p-substituted nitrosobenzenes

The barrier to internal rotation in a series of p-substituted nitrosobenzenes has been determined by means of variable temperature 13C NMR. Substituent (X) effects on the barrier are similar to those observed for acetophenones and benzaldehydes. In addition, dimerization of the nitrosobenzenes was observed at low temperature for X = CH3, CI and H. The barrier height is discussed in terms of contributions from resonance effects.
Verbal learning in semantic dementia: Is repetition priming a useful strategy?

Background: Semantic dementia (SD) is a neurodegenerative disease that impacts long-term conceptual and lexical knowledge (Hodges & Patterson, 1996). Severe naming difficulties are prevalent in SD, yet little is known about the potential for word learning in this population.Aims: We assessed patterns of repetition and implicit learning in patients with moderate to advanced SD via repeated exposure to word lists varied by frequency and imageability. We propose a tentative framework for the language loss incurred in SD and open a dialogue for treatment approaches targeted towards progressive semantic anomia.Methods and Procedures: In two experiments, we examined immediate serial recall and short-term learning in five patients with SD. We predicted reduced semantic effects (imageability), preservation of lexical effects (frequency), and diminished primacy effects in serial recall, consistent with other semantically impaired populations (Martin & Saffran, 1997). We also predicted that severity of semantic imp...
The golden age of minimally invasive cardiothoracic surgery: current and future perspectives

Over the past decade, minimally invasive cardiothoracic surgery (MICS) has grown in popularity. This growth has been driven, in part, by a desire to translate many of the observed benefits of minimal access surgery, such as decreased pain and reduced surgical trauma, to the cardiac surgical arena. Initial enthusiasm for MICS was tempered by concerns over reduced surgical exposure in highly complex operations and the potential for prolonged operative times and patient safety. With innovations in perfusion techniques, refinement of transthoracic echocardiography and the development of specialized surgical instruments and robotic technology, cardiac surgery was provided with the necessary tools to progress to less invasive approaches. However, much of the early literature on MICS focused on technical reports or small case series. The safety and feasibility of MICS have been demonstrated, yet questions remain regarding the relative efficacy of MICS over traditional sternotomy approaches. Recently, there has been a growth in the body of published literature on MICS long-term outcomes, with most reports suggesting that major cardiac operations that have traditionally been performed through a median sternotomy can be performed through a variety of minimally invasive approaches with equivalent safety and durability. In this article, we examine the technological advancements that have made MICS possible and provide an update on the major areas of cardiac surgery where MICS has demonstrated the most growth, with consideration of current and future directions.
Adolescent obesity: A call for multivariate longitudinal research on African-American youth

Behaviors (e.g., poor eating habits and physical inactivity patterns) that lead to obesity involve development in context. The home and the community are contexts in which a child develops such behaviors. Within the home environment, parental and sibling influences family food choices, attitudes, and perceptions toward obesity may contribute to the development of obesity. The community is a context within which a child develops social skills with peers and adults, eating patterns and eating behaviors, physical activity patterns, food preferences, and feelings of selfworth and competence. In addition, a child's attributes, such as body type, and body image, 1 socioeconomic status, and cultural membership 2 are powerful influences that may be related to the development of obesity. The development of obesity is also a longitudinal phenomenon that involves multiple factors: psychosocial, familial, dietary, and lifestyle. This article suggests a new research agenda for examining the multiple factors psychosocial, familial, dietary, and lifestyle that are likely to contribute to obesity. It focuses on youth, especially African-American youth, 10 to 12 years of age.
Using data mining and recommender systems to scale up the requirements process

Ultra-Large-Scale (ULS) software projects are anticipated to be highly complex and to involve thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of stakeholders. Unfortunately numerous accounts of recent failures and challenges in industrial and governmental projects have demonstrated that current requirements elicitation and prioritization practices do not scale adequately to address the needs of large projects. This position paper directly addresses this problem through proposing an open, inclusive, and robust elicitation and prioritization process that utilizes data-mining and recommender technologies to facilitate the active involvement of many thousands of stakeholders. We believe that the approach described in this paper is a fundamental building block towards addressing higher level requirements problems facing ULS Systems.
Tail Dependence Comparison of Survival Marshall–Olkin Copulas

The multivariate tail dependence describes the amount of dependence in the upper-orthant tail or lower-orthant tail of a multivariate distribution and can be used in the study of dependence among extreme values. We derive an explicit expression of tail dependence of multivariate survival Marshall–Olkin copulas, and obtain a sufficient condition under which tail dependencies of two survival Marshall–Olkin copulas can be compared. Some examples are also presented to illustrate our results.
Towards more intelligible physiological microphone speech: A probabilistic transformation approach

The non-acoustic physiological microphone (PMIC) has been shown to be useful for speech systems under adverse noisy conditions. However, the signal is not a true speech for the listener, therefore appears muffled and metallic with variations to the speaker dependent structure. This study presents a probabilistic transformation approach to improve the perceptual quality and intelligibility of PMIC speech not only by mapping the non-acoustic signal into the conventional speech production space, but also by minimizing distortions arising from alternative pickup location. Performance of the proposed approach is assessed based on five distinct objective metrics. Obtained results indicate that incorporating the probabilistic transformation yields significant improvement in overall PMIC speech quality and intelligibility. This technique along with the PMIC can thus find applications in noise robust human-to-human speech communication.
Impact of point-of-sale tobacco display bans: findings from the International Tobacco Control Four Country Survey

This study examined the impact of point-of-sale (POS) tobacco marketing restrictions in Australia and Canada, in relation to the United Kingdom and the United States where there were no such restrictions during the study period (2006-10). The data came from the International Tobacco Control Four Country Survey, a prospective multi-country cohort survey of adult smokers. In jurisdictions where POS display bans were implemented, smokers' reported exposure to tobacco marketing declined markedly. From 2006 to 2010, in Canada, the percentages noticing POS tobacco displays declined from 74.1 to 6.1% [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.26, P < 0.001]; and reported exposure to POS tobacco advertising decreased from 40.3 to 14.1% (adjusted OR = 0.61, P < 0.001). Similarly, in Australia, noticing of POS displays decreased from 73.9 to 42.9%. In contrast, exposure to POS marketing in the United States and United Kingdom remained high during this period. In parallel, there were declines in reported exposures to other forms of advertising/promotion in Canada and Australia, but again, not in the United States or United Kingdom. Impulse purchasing of cigarettes was lower in places that enacted POS display bans. These findings indicate that implementing POS tobacco display bans does result in lower exposure to tobacco marketing and less frequent impulse purchasing of cigarettes.
Isolation and Characterization of Chicken Interleukin-17 cDNA

Interleukin-17 (IL-17) is a proinflammatory cytokine produced by activated T cells. A 917-bp cDNA encoding the IL-17 gene was isolated from our EST cDNA library prepared from intestinal intraepithelial lymphocytes (IELs) of Eimeria-infected chickens. It contained a 507-bp open reading frame (ORF) predicted to encode a protein of 169 amino acids (aa) with a molecular mass of 18.9 kDa, a 27-residue NH2-terminal signal peptide, a single potential N-linked glycosylation site, and 6 cysteine residues conserved with mammalian IL-17. Chicken IL-17 (chIL-17) shared 37%–46% amino acid sequence identity to the previously described mammalian homologs and also was homologous to the ORF 13 of Herpesvirus saimiri (HVS 13). By Northern blot analysis, IL-17 transcripts were identified in a reticuloendotheliosis virus (REV)-transformed chicken lymphoblast cell line (CU205) and conconavalin A (ConA)-stimulated splenic lymphocytes but not other chicken cell lines or normal tissues. Conditioned medium from COS-7 cells transf...
Many-task applications in the Integrated Plasma Simulator

This paper discusses the Integrated Plasma Simulator (IPS), a framework for coupled multiphysics simulation of fusion plasmas, in the context of many-task computing. The IPS supports multiple levels of parallelism: individual computational tasks can be parallel, components can launch multiple tasks concurrently, tasks from multiple components can be executed concurrently within a simulation, and multiple simulations can be run simultaneously. Each level of parallelism is constructed on top of the many-task computing capabilities implemented in the IPS, the foundation for the parallelism presented at the multiple simulation level. We show that a modest number of simultaneous simulations, with appropriately sized resource allocations, can provide a better trade-off between resource utilization and overall execution time than if they are run as separate jobs. This approach is highly beneficial for situations in which individual simulation tasks may differ significantly in parallel scalability, as is the case in many scientific communities where coupled simulations rely substantially on legacy code.
A non-iterative equivalent waveform model for timing analysis in presence of crosstalk

In the deep sub micron (DSM) regime, due to non-uniform scaling of interconnects, coupling capacitance between wires becomes an increasingly dominant fraction of the total wire capacitance. Crosstalk causes delay variations on signal lines and raises signal integrity problems. Including crosstalk in timing analysis has become imperative for current technologies. Existing timing analysis methods do not consider gate driving capability, output loading effects and waveform shape, and hence are not always accurate. We propose a non-iterative equivalent waveform model that addresses these issues.
Studies in a patient with an ectopic adrenocortical tumor.

A patient is described who continued to have Cushing's syndrome following bilateral adrenalectomy. The possibility that he was taking exogenous cortisol was excluded. Repeated studies of adrenocortical function suggested the presence of an adrenocortical neoplasm in an ectopic site. Blood samples obtained from the inferior vena cava demonstrated an abrupt increase in the concentration of plasma 17-OHCS at the level of the first lumbar vertebra. An adrenocortical carcinoma was subsequently found above the upper pole of the right kidney and was removed.
Nuclear hormone receptors in podocytes

Nuclear receptors are a family of ligand-activated, DNA sequence-specific transcription factors that regulate various aspects of animal development, cell proliferation, differentiation, and homeostasis. The physiological roles of nuclear receptors and their ligands have been intensively studied in cancer and metabolic syndrome. However, their role in kidney diseases is still evolving, despite their ligands being used clinically to treat renal diseases for decades. This review will discuss the progress of our understanding of the role of nuclear receptors and their ligands in kidney physiology with emphasis on their roles in treating glomerular disorders and podocyte injury repair responses.
Cellular composition of the human pituitary pars tuberalis as revealed by immunocytochemistry

An attempt was made to determine if any of the specialized secretory cell types common to the pars distalis also occur in the pars tuberalis of the human hypophysis. Available for study were 18 specimens of the inferior pars tuberalis, which partially surrounds the infundibular stem, and 3 specimens of the superior pars tuberalis that is attached to the median eminence. Antisera to human somatotropin, mammotropin, chorionic gonadotropin, follicle-stimulating hormone, FSH β, luteinizing hormone, LH β, thyrotropin, TSH β, as well as to β 1–24-corticotropin, porcine β 17–39-corticotropin, and ovine LH were used with the Sternberger peroxidase-antiperoxidase immunocytochemical procedure to identify the probable cells of origin for these hormones. The evidence indicated that gonadotropic cells constitute the major portion of the parenchymal cell population in the pars tuberalis. They occurred throughout all of the pars tuberalis and were usually arranged in clusters. Somatotropic, mammotropic, corticotropic, and thyrotropic cells were rare and not found in all specimens. When present, they often formed a common group suggesting that their occurrence in the pars tuberalis resulted from displacement of primordial tissue of the pars distalis during embryogenesis.
Impact of matrix-associated soluble factors on the specificity of the immunogenicity assessment

Background: Specificity and sensitivity are essential in assays for immunogenicity assessment of biotherapeutics. Nonspecific interactions from excess therapeutic or anti-therapeutic antibody, soluble ligands (e.g., target receptor), or serum proteins associated with autoimmune conditions (e.g., rheumatoid factor) in samples can impact the detection of a true anti-therapeutic response. Results: Electrochemiluminescence-based bridging assay formats could eliminate the interference due to rheumatoid factor with no pretreatment with Melon Gel™ or aggregated IgG. The interference due to soluble factors was not platform specific for the four therapeutics evaluated in this study. Conclusion: Melon Gel pretreatment and avidin high-bind (Meso Scale Discovery) plates can effectively reduce interference due to rheumatoid factor in ELISA- and electrochemiluminescence-based assays, respectively. Excess levels of therapeutic and anti-therapeutic antibodies in bridging assays can impact assay specificity.
Examining Race-Related Silences: Interrogating the Education of Tomorrow's Educational Leaders.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the inclusion of race-related conversations within educational leadership preparation programs. We consider how students and professors within on...
Higher Learning, Greater Good: the Private and Social Benefits of Higher Education – By W. W. McMahon

(2010). Higher Learning, Greater Good: the Private and Social Benefits of Higher Education – By W. W. McMahon. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 42, Local Pedagogies/Global Ethics, pp. 504-506.
Optimal mapping for 2-bit high speed Huffman compression

The efficiency of Huffman compression in communications networks can be significantly enhanced by a scheme called multibit decoding. The scheme is based on the concept of k-bit trees which are used to decode up to k bits at a time. An optimal solution for the mapping of 2-bit trees into memory is presented. The 2-bit mapping is storage efficient; and offers an attractive way to obtain significant improvement in the speed of Huffman decoding. >
Diabetes-Related Support, Regimen Adherence, and Health Decline Among Older Adults

Objectives. Social support is generally conceptualized as health promoting; however, there is little consensus regarding the mechanisms through which support is protective. Illness support has been proposed to promote regimen adherence and subsequent prevention of health decline. We hypothesize that (a) support for regimen adherence is negatively associated with self-reported health decline among older diabetic adults and that (b) regimen adherence is negatively associated with health decline among older diabetic adults. Methods. We used the Health and Retirement Study data on individuals over the age of 60 years with type 2 diabetes mellitus ( n = 1,788), examining change in self-reported health status over a 2-year period using binomial and cumulative ordinal logistic regression models. Results. Diabetic support is not signifi cantly associated with health decline, but it is strongly associated with adherence to health-promoting activities consisting of a diabetic regimen. Therefore, the extent to which one receives illness support for a given regimen component is highly positively associated with adhering to that component, although this adherence does not necessarily translate into protection against perceived decline in health. Conclusions. Illness-related support appears to be a mechanism through which social support matters in the diabetic population. Although this relationship did not extend to prevention of health status decline among diabetics, the relationship between support and illness management is promising .
Biogeochemical investigations of marine methane seeps, Hydrate Ridge, Oregon

[1] A series of biogeochemical studies were conducted at the southern summit of Hydrate Ridge, offshore Oregon. Using the submersible DSV Alvin, sediment push cores were collected from two distinct seep environments characterized by the presence of clam fields (CF) or microbial mats (MM) at the sediment-water interface; samples were also collected from a nearby reference site characterized by a barren surface at the sediment-water interface. Sediment samples from each setting were analyzed for the depth distributions of total organic carbon (concentrations, δ13C and Δ14C), total sedimentary nitrogen, and microbial abundance. Pore fluids were extracted and analyzed for sulfate, alkalinity, sulfide, organic carbon, and volatile organic acids. These depth distributions clearly indicate the presence of three distinctive biogeochemical settings in the surface sediments of Hydrate Ridge, and provide the basis for a comparative biogeochemical analysis. Both CF and MM sites display properties indicating enhanced microbial activity in the subsurface, compared with the reference site. MM sites display evidence of net biomass production in the subsurface; however, a loss of sediment nitrogen relative to the reference site indicates that mineralization is also enhanced. Calculations based on the removal of nitrogen indicate that greater than 30% of autochthonous organic material is lost to enhanced mineralization in the top 23 cm of one MM site. An isotope mass balance of sediment-bound organic carbon indicates a mixed source, including methane and allochthonous organic carbon dissolved in the seep fluids. The concentrations of organic carbon dissolved in seep fluids reach values of 22 mM and provide a first indication that advective transport of dissolved organic carbon from great depth may supply an important source of energy and carbon to “methane seep” communities.
Successful survival, growth, and reproductive potential of quagga mussels in low calcium lake water: is there uncertainty of establishment risk?

The risk of quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis Andrusov 1897) establishment into water-bodies of the western US has expanded the geographic concern regarding the ecological and economic impacts this species will have in aquatic ecosystems. Thresholds based on calcium concentrations, an element critical for mussel growth and physiology, have been used as a primary predictor of quagga mussel establishment success to aid management decisions. We evaluated the invasion potential of quagga mussels in low calcium waters using laboratory experiments to compare the survival, growth and reproductive potential of adult mussels held for 90 days at low (9 and 12 ppm), moderate (15 to 32 ppm) and high (72 ppm) calcium water concentrations. In conjunction with adult experiments, veliger stage survival, growth and settlement were evaluated under similar low, moderate, and high calcium water treatments. Adult mussels survived, grew and showed reproductive potential in low calcium water (12 ppm). Veligers were also able to survive, grow and settle in low calcium water. Higher levels of natural seston biomass appeared to improve adult mussel life history performance in low calcium water. Survival curve analysis predicted that 99% adult mortality could occur in 15 ppm could have adults surviving more than a year. The results from these bioassays provide further evidence that quagga mussels have higher risk of establishment in low calcium lakes if habitats exist that have slightly elevated calcium. These results should help emphasize the vulnerability of water-body in the 12 to 15 ppm calcium range that could potentially be at risk of establishing sustainable quagga mussel populations. Furthermore, these results provide insights into the uncertainty of using a single parameter in assigning establishment risk given the complexity of variables in specific water-bodies that influence life history performance of introduced species.
Fuzzy micro-agents for interactive narrative

This paper describes our current approach in implementing computational improvisational micro-agents. This approach is intended to foster bottom-up research to better understand how to build more complex agent behaviors in a theatrical improvisational setting. Micro-agent designs are based on our current findings in a multi-year study focused on studying real life theatrical improvisers with an aim towards better understanding the cognition employed in improvisation at the individual and group level. It also introduces a key architectural component from the domain of fuzzy logic that enables us to clearly represent some of our current findings.
Does Metformin Reduce Cancer Risks? Methodologic Considerations

The substantial burden of cancer and diabetes and the association between the two conditions has been a motivation for researchers to look for targeted strategies that can simultaneously affect both diseases and reduce their overlapping burden. In the absence of randomized clinical trials, researchers have taken advantage of the availability and richness of administrative databases and electronic medical records to investigate the effects of drugs on cancer risk among diabetic individuals. The majority of these studies suggest that metformin could potentially reduce cancer risk. However, the validity of this purported reduction in cancer risk is limited by several methodological flaws either in the study design or in the analysis. Whether metformin use decreases cancer risk relies heavily on the availability of valid data sources with complete information on confounders, accurate assessment of drug use, appropriate study design, and robust analytical techniques. The majority of the observational studies assessing the association between metformin and cancer risk suffer from methodological shortcomings and efforts to address these issues have been incomplete. Future investigations on the association between metformin and cancer risk should clearly address the methodological issues due to confounding by indication, prevalent user bias, and time-related biases. Although the proposed strategies do not guarantee a bias-free estimate for the association between metformin and cancer, they will reduce synthesis of and reporting of erroneous results.
The smart surface network

We present the Smart Surface Network (SSN), a hardware and software platform designed for dense sensing. Sensor nodes connected to the SSN communicate using a serial bus integrated within a mountable physical surface. The hardware architecture and bus access and communication mechanisms are implemented in a self-stabilizing manner, providing robust handling of unannounced arrivals and departures of network devices. An associated API supports a peer-to-peer communication paradigm, providing access to the physical, data link, and application layers of the bus. In this paper, we describe the SSN hardware architecture and present the bus access and peer discovery algorithms. We also discuss the design of the API and describe experimental results characterizing the fairness of the bus algorithm, the efficiency of the peer discovery algorithm, and the performance of the SSN system under varying load conditions.
What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta. By Stephen Davis. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2012. Pp. 527. $35.00.)

This study makes its interpretation clear from its title. The author is focused on the summer and fall of the 1864 siege, bombardment, occupation, and finally burning of Atlanta. His carefully rese...
Unary Data Structures for Language Models

Language models are important components of speech recognition and machine translation systems. Trained on billions of words, and consisting of billions of parameters, language models often are the single largest components of these systems. There have been many proposed techniques to reduce the storage requirements for language models. A technique based upon pointer-free compact storage of ordinal trees shows compression competitive with the best proposed systems, while retaining the full finite state structure, and without using computationally expensive block compression schemes or lossy quantization techniques.
Oxygen Transfer From Falling Water Droplets

Overall oxygen transfer coefficients are obtained for deaerated water droplets falling freely through the atmosphere with and without 50 ppm. of a synthetic detergent. Drop distances ranged from 0 to 13 ft, and droplet surface areas varied from 0.47 to 0.55 cm\U2\N. Transfer coefficients are found to decrease somewhat with increasing droplet size, becoming independent of droplet size above 6.0 ppm of D.O. With detergent present, the coefficients are reduced approximately 50%. Experiments were also performed with fully aerated water droplets falling freely through a nitrogen atmosphere. For this case, droplet surface area ranged from 0.15 to 0.50 cm\U2\N. Transfer coefficients are found to increase with increasing droplet size. Although no direct comparison of droplet sizes could be made, it is concluded that the rate of oxygen transfer for both inward and outward transfer from a droplet is not substantially different.
The Mammals of the Malpais, an Area of Black Lava Rock in the Tularosa Basin, New Mexico

As a member of the University of Michigan-Walker-Harris Expedition of 1927, the writer became interested in the mammals of the Malpais lava bed area lying in the Tularosa Basin just west of Carrizozo, Lincoln County, New Mexico. The expedition was able to spend but a single night at Malpais Spring,' which lies at the extreme southern end of the lava bed, yet the trap lines operated on this one night resulted in the discovery of a new subspecies of pocket mouse and a new subspecies of woodrat. The pocket mouse has been described by L. R. Dice as Perognathus intermedius ater, and the woodrat as Neotoma albigula melas.2 Both the pocket mouse and the woodrat are very dark in color, much darker than the related forms found in the surrounding region. This dark color, corresponding to the dark color of the lava beds themselves, suggested further work in the area. The writer returned to the lava beds for parts of the two succeeding summers, and obtained additional specimens of each of the new subspecies named, as well as various other small mammals. The time actually spent in work on the lava bed was too brief, and the season, late July and early August, too unfavorable, for the securing of conclusive data on mammalian distribution, or on the relationships of the mammals of the lava to those of the adjacent areas, but some of the results obtained were interesting, and may stimulate further work in the region. Lava beds in the west are often termed "Malpais," a Spanish word meaning "bad country." The Malpais west of Carrizozo certainly merits this name, for it is a jagged mass of black rock, almost impassable even on foot, and used only to a limited extent as a goat pasture. A road has recently been completed across the Malpais from Carrizozo to Socorro, and is expected to attract travelers on account of the unusual
Beetroot juice reduces infarct size and improves cardiac function following ischemia-reperfusion injury: Possible involvement of endogenous H2S.

Ingestion of high dietary nitrate in the form of beetroot juice (BRJ) has been shown to exert antihypertensive effects in humans through increasing cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) levels. Since enhanced cGMP protects against myocardial ischemia–reperfusion (I/R) injury through upregulation of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), we tested the hypothesis that BRJ protects against I/R injury via H2S. Adult male CD-1 mice received either regular drinking water or those dissolved with BRJ powder (10 g/L, containing ∼0.7 mM nitrate). Seven days later, the hearts were explanted for molecular analyses. Subsets of mice were subjected to I/R injury by occlusion of the left coronary artery for 30 min and reperfusion for 24 h. A specific inhibitor of H2S producing enzyme – cystathionine-γ-lyase (CSE), dl-propargylglycine (PAG, 50 mg/kg) was given i.p. 30 min before ischemia. Myocardial infarct size was significantly reduced in BRJ-fed mice (15.8 ± 3.2%) versus controls (46.5 ± 3.5%, mean ± standard error [SE], n = 6/group,...