cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Reverse Mode of the Sarcoplasmic Reticulum Calcium Pump and Load-Dependent Cytosolic Calcium Decline in Voltage-Clamped Cardiac Ventricular Myocytes

We have characterized [Ca](i) decline in voltage-clamped rabbit ventricular myocytes with progressive increases in sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) calcium load. "Backflux" through the SR calcium pump is a critical feature which allows realistically small values for SR calcium leak fluxes to be used. Total cytosolic calcium was calculated from the latter part of [Ca](i) decline using rate constants for cellular calcium buffers. Intra-SR calcium buffering characteristics were also deduced. We found that the net SR calcium pump flux and rate of [Ca](i) decline decreased as the SR free [Ca] rose, with pump parameters held constant. We have therefore characterized for the first time in intact myocytes both forward and reverse SR calcium pump kinetics as well as intra-SR calcium buffering and SR calcium leak. We conclude that the reverse flux through the SR calcium pump is an important factor in comprehensive understanding of dynamic SR calcium fluxes.
Genomic Analysis of the BMP Family in Glioblastomas.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a grade IV glioma with a median survival of 15 months. Recently, bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling has been shown to promote survival in xenograft murine models. To gain a better understanding of the role of BMP signaling in human GBMs, we examined the genomic alterations of 90 genes associated with BMP signaling in GBM patient samples. We completed this analysis using publically available datasets compiled through The Cancer Genome Atlas and the Glioma Molecular Diagnostic Initiative. Here we show how mRNA expression is altered in GBM samples and how that is associated with patient survival, highlighting both known and novel associations between BMP signaling and GBM biology.
Applying category theory to improve the performance of a neural architecture

A recently developed mathematical semantic theory explains the relationship between knowledge and its representation in connectionist systems. The semantic theory is based upon category theory, the mathematical theory of structure. A product of its explanatory capability is a set of principles to guide the design of future neural architectures and enhancements to existing designs. We claim that this mathematical semantic approach to network design is an effective basis for advancing the state of the art. We offer two experiments to support this claim. One of these involves multispectral imaging using data from a satellite camera.
Beam-Shaping of Planar Array Antennas Using Integrated Attenuators

The use of planar integrated attenuators to shape the beam of a planar array antenna is investigated on a lightweight organic polymer ideal for satellite applications. The entire array is fabricated using a single type of liquid crystal polymer (LCP), reducing the cost of fabrication and simplifying the integration of the attenuators. A fabricated prototype was designed, fabricated, and measured revealing a sidelobe reduction of 12dB compared with a similar antenna using a uniform amplitude distribution, or an overall sidelobe level of -25dB. The 3dB beamwidth of the binomial array was measured to be 31 degrees, an increase of 3 degrees over the uniform amplitude case.
Report on the CMU-Westinghouse Printed Wiring Board Inspection Device: PWBIS II

There are over a dozen commercially available automatic visual inspection devices for quality control on multilayer printed wiring boards (PWBs) and printed wiring phototools. Among the many early prototypes built for commercial evaluation was the PWBIS II unit built in our laboratory with sponsorship of the Robotics Institute and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The design was done in collaboration with Dr. Mark Friedman, with engineering support from Drew Anderson, Robert Berger, and Dan Nydick of the Robotics Institute. This report summarizes the operation and methods employed in that device. The focus is on measurement embodied in the device itself and on the problem of the evaluating a PWB inspection station's performance. In previous papers we alluded to this device and how it operated [10], but did not discuss its design and performance. This device, which we called "PWBIS II" for 'Printed Wiring Board Inspection Station II', was decommissioned by Westinghouse approximately six months ago. It has been moved back to the laboratory and is available now for research uses.
Review of information extraction technologies and applications

Information extraction (IE) is an important and growing field, in part because of the development of ubiquitous social media networking millions of people and producing huge collections of textual information. Mined information is being used in a wide array of application areas from targeted marketing of products to intelligence gathering for military and security needs. IE has its roots in artificial intelligence fields including machine learning, logic and search algorithms, computational linguistics, and pattern recognition. This review summarizes the history of IE, surveys the various uses of IE, identifies current technological accomplishments and challenges, and explores the role that neural and adaptive computing might play in future research. A goal for this review is also to encourage practitioners of neural and adaptive computing to look for interesting applications in the important emerging area of IE.
Measurements of lip pressure exerted on a cigarette during normal smoking

Measurements were made of the pressure exerted by human lips on the filter of a cigarette during normal smoking conditions using a small, fluid-filled bulb attached to a low-compliance pressure transducer. In two series of measurements, the mean lip pressure and standard error were 34.2 (±2.6) and 35.8 (±3.1) torr respectively. These pressures compared favorably with those applied by the Cambridge holder (used in the standard FTC testing procedure), but were much lower than the pressures exerted by the Filtrona and Borgwaldt holders, both of which are constructed from a rigid cylindrical housing with a segment of latex tube mounted inside. Pressures measured by these two holders were in close agreement with the pressures predicted by a nonlinear theoretical model for the distention of latex rubber tubes.
“Macho Mistake”: The Misrepresentation of Jim Harrison's Fiction

(1988). “Macho Mistake”: The Misrepresentation of Jim Harrison's Fiction. Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction: Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 233-244.
Naloxonazine and opioid-induced inhibition of reflex urinary bladder contractions.

Abstract Spontaneous volume-induced contractions of the urinary bladder were recorded isometrically in urethane-anesthetized rats. Contractions were inhibited by alternate submaximal but equieffective doses of the selective μ and δ-opioid ligands [ d -Ala2-Me-Phe4,Gly(ol)5] enkephaline (DAGO) and [2- d -penicillamine, 5- d -penicillamine] enkephalin (DPDPE), respectively, administered by the intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) or spinal intrathecal (i.t.) route. Naloxonazine, postulated to be an irreversible μ1-opioid receptor antagonist, administered by the same route, antagonized the effects of both DAGO and DPDPE. The antagonism of the effect of DAGO was reversed 3–4 hr later but that of DPDPE was more prolonged. Recovery of the effect of DPDPE was observed some 24 hr later. A similar pattern of activity against DAGO and DPDPE given intraventricularly or intrathecally was observed following intravenous injection of naloxonazine (10 mg/kg). Also naloxonazine (i.c.v., i.t. or i.v.) antagonized the effect of morphine given intraventricularly or intrathecally, but antagonism was not observed when morphine was retested 3–4 hr and 24 hr later. Naloxonazine increased the frequency of contraction of the bladder after each route of administration. This effect lasted 1–3 hr and was not seen 24 hr later. Systemic adminstration of naloxone (10 mg/kg, i.v.) also increased the frequency of bladder contraction and attenuated or abolished the effect of DAGO given intraventricularly or intrathecally and the δ-receptor agonist [2- d -penicillamine, 5- l -penicillamine] enkephaline (DPLPE). Unlike the antagonism by naloxonazine however, recovery of the effect of each ligand was observed some 4 hr later. These observations suggest that naloxonazine possesses μ-opioid receptor antagonistic activity as well as more prolonged δ-opioid receptor antagonistic activity, the latter property clearly distinguishing it from naloxone. In view of recent radioligand binding experiments the possibility that both μ1 and μ2-opioid receptor subtypes are involved in opioid-mediated inhibition of reflex contractions of the bladder is discussed. Additionally these data support the hypothesis that endogenous opioids are involved in the central regulation of activity of the urinary bladder.
Seasonal variation in size-dependent survival of juvenile Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar): Performance of multistate capture-mark-recapture models

We estimated the magnitude and shape of size-dependent survival (SDS) across multiple sampling intervals for two cohorts of stream-dwelling Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) juveniles using multistate capture–mark–recapture (CMR) models. Simulations designed to test the effectiveness of multistate models for detecting SDS in our system indicated that error in SDS estimates was low and that both time-invariant and time-varying SDS could be detected with sample sizes of >250, average survival of >0.6, and average probability of capture of >0.6, except for cases of very strong SDS. In the field (N ∼750, survival 0.6–0.8 among sampling intervals, probability of capture 0.6–0.8 among sampling occasions), about one-third of the sampling intervals showed evidence of SDS, with poorer survival of larger fish during the age-2+ autumn and quadratic survival (opposite direction between cohorts) during age-1+ spring. The varying magnitude and shape of SDS among sampling intervals suggest a potential mechanism for the mai...
A Mentoring Program: What Do Students Want and What can Working Professionals Provide?

Mentoring programs have been experiencing a rebirth in attempts to achieve a variety of goals, one of which is career preparation. Traditional course work and laboratory training offered by universities ensure that students obtain the technical skills necessary to practice in their profession. To better assist students with career preparation, a mentoring program that matches students with practicing professionals is under consideration at one university. Students and working professionals were surveyed via questionnaires to determine their interest in and willingness to commit to participating in a mentoring program, and their ability and willingness to serve as mentors, respectively. Overall, 95% of the students surveyed indicated that they would like to participate in a mentoring program, while nearly 82% of the working professionals who returned questionnaires indicated their willingness to serve as mentors. Parameters of the proposed program, desired mentor characteristics, and expected benefits will...
The characterization of isomeric oxazoline derivatives by mass spectrometry

Geometric and positional isomers of the Δ2-oxazoline ring system have been characterized by their mass spectral fragmentation patterns. The composition of the major ions in the spectra have been determined by high resolution mass spectrometry. A fragmentation pathway for the formation of these ions is presented.
Thermodynamics of uranyl minerals: Enthalpies of formation of uranyl oxide hydrates

The enthalpies of formation of seven uranyl oxide hydrate phases and one uranate have been determined using high-temperature oxide melt solution calorimetry: [(UO{sub 2}){sub 4}O(OH){sub 6}](H{sub 2}O){sub 5}, metaschoepite; {beta}-UO{sub 2}(OH){sub 2}; CaUO{sub 4}; Ca(UO{sub 2}){sub 6}O{sub 4}(OH){sub 6}(H{sub 2}O){sub 8}, becquerelite; Ca(UO{sub 2}){sub 4}O{sub 3}(OH){sub 4}(H{sub 2}O){sub 2}; Na(UO{sub 2})O(OH), clarkeite; Na{sub 2}(UO{sub 2}){sub 6}O{sub 4}(OH){sub 6}(H{sub 2}O){sub 7}, the sodium analogue of compreignacite and Pb{sub 3}(UO{sub 2}){sub 8}O{sub 8}(OH){sub 6}(H{sub 2}O){sub 2}, curite. The enthalpy of formation from the binary oxides, {Delta}H{sub f-ox}, at 298 K was calculated for each compound from the respective drop solution enthalpy, {Delta}H{sub ds}. The standard enthalpies of formation from the elements, {Delta}H{sub f}{sup o}, at 298 K are -1791.0 {+-} 3.2, -1536.2 {+-} 2.8, -2002.0 {+-} 3.2, -11389.2 {+-} 13.5, -6653.1 {+-} 13.8, -1724.7 {+-} 5.1, -10936.4 {+-} 14.5 and -13163.2 {+-} 34.4 kJ mol{sup -1}, respectively. These values are useful in exploring the stability of uranyl oxide hydrates in auxiliary chemical systems, such as those expected in U-contaminated environments.
Transient Outward Current, Ito1, Is Altered in Cardiac Memory

Background—Cardiac memory refers to an altered T-wave morphology induced by ventricular pacing or arrhythmias that persist for variable intervals after resumption of sinus rhythm. Methods and Results—We induced long-term cardiac memory (LTM) in conscious dogs by pacing the ventricles at 120 bpm for 3 weeks. ECGs were recorded daily for 1 hour, during which time pacing was discontinued. At terminal study, the heart was removed and the electrophysiology of left ventricular epicardial myocytes was investigated. Control (C) and LTM ECG did not differ, except for T-wave amplitude, which decreased from 0.12±0.18 to −0.34±0.21 mV (±SEM, P<0.05), and T-wave vector, which shifted from −37±12° to −143±4° (P<0.05). Epicardial action potentials revealed loss of the notch and lengthening of duration at 20 days (both P<0.05). Calcium-insensitive transient outward current (Ito) was investigated by whole-cell patch clamp. No difference in capacitance was seen in C and LTM myocytes. Ito activated on membrane depolarizatio...
A Framework for Warranty Prediction During Product Development

This paper describes the challenges faced by companies to manage warranty performance during product development. Understanding and reducing warranty cost often focuses exclusively on the analysis of product failures. However, warranty costs can also be incurred by events such as misaligned customer expectations that do not involve a product failure, per se. Many experts agree that effective management of system reliability and reliability validation during product development is a key to achieve superior time to market and life cycle quality. The paper first surveys the challenges faced by various organizations ranging from consumer electronics to aircraft engines to experimental high-energy physics accelerators. From the survey emerge some key and common issues that these companies face: identification of failure events; reliability modeling and prediction; prototyping and validation testing. The paper then reviews the current state of the art to identify areas for improvements as well as needed integrations in order to develop a comprehensive framework that will be useful to product developers to manage and predict warranty performance during product development. This framework extends and integrates three areas: 1) extend scenario-based FMEA to include the diagnosis and repair of failure events as part of the scenario; 2) use of Bayesian methods to integrate field data, product development data and engineering judgments; 3) generate costs models that allow tradeoff studies between product design, service model design and warranty policies. The paper concludes by presenting a future research agenda.Copyright © 2005 by ASME
Art and education using direct manipulation of a sensor array

We describe here two installations of direct manipulation systems in the art and education domain. In these installations we use a pressure sensitive computer-projected canvas for user manipulation. As the user presses the canvas, an art piece is created, or image layers are revealed.
Persistent effect of TGF-β1 on extracellular matrix gene expression in human dermal fibroblasts

Abstract TGF-β, a potent inducer of the extracellular matrix, is also known to stimulate its own synthesis. In this report we have analyzed long term effects of TGF-β1 on its own expression and on the expression of extracellular matrix genes. We demonstrated that 24 hours of incubation of human dermal fibroblasts with TGF-β1 (1 ng/ml) under serum free conditions resulted in an elevated expression of TGF-β1, collagen α2(I) and fibronectin mRNAs that persisted at least 96 hours after removal of TGF-β1. These data suggest the possibility of persistent in vivo activation of target cells following exposure to TGF-β1.
NMR Structure of Mistic, a Membrane-Integrating Protein for Membrane Protein Expression

Although structure determination of soluble proteins has become routine, our understanding of membrane proteins has been limited by experimental bottlenecks in obtaining both sufficient yields of protein and ordered crystals. Mistic is an unusual Bacillus subtilis integral membrane protein that folds autonomously into the membrane, bypassing the cellular translocon machinery. Using paramagnetic probes, we determined by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy that the protein forms a helical bundle with a surprisingly polar lipid-facing surface. Additional experiments suggest that Mistic can be used for high-level production of other membrane proteins in their native conformations, including many eukaryotic proteins that have previously been intractable to bacterial expression.
Targeted HIV-Prevention Programs

There had been 243,423 deaths from AIDS in the United States through June 30, 1994.1 About 40,000 new infections with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) occur annually.2 Given the human sufferi...
Adjustable Needle Valve Leaks

A SATISFACTORY adjustable needle valve for admitting a small constant flow of gas into a highly exhausted vessel is difficult to make. A number of ingenious forms have been described by various workers.1 The valve should close tightly, open slowly, and yet it should have wide range. I have recently designed such a valve. The idea is not new; any originality that the device may have lies largely in the mechanical arrangement. Three forms, all employing very long and exceedingly narrow needles, are herewith described. The order is that of increasing complexity. The last one admits of being calibrated.
Rhodopsin homeostasis and retinal degeneration: lessons from the fly

Rhodopsins (Rh) are G protein-coupled receptors that function as light-sensors in photoreceptors. In humans, Rh mutations cause retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a degenerative disease that ultimately results in blindness. Studies in Drosophila have provided many insights into basic Rh biology and have identified pathways that lead to retinal degeneration. It has been shown that, because Rh is very abundant in photoreceptors, its accumulation in numerous organelles induces severe stress and results in degeneration of these cells. Moreover, genetic lesions that affect proper activation of membrane-bound Rh lead to disruption in Ca 2+ homeostasis which also causes photoreceptor degeneration. We review here the molecular signals involved in Rh homeostasis and the mechanisms underlying retinal degeneration in flies, and discuss possible links to human diseases.
Molecular biology in cytopathology: current applications and future directions.

The use of molecular techniques in cytopathology has become an accepted and billable practice for certain applications. Other applications still are in the developmental or experimental stages but may soon be clinically useful. The current study provides a review of these techniques including molecular detection of clonality, in situ hybridization, loss of heterozygosity, and single base mutation detection. A number of new molecular techniques recently have been described that may have a dramatic impact on diagnostic pathology. These techniques, in situ detection of single base mutations and microarray technology, are introduced and discussed in the context of potential applications to cytopathology in the future. Cancer (Cancer Cytopathol) 2000;90:1–9. © 2000 American Cancer Society.
Flanker compatibility effects in patients with Parkinson's disease: impact of target onset delay and trial-by-trial stimulus variation.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and healthy controls were administered a flanker task that consisted of the presentation of colored targets and distractors. Participants were required to attend to the center target and identify its color. The stimulus displays were either congruent (i.e., the target and flankers were the same color) or incongruent. The time between the onset of the flanker and the target color (the target onset delay) was either short or long. Results indicated that PD patients and controls did not differ in the magnitude of the flanker effect within individual trials in that both groups demonstrated a typical flanker effect at the short target onset delay and neither group demonstrated a flanker effect at the longer delay. However, when performance was examined on a trial-by-trial basis, PD patients demonstrated a slowing of reaction time relative to controls when having to make the same response across consecutive trials at longer inter-trial intervals when the flankers were incongruent across consecutive trials and the display on the second of two trials was incongruent. These results indicate that PD patients are impaired in inhibiting the distractors over an extended delay and that this deficit may impact motor responding in these patients, suggesting that the basal ganglia contribute to the interface of attention and action.
Problems in the History of Higher Education: A Review Article

"Few fields are today more ripe for the application of modern research strategies and tactics, and few offer greater promise of rich intellectual rewards, than the history of education." Thus Lawrence Stone in his introduction to this collection of work done at Princeton's Davis Center over a four-year period. No one who has worked in the field will disagree with Stone's assessment. Once dissatisfied with narrative accounts of individual institutions, the historian of education faces an extraordinary task. He must combine a variety of viewpoints and skills, for education is at once a complex and a central activity in any society. Among the merits of the essays under review, not the least is the wide range of approaches they exemplify. Since I cannot discuss them all in a few pages, I shall comment on those that illustrate issues I consider particularly central, controversial, or simply interesting to me personally. Despite their diversity, most of the essays deal with one of three very broad topics: long-term changes in enrollments, the characteristics of student subcultures, and the role of academics as teachers and scholars.
Levels of Morphological Deficit: Indications from Inflectional Regularity

A language impairment that affects the production of inflected and/or derived words may result from a deficit that specifically affects morphological processing mechanisms, but it might also arise from whole-word processing failures as well (Badecker & Caramazza, 1987; Funnell, 1987). However, to motivate a true morphological impairment, the deficit must be understood in terms of one or more different levels of morphological structure. Minimally, we can distinguish a word's morphosyntactic representation from its morphophonological representation. In the single-case study reported here a deficit affecting the representation or processing of morphosyntactic representations is motivated. A critical part of the argument is that the deficit affects both regular and irregular inflection, and that no whole-word processing deficit can account for the particular pattern observed in this patient.
Novel in Situ Device for Measuring Solubilities

A novel in situ device for measuring solubilities of moderately soluble substances such as high-molecular-weight carbohydrates is described. A known sample mass is added to a thermostated cell that is agitated and heated at a steady rate, and the refractive index is monitored until a sudden change in slope is observed, signaling total dissolution of all solids. Two versions of the device are described: one contained about 30 mL of solution, and the second one contained about 3 mL of solution for use with small amounts of solids (30−200 mg). Solubilities measured with both in situ devices are virtually identical and agree closely with literature data; the average deviation from literature values is less than ±0.2 wt % for both devices. Data, collected at two heating rates (3.9 ± 1.7 and 10.2 ± 2.1 °C/h), indicate that the fast heating rate gives solubilities statistically identical with those given by the slow heating rate, meaning that reliable data can be collected at the fast rate within 3 h. This new ...
Cost-benefit analysis of a computerized medical record system.

This paper describes the cost-benefit analysis of a computerized medical record system for use in physicans' offices. Actual data for savings in physician time in paper work was collected. The qualitative benefits of the system were evaluated using a questionnaire. The cost-benefit ratios demonstrated that the use of a computerized medical system is justified.
Smart video systems in police cars

The use of video cameras in police cars has been found to have significant value and the number of such installed systems has been increasing. In addition to recording the events in routine traffic stops for later use in legal settings, in-car video cameras can be used to analyze in real-time or near real-time to detect critical events and notify police headquarters for help. This paper presents methods for detecting critical events in such police car videos. The specific critical events are person running out of a stopped car and officer falling down while approaching a stopped car. In the above situations, the aim is to alert the control center immediately for backup forces, especially in the last example when the officer is incapacitated. In order to implement real-time video processing so that a quick response can be generated without employing complex, slow, and brittle video processing algorithms, we use the reduced spatiotemporal representation (1D projection profile) and Hidden Markov Model to detect these events. The methods are tested on many video shots under various environmental and illumination conditions.
Fast computation of the modality of polygons

Abstract The modality of a vertex of a polygon is the number of minima or maxima in the distance function from the vertex under consideration to each of the other vertices taken in order around the polygon. Modality was defined by Avis, Toussaint, and Bhattacharya ( Comput. Math Appl. , 8 (1982), 153–156) and has been further studied by Toussaint and Bhattacharya (Technical Report, No. SOCS-81.3, School of Computer Science, McGill University, January 1981). These authors have defined modality for polygons, both convex and nonconvex, but have not given an algorithm to compute the modality of a polygon, other than the obvious algorithm derived from the definition, which is quadratic in the number of vertices of the polygon. Our paper gives a modality-determination algorithm for convex polygons whose running time is linear in the sum of the number of vertices and the total modality of the polygon. As a special case, we can test if a convex polygon is unimodal (a term introduced by Avis et al. ) in time O ( n ) for a polygon with n vertices. This latter result is shown to be optimal to within a constant factor. We then extend our technique to nonconvex polygons and derive a modality-determination algorithm which is better than the obvious algorithm, but probably not optimal. We conclude by posing some open problems and indicating a connection between modality determination and a range query problem which has received some attention in the Computational Geometry literature.
Primal Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for Time-Dependent Coupled Surface and Subsurface Flow

This paper introduces and analyzes a numerical method based on discontinuous finite element methods for solving the two-dimensional coupled problem of time-dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with the Darcy equations through Beaver-Joseph-Saffman's condition on the interface. The proposed method employs Crank-Nicolson discretization in time (which requires one step of a first order scheme namely backward Euler) and primal DG method in space. With the correct assumption on the first time step optimal error estimates are obtained that are high order in space and second order in time.
A multi-objective approach to supply chain risk management: Integrating visibility with supply and demand risk

Abstract This paper investigates the relationship among supply chain visibility (SCV), supply chain risk (SCR), and supply chain cost of new and seasonal products. We assume that demand is probabilistic and comes from different scenarios such as forecasting, benchmarking, and market analysis data. For utilizing multi-attribute decision modeling, we build a model to maximize SCV and minimize both SCR and supply chain cost from an operational perspective. A heuristic algorithm based on a relaxation method on decision variables is proposed to solve an NP-hard model, and to show how a multi-objective approach provides near-optimum solutions. The results show that more visibility is desirable, because it increases efficiency in a supply chain and decreases both cost and risk.
Protein Profile Variation in Cultivated and Native Freshwater Microorganisms Exposed to Chemical Environmental Pollutants

Assimilation of 35S-precursors into microbial proteins was used to investigate toxicity and adaptational responses that occur in nutrient enriched and natural freshwater samples experimentally contaminated with benzene, toluene, trichloroethylene (TCE), or xylene. Experiments were conducted to analyze (1) the potential of using microbial community protein profiles for responsive identification of chemical pollutant exposure, (2) the inhibition of microbial productivity through reduction in rate of protein synthesis caused by specific chemical pollutants, and (3) whether selection of subpopulations in freshwater microbial communities challenged with chemical pollutants leads to adaptive strategies mediated by production of particular polypeptides. The results show that distinct banding patterns of polypeptides in the range of 30 to 100 kilodaltons that were obtained following collective cultivation of freshwater microorganisms differ with each chemical pollutant. Protein yield and radioisotope incorporation were reduced within ten minutes of microbial exposure to chemical pollutants in the following order: xylene < toluene < benzene < TCE. Adaptation of the freshwater microbial community to chemical pollutants prior to radioisotope incorporation produced differences in polypeptide profiles, in the banding patterns of radioactive polypeptides, and in the rate of radioisotope incorporation. The rate of radioisotope incorporation by freshwater microorganisms pre-adapted to chemical pollutants was lowest with xylene (88.1% reduction), followed by TCE (84.0% reduction), toluene (67.3% reduction), and benzene (43.5% reduction). In long-term radioisotope incorporation experiments, protein yield and polypeptide radioactivity was higher in the presence of chemical pollutants than in uncontaminated control samples, suggesting increased metabolic productivity attributable to the chemical pollutants.
The Kolb learning cycle in American Board of Surgery In-Training Exam remediation: the Accelerated Clinical Education in Surgery course.

Abstract Background Surgical training integrates the 4 steps of the Kolb learning cycle. Residents who scored at 30th percentile or less on the American Board of Surgery In-Training Exam (ABSITE) were enrolled in the Accelerated Clinical Education in Surgery (ACES) course that incorporated the Kolb cycle. Methods For concrete experience, Surgical Education and Self-Assessment Program (SESAP-13) was completed according to the syllabus. For reflective consideration, further reading was done on SESAP 13 topics and corresponding ABSITE Keywords. For the abstract hypotheses step; these keywords and topics were reviewed with the mentor. Active testing involved a required weekly on-line quiz based on the syllabus. Results Correct scores on the ABSITE increased for 78.6% of residents in the ACES course, with 28.6% scoring 30th percentile or greater. Senior percent correct scores increased by 7.3% and junior percentile scores by 12.5%. Conclusions Remediation using the Kolb cycle improved ABSITE performance for a majority of participants.
Carbon 1s near-edge-absorption fine structure in graphite.

High-resolution p z - and p x,y -projected fine structure for the 1s carbon core level in graphite are compared with symmetry-projected calculations. A very sharp transition occurs about 7.6 eV above the Fermi energy in the p x,y results, agreeing closely with the nondispersive σ * band. An additional feature near 8.5 eV above the Fermi energy may be due to the Γ 2 - branch of the free-electron-like interlayer states
Compulsory Community-Based Substance Abuse Treatment and the Mentally Ill Criminal Offender

The current study examined the relationship between mental health status and 18-month follow-up rearrest data of 191 probationers remanded to 4 months of treatment at a corrections-operated community-based residential substance abuse program. Probationers completed the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II), which classified 51% with DSM-III-R Axis I and 79% with Axis II disorders. Presence of these psychopathology and personality diagnoses was associated with rearrest after discharge from treatment. After controlling for sociodemographic background variables, arrest history, and substance use, the diagnoses of drug dependence and dysthymia were found to be significant risk factors for probationer rearrest following treatment.
Comments to “A Distributive-Transconductance Model for Border Traps in III-V/High-k MOS Capacitors”

The commentors state that in the article named above [ibid., vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 735-737, Jun. 2013] the authors derived a distributed transconductance gm for the equivalent circuit of oxide traps in an MOS capacitor. Their gm expression, the right-hand side of (7), is mathematically identical to the expression of ΔYbt/Δx, (5), of the commetors' work "A Distributed Bulk-Oxide Trap Model for Al2O3- InGaAs MOS Devices" published in IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ELECTRON DEVICES in August, 2012. The commentors have found the missing factor in the derivation to the transconductance model in the article commented-on and reaffirmed that, when all the physics are taken into account, the distributed admittance model they published in 2012 is correct.
Tolerance to drug stimulus control

A psychoactive drug can acquire discriminative stimulus control of behavior through differential reinforcement processes. Development of tolerance to drug stimulus control reflects a dynamic interaction of conditioning and pharmacodynamic processes. Development of tolerance requires the interplay of drug maintenance regimens appropriate to the agent under study and behavioral conditions that limit an organism's ability to learn a new discrimination. Tolerance to drug discriminative control has four important characteristics: the dose of drug required to evoke stimulus control is increased, the requirement for an increased dose is limited to the period of supplemental drug treatment, the change in potency is pharmacologically specific, and the change may require suspension of discrimination training.
UVR attenuation in lakes: relative contibutions of dissolved and particulate material

Solar radiation in lakes is attenuated by dissolved material, especially dissolved organic material (DOC), particulate material (PM), and water. DOC is a strong predictor of the attenuation of Ultraviolet Radiation (UVR) in lakes. Phytoplankton and detritus are known to contribute substantially to PAR attenuation but relatively little is known about their role in attenuation of UVR. This study investigated the relative contributions of dissolved and particulate material to the attenuation of UVR in lakes by combining an adapted Quantitative Filter Technique (QFT) with laboratory measurements of absorption by DOC and field measurements of UVR diffuse attenuation. The absorption of filtrate and PM filtered onto glass fiber filters were scanned by a UV-visible dual beam spectrophotometer. Total absorption coefficient (at) was computed as the sum of the absorption coefficients for water (aw), dissolved material (ad), and PM (ap). The value of at was compared with the diffuse attenuation coefficient (Kd) measured directly in the lakes by a Profiling UV radiometer. The ratio at/Kd ranged between 0.9 and 1.3 for UVR. Ratios less than unity may be attributed to scattering and to sun angle effects, especially at the longer UVR wavelengths. Ratios occasionally were measured above unity, suggesting errors in estimating at. Particles played a significant and seasonally-varying role in lake UVR attenuation. Within oligotrophic, low DOC Lake Giles, the relative contribution of ap varied from 30 percent to 53 percent for 320 nm UVR. In mesotrophic, higher DOC Lake Lacawac the seasonal range was 7.6 percent to 57 percent. In each case, the highest contribution of PM was found during early spring and late fall.© (1997) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Non-rigid registration of longitudinal brain tumor treatment MRI

To evaluate changes in brain structure or function, longitudinal images of brain tumor patients must be non-rigidly registered to account for tissue deformation due to tumor growth or treatment. Most standard non-rigid registration methods will fail to align these images due to the changing feature correspondences between treatment time points and the large deformations near the tumor site. Here we present a registration method which jointly estimates a label map for correspondences to account for the substantial changes that may occur during tumor treatment. Under a Bayesian parameter estimation framework, we employ different probability distributions depending on the correspondence labels. We incorporate models for image similarity, an image intensity prior, label map smoothing, and a transformation prior that encourages deformation near the estimated tumor location. Our proposed algorithm increases registration accuracy compared to a traditional voxel-based registration method as shown using both synthetic and real patient images.
Patient and Tumor Characteristics Associated with Primary Tumor Resection in Women with Stage IV Breast Cancer: Analysis of 1988–2003 SEER Data

Surgery is the cornerstone of treatment for women with nonmetastatic breast cancer. In contrast, standard treatment for patients with Stage IV disease includes chemotherapy and radiation, with surgery usually reserved for local tumor-related complications. Little is known about the predictive factors associated with primary tumor resection for Stage IV breast cancer. We conducted a retrospective, population-based, case-control study using the 1988-2003 Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) data. Using multiple logistic regression, we identified patient and tumor characteristics from among SEER region, age at diagnosis, year of diagnosis, marital status, race, Hispanic ethnicity, tumor grade, and size that were associated with surgical resection of the primary breast tumor (compared with no surgical resection) among women with stage IV breast cancer. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals are reported. Of 10,017 patients, 4,836 (48%) underwent surgical resection of the primary breast tumor. Patients in the Northeast and Midwest and patients presenting with two or more primary breast tumors were more likely to have surgical resection. Patients who were older, diagnosed after 1992, unmarried, black, and whose tumors were >5 cm, inflammatory, of unknown size, indeterminate grade, or unknown progesterone status were less likely to have had surgical resection of the primary tumor. Several patient and tumor characteristics were significantly associated with surgical resection of the primary breast tumor in Stage IV disease. Further study of the surgery decision-making process is recommended.
Response: Social work, science, social impact: Crafting an integrative conversation

Shifts in the ways that science is being undertaken and marshaled toward social change argue for a new kind of professional competence. Taking the view that the science of social work is centrally ...
Dynamics Simulation of a Circular Membrane With an Eccentric Circular Areal Constraint

We investigate the dynamics of a circular membrane with an eccentric circular areal constraint under arbitrary initial conditions. The membrane is assumed to be fixed at its outer boundary and the constraint is assumed to impose zero displacement over a circular area of the membrane. The symmetric and antisymmetric modes of vibration of the membrane are derived and their orthogonality properties are established. Using the orthogonality conditions established in this paper, the complete solution to the constrained vibratory motion of the membrane is determined for arbitrary initial conditions. Two sets of numerical simulation results are presented.Copyright © 2011 by ASME
Evolution of the Laacher See magma chamber: Evidence from SIMS and TIMS measurements of UTh disequilibria in minerals and glasses

Abstract UTh disequilibrium was measured by Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (Th) and Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (U) in mineral separates from pumices and cumulate nodules from the Laacher See Volcano (12.5 ± 0.5 kyr, corrected 14 C age), in East Eifel, Germany. Phonolitic glasses all plot to the left of the equiline, with higher U Th observed in the most felsic glasses. Measured partitioning of U and Th in the mineral phases is consistent with the observed increase in U Th with progressive fractional crystallization. Apparent ages of crystallization inferred from internal isochrons in the pumices from the main part of the magma chamber are about 13 ± 3 kyr, indistinguishable from the eruption age. This implies that the residence time of these phenocrysts did not exceed 1–2 kyr. Older, less precise, ages for the upper part of the magma chamber ( ∼ 30 kyr) suggest mixing of older crystals from cumulates and/or longer residence times. Mineral isochrons for cumulate nodules are not well defined, with ‘ages’ ranging from 10 to 30 kyr, suggesting in-situ cumulate formation 10–20 kyr prior to the eruption. The time required to explain the 230 Th 232 Th difference between parental basanite and Laacher See phonolite is inferred to be about 100 kyr. Together, these observations favor a cooling model where differentiation of parental basanite takes place in a deep magma body over about 100 kyr, followed by emplacement of the resulting mafic phonolite into an upper crustal chamber and continued differentiation toward evolved phonolite. The time-scale for the development of zonation in the Laacher See magma chamber is estimated to be 10–20 kyr at most.
Physical Approaches for Nucleic Acid Delivery to Liver

The liver is a key organ for numerous metabolic pathways and involves many inherited diseases that, although being different in their pathology, are often caused by lack or overproduction of a critical gene product in the diseased cells. In principle, a straightforward method to fix such problem is to introduce into these cells with a gene-coding sequence to provide the missing gene product or with the nucleic acid sequence to inhibit production of the excessive gene product. Practically, however, success of nucleic acid-based pharmaceutics is dependent on the availability of a method capable of delivering nucleic acid sequence in the form of DNA or RNA to liver cells. In this review, we will summarize the progress toward the development of physical methods for nucleic acid delivery to the liver. Emphasis is placed on the mechanism of action, pros, and cons of each method developed so far. We hope the information provided will encourage new endeavor to improve the current methodologies or develop new strategies that will lead to safe and effective delivery of nucleic acids to the liver.
Ingested IFN-α has biological effects in humans with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis

Parenterally administered human recombinant type I interferons (hrIFN) in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) decrease relapses and spontaneous in vitro IFN-gamma production, reduce clinical progression, and decrease magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-defined disease activity and lesions. Parenterally administered type I IFN use is limited by clinical and chemical toxicities, and the induction of antibodies that abrogate their activity in vivo correlated with the loss of clinical benefit. Therefore, we determined whether ingested IFN-alpha was non-toxic and had biological effects in humans. Ingested hrIFN-alpha showed no toxicity in normal volunteers or patients with RRMS at doses ranging from 300 to 100,000 units. In subjects with RRMS, a significant decrease in Con A-mediated proliferation and serum soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1), a surrogate measure for disease activity in MS, was found after ingesting 10,000 and 30,000 units IFN-alpha The RRMS subjects also showed decreased IL-2 secretion after ingesting 10,000 units IFN-alpha and decreased IFN-gamma, TGF-beta and IL-10 production after ingesting 30,000 units IFN-alpha. The decreased secretion of IFN-gamma and IL-2 by ingested IFN-alpha suggests that oral IFN-alpha may cause a functional inhibition of Th J-like T helper cells in RRMS, a potential site of intervention at the level of effector T cells in MS. Our studies support the oral use of human IFN-alpha as a biological response modifier in humans.
Inhibition of the adipose conversion of BALB/c 3T3 cells by 12‐0‐tetradecanoylphorbol‐13‐acetate: Dependence on pH reduction via lactic acid production

The effect of modifying culture pH on the adipose convesion of BALB/c 3T3 cells was studied. We have previously shown that the tumor promoter 12-0-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) stimulates cellular lactic acid production, lowers the pH of the culture medium, and inhibits differentiation in this system. We now report that addition or organic acids such as D- or L-lactic acid or acetic acid to the culture medium mimicked the effect of TPA by lowering pH, stimulating cellular lactic acid production, and inhibiting the adipose conversion. Lowering the pH by changing the NaHCO3 concentration also inhibited differentiation. A comparison of Dulbecco's modified minimal essential medium (DMEM) vs minimal essential medium (MEM) indicated that in the former media, the rate and extent of differentiation was greater than in the MEM, and TPA neither inhibited differentiation nor stimulated lactate production. Our standard MEM medium could be made similar to DMEM with respect to the cells' response to TPA simply by raising the NaHCO3 concentration, hence, the buffering capacity, of MEM to that present in DMEM, suggesting that TPA can only inhibit differentiation in this system if it can lower culture pH via lactate production.