cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Triamcinolone Acetonide affects TGF-β signaling regulation of fibrosis in idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome

Fibroblast behavior and cell-matrix interactions of cells from normal and idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) subsynovial connective tissue (SSCT) with and without Triamcinolone Acetonide (TA) were compared in this study. A cell-seeded gel contraction model was applied to investigate the effect of steroid treatment on SSCT fibroblast gene expression and function. SSCT cells were obtained from CTS patients and fresh cadavers. Cells were isolated by mechanical and collagenase digestion. Collagen gels (1 mg/ml) were prepared with SSCT cells (1 × 106/mL). A sterile Petri dish with a cloning ring in the center was prepared. The area between the ring and outer dish was filled with cell-seeded collagen solution and gelled for 1 h. The gel was released from the outer way of the petri dish to allow gel contraction. Cell seeded gels were treated with 10 M triamcinolone acetonide (TA) or vehicle (DMSO) in modified MEM. Every 4 h for 3 days the contracting gels were photographed and areas calculated. Duplicate contraction tests were performed with each specimen, and the averages were used in the analyses, which were conducted using two-factor analysis of variance in a generalized linear model framework utilizing generalized estimating equations (GEE) to account for the correlation between samples. The contraction rate was determined by the area change over time, and the decay time constant was calculated. A customized mechanical test system was used to determine gel stiffness and tensile strength. Gene expression was assessed using Human Fibrosis and Cell Motility PCR arrays. TA-treated gels had a significantly higher contraction rate, tensile strength and stiffness than the untreated gels. Proteinases involved in remodeling had increased expression in TA-treated gels of the patient group. Pro-fibrotic genes and ECM regulators, such as TGF-β, collagens and integrins, were down-regulated by TA, indicating that TA may work in part by decreasing fibrotic gene expression. This study showed that TA affects cell-matrix interaction and suppresses fibrotic gene expression in the SSCT cells of CTS patients.
A Performance Comparison for Electric and Hydraulic Motors

Many off highway machinery companies have begun to transfer their products from hydraulic drives to electric drives, but there is not a clear study found in the literature that shows a comparison between these two drives in order to demonstrate the benefits for this transformation. In this paper, a nondimensional comparison between electric and hydraulic motors is made in terms of losses, efficiency, and energy consumption. The loss analyses for both types of motors is conducted and an efficiency map for these motors is produced. The energy consumption is compared for both motors for the same load during a common duty cycle.Copyright © 2018 by ASME
Salivary Zymogen Granule Protein 16B Drops at Onset of Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease: A Possible Salivary Biomarker for Oral Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Objective Chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) targets the oral mucosa and salivary glands in 30-70% of cGVHD patients after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT). In the absence of an incisional biopsy, no diagnostic test exists to confirm clinical suspicion of cGVHD processes in oral tissues. Consequently, therapy is often withheld until severe manifestations, such as ulceration, develop. This proteomic study examined whole saliva for the presence of a diagnostic biomarker profile at first onset of oral cGVHD prior to initiation of topical steroid therapy. Methods Patients from NIH protocols (NCT00331968, NCT00520130, or NCT01851382) were sampled at oral cGVHD onset. All cases had biopsy-proven oral GVHD. Five-minute unstimulated whole saliva from 3 individual oral cGVHD patients, 3 post-transplant controls and 2 healthy volunteers was processed, iTRAQ-tagged, HPLC-fractionated, and analyzed via liquid chromatography coupled tandem mass spectrometry. High confidence protein identifications were tested using a Kruskal-Wallis test with Bonferroni correction. Selected proteins were validated by Western blot (WB) using two independent cohorts. Cohort 1: post-HSCT patients with (n=10) and without (n=10) oral cGVHD; Cohort 2: post-HSCT patients with (n=12) and without (n=12) oral cGVHD, controlled for recipient sex and prior total-body irradiation. Fluorescent immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to further analyze zymogen granule protein 16B (ZG16B) in patient labial minor salivary glands (MSG). Results The discovery dataset contained 569 confidently-identified proteins, with 77 significantly differentially expressed at onset of cGVHD. A 6-protein panel was selected for WB validation in two independent sample cohorts; proteins were selected based on Ingenuity Pathway Analysis, biological function, and protein level. In WB analysis, MMP9, Ezrin, PIP and alpha-1-antichymotrypsin displayed similar abundance levels as in the iTRAQ screen but were not significantly different. ZG16B, a secretory lectin protein associated with the tear release in the lacrimal gland, was reduced 2-fold in saliva of post-HSCT patients with oral cGVHD (898.1 ± 371.8 AU) compared with post-HSCT patients without oral cGVHD (1905 ± 598.6 AU; p Conclusion Taken together, results indicate that ZG16B is present in lower amounts in unstimulated whole saliva and within the salivary gland acinar units at oral cGVHD onset. Reduction in this protein may indicate cGVHD activity and/or salivary gland damage and further investigation of its biological function and potential utility as a clinical biomarker of oral cGVHD onset is needed.
Healthcare implications of Clodtridium difficile infection after bone marrow transplant: Nationwide Readmission Database review.

e18538Background: Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a common complication following hematopoietic stem cell transplant in adults and is associated with substantial morbidity, and mortality. ...
Combined Wireless Ranging and Frequency Transfer for Internode Coordination in Open-Loop Coherent Distributed Antenna Arrays

Beamforming in distributed antenna arrays requires accurate coordination of the relative phasing between the separate wireless nodes. Principally, this coordination constitutes measuring the node separations and transferring a stable frequency reference, enabling beamsteering and ensuring that the local oscillators on the separate platforms are locked. A 4.5-GHz wireless system for simultaneous high-accuracy estimation of node separation and estimation of a wirelessly transferred 10-MHz frequency reference is presented in this article. Ranging is achieved using a spectrally sparse two-tone waveform with a tone separation of 200 MHz and pulsewidth of $2~\mu \text{s}$ ; a 10-MHz frequency reference is modulated onto one of the ranging tones. The use of spectrally sparse waveforms allows simple transceiver designs compared to wideband ranging systems since the tones can be individually generated and received. The theoretical bounds for range and frequency estimation are derived for a set of common modulation formats, and experimental measurements of ranging accuracy and frequency estimation accuracy are presented, demonstrating that the proposed waveform can achieve high accuracy in both domains, with range accuracy of 3.35 mm and phase errors less than 18°, supporting coherent distributed array operations up to 5.96 GHz. The results show that the ranging estimation is effectively independent of the modulation format of the reference frequency and the frequency estimation performance is independent of the sparse waveform design for ranging. Thus, the performance of range estimation and frequency transfer may be approached independently but in the same waveform.
Increasing donor sequence number is not associated with inferior outcomes in lung transplantation.

BACKGROUND Donor sequence number (DSN) represents the number of recipients to whom an organ has been offered. The impact of seeing numerous prior refusals may potentially influence the decision to accept an organ. We sought to determine if DSN was associated with inferior posttransplant outcomes. METHODS Using the United Network for Organ Sharing database, a retrospective analysis was performed on 22 361 patients who received a lung transplant between 2005 and 2017. Patients were grouped into low DSN (1-24, n = 16 860) and high DSN (>24, n = 5501) categories. Baseline characteristics and posttransplant outcomes were analyzed. An institutional subgroup was also analyzed to compare rates of primary graft dysfunction (PGD) posttransplant. RESULTS The DSN ranged from 1 to 1735 (median, 7; interquartile range, 2-24). A total of 18 507 recipients received an organ with at least one prior refusal. Recipients of donors with a higher DSN were older (58 vs 55 years; P 50 and >75 also demonstrated no difference in mortality when compared with a low DSN (P = .86 and P = .97). There was no difference in PGD for patients with a low vs a high DSN at any time posttransplant. CONCLUSIONS DSN is not associated with increased mortality in patients undergoing lung transplantation and should not negatively influence the decision to accept a lung for transplant.
Observer-Based Controllers for Incrementally Quadratic Nonlinear Systems with Disturbances.

Robust global stabilization of nonlinear systems by observer-based feedback controllers is a challenging task. This article investigates the problem of designing observer-based stabilizing controllers for incrementally quadratic nonlinear systems with external disturbances. The nonlinearities considered in the system model satisfy the incremental quadratic constraints, which are characterized by incremental multiplier matrices and encompass many common nonlinearities. The simultaneous search for the observer and the controller gain matrices is formulated as a feasibility problem of linear matrix inequalities, for two parameterizations (i.e., the block diagonal parameterization and the block anti-triangular parameterization) of the incremental multiplier matrices, respectively. The closed-loop system implementing the observer-based feedback controller is proven to be input-to-state stable with respect to external disturbances. Using the proposed continuous-time observer-based controllers, event-triggered controllers with time regularization are constructed for globally Lipschitz systems, such that the closed-loop system is Zeno-free and input-to-state practically stable.
Academic Survival Skills for Urban Students

This article discusses specific attitudes, behaviors, and skills used by some urban students to greatly enhance their chances of experiencing academic success in school. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses demonstrate that regardless of students’ socio-economic background or ethnicity and race, high achievement can become an expectation. The research found the most commonly shared attribute among academically successful urban students was their willingness to assume greater personal responsibility for their educational outcomes. This research supports the position that urban schools should incorporate the teaching and practice of these attitudes, behaviors, and skills into the daily curriculum as a mechanism for meaningful student achievement and personal growth.
Keynes’s Canonical Statements on Uncertainty Appear in his 1921 a Treatise on Probability in Chapter 26 on Pages 309-312: Statements about Uncertainty in the General Theory in 1936 and the 1937 Quarterly Journal of Economics Article are, at Best, Very Small Footnotes to Chapter 26 of the A Treatise on Probability

The Townshend–Keynes exchanges over decision making, weight of the argument (evidence), non numerical probabilities (Keynes’s term for Boole’s constituent probabilities, used in The Laws of Thought in 1854, that appears on page 163 of the A Treatise on Probability in chapter 15 on inexact measurement and approximation), and the connection between the A Treatise on Probability, the General Theory,and the 1937 Quarterly Journal of Economics, reveal that Keynes’s discussions about uncertainty in the General Theory, and the 1937 Quarterly Journal of Economics article are simply small ,minor footnotes to the A Treatise on Probability. Nowhere in the exchanges between Keynes and Townshend in 1937 and 1938 does either Keynes or Townshend mention or make any reference to the 1937 Quarterly Journal of Economics article, which Joan Robinson, G L S Shackle, Paul Davidson, and Post Keynesian and heterodox economists claim marked a major change in Keynes’s approach to decision making. Keynes, in his replies to Townshend, simply reinforced the strong connections that existed between his concepts of non numerical probability, weight,and his liquidity preference theory of the rate of interest on pages 148 and 240 of the General Theory. There is nothing in the 1937 Quarterly Journal of Economics article that is innovative or original that is not already discussed in far greater depth in chapter 26 of A Treatise on Probability. At best, the 1937 Quarterly Journal of Economics article is a minor footnote to pages 309-312 of chapter 26 of the A Treatise on Probability, which applies to all decision making. The 1937 QJE article emphasizes specifically economic decision making, but does not differ in any way from Keynes’s discussion in 1921. Heterodox economists have simply read into the 1937 QJE article Shackle’s contradictory concept of complete and total uncertainty, which heterodox economists call radical, fundamental, irreducible, genuine, or their latest term, deep, uncertainty. Shackle’s chaotic – kaledic view of a world of complete and total uncertainty was completely rejected by Keynes in his lifetime. Nowhere is this viewpoint even mentioned in the 1937-1938 Keynes-Townshend exchanges. Shackle’s chaotic – kaledic view of a world of complete and total uncertainty appears to be related to the great emphasis he places on the imagination of the decision maker, where decision makers are supposed to make things up based on their constantly changing dreams of the future.
A Case Study on Pathogen Transport, Deposition, Evaporation and Transmission: Linking High-Fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations to Probability of Infection

A high-fidelity, low-Mach computational fluid dynamics simulation tool that includes evaporating droplets and variable-density turbulent flow coupling is well-suited to ascertain transmission proba...
Mode of detection matters: Differences in screen-detected versus symptomatic breast cancers.

OBJECTIVE Although extensive analyses evaluating screening mammography for breast cancer have been published, some utilized databases do not distinguish between modes of detection, which confounds the conclusions made about the impact of screening mammography. METHODS A retrospective cohort study of women at our institution with pathologically-proven breast cancer from January 2015 to April 2018 was conducted. Subjects were categorized by their mode of diagnosis: screening or non-screening. Patient demographics, tumor characteristics, and treatments were compared between detection methods using Wilcoxon rank-sum test for continuous variables and chi-squared or Fisher's exact test. RESULTS 1026 breast cancers were analyzed. 80.8% of screen-detected breast cancers were invasive. Compared to symptomatically detected cancers, screen-detected were smaller (median size 8 mm vs. 15 mm, p < 0.001), less invasive (80.8% vs. 94.3), had a lower pathologic grade (29% grade 3 vs. 45.7%, p < 0.001), a lower clinical stage, and less aggressive histology (51.9% low Ki67 vs. 30.5%, and 88.2% HER2 negative vs. 76.6%, p < 0.001). Screen-detected cancers were less likely to have extramammary disease (13.2% positive lymph nodes vs. 34.0% and 0.4% distant metastases vs. 6.9%, p < 0.001). Women with screen-detected cancers were more likely to undergo conservative treatment (74.8% underwent lumpectomy vs. 59.9%, and 80.0% received no chemotherapy vs. 51.3%, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION In this study, while the vast majority of screen-detected cancers were invasive, they were more likely to be smaller, less aggressive, and a lower pathologic grade and clinical stage. Furthermore, women with screen-detected cancers were less likely to have extramammary disease and more likely to undergo conservative treatment.
Decoding the intricacies of the mast cell compartment.

Historically, understanding of the human mast cell (MC) compartment has lagged behind the appreciation of other cell lineages. MCs exist in vascularised tissues but do not under normal circumstances circulate in blood, and there has been no pharmacological agent identified that totally and selectively inhibits human MC function. There are no substantiated accounts of an apparently healthy individual who is severely lacking in MCs. Thus, some of the approaches employed to understand the function of a specific immune cell are not available to the MC biologist. The disease categories that have provided the greatest insight into MC biology have been monoclonal and IgE-mediated MC disorders. This has led to the categorisation of MC diseases as intrinsic or extrinsic to the MC compartment and to the recognition of the role of mediators in MC activation disorders. Mastocytosis as a clonal disorder not only impacts the MC compartment through changes intrinsic to the MC, but also by the effects of episodes of significant release of MC mediators. The availability of newer therapeutic approaches developed to treat monoclonal MC disorders offer insights into how to more selectively approach management of MC centric diseases.
Honey Bee Diagnostics

Honey bees are faced with many diseases, some more serious than others. Observing irregularities during routine hive inspection may indicate potential problems. Not all disorders are equally important; some are more detrimental and need immediate attention, whereas others may only need time to clear up. It is important to be observant to be able to recognize these diseases and differentiate between them so the correct treatment may be done in a timely manner when needed to maintain the health of the colony. Colonies need to be healthy to survive and prosper.
Sliding Friction of Compressing Xenon Monolayers

Friction at the atomic scale is believed to arise from the excitation of atomic lattice vibrations (phonons) [1], as well as electronic excitations when electrically conducting materials are involved [2]. We present here an extension of previously reported work on a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) study of Xe monolayers and bilayers sliding on Ag(111) [3]. In particular, we apply a simple phonon model of friction to the monolayer compression regime and observe reasonable agreement with the data.
Towards Next-Generation Software Infrastructure for Crisis Informatics Research

Crisis Informatics is a multidisciplinary research area that examines the socio-technical relationships among people, information, and technology during mass emergency events. One area of crisis informatics examines the on-line behaviors of members of the public making use of social media during a crisis event to make sense of it, to report on it, and, in some cases, to coordinate a response to it either locally or from afar. In order to study those behaviors, this social media data has to be systematically captured and stored in a scalable and reliable way for later analysis. Project EPIC is a large U.S. National Science Foundation funded project that has been performing crisis informatics research since Fall 2009 and has been designing and developing a reliable and robust software infrastructure for the storage and analysis of large crisis informatics data sets. Prof. Ken Anderson has led the research and development in this software engineering effort and will discuss the challenges (both technical and social) that Project EPIC faced in developing its software infrastructure, known as EPIC Collect and EPIC Analyze. EPIC Collect has been in 24/7 operation in various forms since Spring 2010 and has collected terabytes of social media data across hundreds of mass emergency events since that time. EPIC Analyze is a data analysis platform for large social media data sets that provides efficient browsing, filtering, and collaborative annotation services. Prof. Anderson will discuss these systems and also present the challenges of collecting and analyzing social media data (with an emphasis on Twitter data) at scale. Project EPIC has designed and evaluated software architectural styles that can be adopted by other research groups to help develop their own capacity to work in this space. Prof. Anderson will conclude the talk with a vision for future work in this area: What's next for crisis informatics software infrastructure?
The impact of tax complexity of analysts' effective tax rate forecasts.

Information complexity, which increases with the amount of attentional capacity or mental processing required to use information, is directly related to the cost of using information. I employ a framework from the judgment/decision-making research to provide a link between information complexity and analysts' forecast accuracy consistent with an information processing cost explanation for analysts' failure to use all information in forming earnings forecasts. This paper provides empirical evidence that analysts choose to use information that is less costly to incorporate into their forecasts. Using a sample of analysts' effective tax rate forecasts from Value Line and a measure of tax law complexity, I investigate the impact on analysts' accuracy of the variation in the costs of incorporating that information. As predicted, I find that the magnitude of analysts' forecast errors is positively related to the firm complexity. I also find that analysts incorporate low complexity information (which is less costly to process) in their forecasts, but omit high complexity information (which is more costly to process) from those forecasts.
Sweet Corn Cultivar Trial

The 2009 sweet corn cultivar trial was conducted to identify cultivars with good ear characteristics for local marketing or shortdistance shipping. This year’s trial focused on the bicolor, high-quality shrunken 2 (sh2) types, often referred to as augmented or improved sh2. The best cultivars in this class provide improved flavor and tenderness over conventional sh2 hybrids. They need isolation from other corn genotypes in the field and careful handling at harvest, but reward the grower with the best combination of gourmet eating quality and extended shelf-life that is available.
When Allies Go Nuclear: the Use of Security Leverage and the Changing Nature of the American Response to 'Friendly' Nuclear Programs

Ever since nuclear weapons were created in the mid 1940s, the US has tried to prevent, or at least minimize their diffusion and transfer to other states, especially beyond the five NPT-recognized nuclear-weapons states (NWS). Throughout the decades of the Cold War and beyond, successive American administrations attempted to retard the development of nuclear weapons programs abroad, an endeavor that continues to this day. There have been exceptions to this effort as the US, through the years, has come to recognize, either explicitly or implicitly, several new NWS, with India being the most recent example of such recognition. This phenomenon raises an important theoretical and policy-related question: under what conditions does the US recognize new NWS and what steps precede such recognition? It is particularly interesting to investigate this question with a focus on US allies. How does the US react to the nuclear ambitions of its friends? What tools does it use to try to persuade them not to follow a nuclear path and, if it fails to do so, when does the US finally recognize a nuclear status of an ally? After all, the degree of leverage and persuasive power that the US holds over its friends is significantly greater than that held over its adversaries. How can the US have any hope of dissuading hostile states such as North Korea or Iran from building nuclear weapons, when it sometimes fails to persuade even its closest allies to abstain from nuclear activities? This paper sets up a theoretical model for investigating the US’s behavior with respect to dealing with allies’ nuclear ambitions. By focusing on a handful of in-depth historical case studies, the paper examines how the interplay between security leverage (i.e., American sales of conventional arms and provision of security guarantees), the perception of leverage’s effectiveness, and the willingness to use it vis-a-vis allies by various American administrations, explains the US’s decisions to recognize new NWS, all within the broader framework of the American non-proliferation agenda. The study takes a broader look at the role of power in the nuclear proliferation domain and examines how power works (and fails to work) when two actors try to achieve divergent objectives. The findings of this study are not just theoretical in nature, and lessons learned are relevant to various cases of current and future nuclear proliferators, friends and foes alike.
Abstract 842: DNA opilymerase β participates in the repair of DNA damage from topoisomerase II

Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA DNA topoisomerase II (Top2) is the target of several important anti-cancer agents, including doxorubicin and etoposide. Clinically active Top2 agents, termed Top2 poisons, act by blocking the enzyme reaction at a step where the protein is covalently bound to DNA. This leads to the accumulation of Top2/DNA complexes that act as DNA damaging agents that interfere with DNA metabolism and trigger cell death. The mechanisms leading to tumor specific killing by Top2 poisons remain poorly understood, and have been hypothesized to result in part from DNA repair defects that arise during tumorigenesis. If this hypothesis is correct, then targeting repair pathways important for topoisomerase mediated cell killing could be used to enhance the activity of Top2 poisons. Similar reasoning has led to extensive trials of agents such as PARP inhibitors, and other DNA repair inhibitors. The DNA repair pathways that have been examined for sensitization to Top2 poisons include homologous recombination, non-homologous end-joining, proteasome mediated degradation, and nucleolytic activities that may participate in the removal of protein/DNA adducts (such as Tdp1 and Tdp2). We have been studying the repair of damage from Top2 poisons, and have optimized a quantitative assay for Top2/DNA covalent complexes in cultured mammalian cells. This assay, termed the ICE assay, detects Top2 covalent complexes by DNA purification followed by antibody detection of protein adducts. Using this assay, we have demonstrated a role of the MRN complex in processing Top2/DNA adducts, using both MRN knockdowns and small molecule inhibitors of the Mre11 nuclease activities. We also confirmed the importance of proteolytic pathways in repairing Top2 damage. A surprising candidate protein for participation in repair of damage from Top2 poisons is DNA polymerase β (pol β), an “X” family polymerase critical for base excision repair. Recent results have implicated pol β in processing of protein/DNA adducts (1). We found that the pol β inhibitor pamoic acid (4-[(3-Carboxy-2-hydroxynaphthalen-1-yl)methyl]-3-hydroxynaphthalene-2-carboxylic acid) and etoposide led to a large increase in Top2/DNA covalent complexes compared to etoposide alone. We are currently validating these results using other pol β inhibitors and gene knockdown approaches. We speculate that the dRP lyase activity may play a role in processing DNA damage arising from Top2 poisons. Literature cited: 1. Lawson, M.H., et al. (2011) Two Novel Determinants of Etoposide Resistance in Small Cell Lung Cancer. Cancer Res, 71, 4877-4887. Citation Format: Yilun Sun, Sule Bertram, John L. Nitiss. DNA opilymerase β participates in the repair of DNA damage from topoisomerase II. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 842. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-842
Energetic Particles Related with Coronal and Interplanetary Shocks

Acceleration of electrons and ions at the Sun is discussed in the framework of CME-driven shocks. Based on the properties of coronal mass ejections associated with type II bursts at various wavelengths, the possibility of a unified approach to the type II phenomena is suggested. Two aspects of primary importance to shock accelerations are: (1) Energy of the driving CME and (2) the conditions in the medium that supports shock propagation. The high degree of overlap between CMEs associated with large solar energetic particle events and type II bursts occurring at all wavelengths underscores the importance of CME energy in driving shocks far into the interplanetary medium. Presence of preceding CMEs can alter the conditions in the ambient medium, which is shown to influence the intensity of large solar energetic particle events. Both statistical evidence and case studies are presented that underscore the importance of the ambient medium.
Effects of low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets on risk factors for ischemic heart disease in postmenopausal women.

The effects of variations in dietary carbohydrate and fat on various aspects of carbohydrate and lipoprotein metabolism were evaluated in 10 healthy, postmenopausal women. The two diets were isoenergetic, assigned in random fashion, and consisted (as a % of total energy) of 15% protein, 60% carbohydrate, and 25% fat (60%-carbohydrate diet) or 15% protein, 40% carbohydrate, and 45% fat (40%-carbohydrate diet). Fasting plasma triacylglycerol, very-low-density-lipoprotein (VLDL) triacylglycerol, and VLDL-cholesterol concentrations were higher (P 400 triacylglycerol (r = 0.77, P 400 retinyl palmitate (r = 0.75, P < 0.01) lipoprotein fractions. Because all of these changes would increase risk of ischemic heart disease in postmenopausal women, it seems reasonable to question the wisdom of recommending that postmenopausal women consume low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets.
1α-Hydroxycholecalciferol Does Not Increase the Specific Activity of Intestinal Phytase but Does Improve Phosphorus Utilization in Both Cecectomized and Sham-Operated Chicks Fed Cholecalciferol-Adequate Diets

Two chick assays were conducted in an attempt to understand how 1alpha-hydroxylated cholecalciferol compounds [1,25-(OH)2 D3 and 1alpha-OH D3] function in chicks to improve utilization of phytate-bound phosphorus (P) and trace minerals. Mucosal tissue from chicks fed a P-deficient corn-soybean meal diet, with or without supplemental 1alpha-OH D3, was incubated with sodium phytate. Inorganic P (Pi) release from sodium phytate, a measure of mucosal phytase activity, was not influenced by 1alpha-OH D3 presence in the diet. Increasing doses of mucosal protein in tubes containing sodium phytate resulted in marked increases (P < 0.01) in Pi release, but 1alpha-OH D3 in the diet from which the duodenal mucosal tissue was obtained had no effect on Pi release. Similarly, addition of either 1alpha-OH D3 or 1,25-(OH)2 D3 directly to the incubation tubes had no effect on Pi production. Efficacy of supplemental 1alpha-OH D3 and phytase was also tested in cecectomized vs. sham-operated chicks that were fed P-deficient and cholecalciferol-adequate corn-soybean meal diets. Removal of the twin ceca was done in an attempt to remove much of the intestinal microbial activity, and in turn, much of the gut microbial phytase activity. Marked increases (P < 0.01) in bone ash occurred in response to phytase or 1alpha-OH D3 supplementation, and cecectomized birds responded to either addition in the same manner as sham-operated controls. The data suggest that the marked phytate-P releasing capacity of dietary 1alpha-OH D3 or 1, 25-(OH)2 D3 is not caused by an increased specific activity of intestinal phytase.
Planform selection in rotating convection: Hexagonal symmetry.

Three-dimensional convection in a rotating fluid layer is studied near the onset of a steady-state instability using equivariant bifurcation theory. The pattern selection problem is formulated as a bifurcation problem on a hexagonal lattice. Symmetry considerations determine the form of the ordinary-differential equations governing the evolution of the marginally stable modes. From the symmetry analysis the relative stability of the primary patterns can be determined. The theory is illustrated explicitly for idealized boundary conditions and the bifurcation diagrams given for all values of the Taylor and Prandtl numbers.
Long-delay learning in the T-maze: Effects of marking and delay-interval location

Abstract Four experiments examined how acquisition of a T-maze discrimination by rats with a 1-min delay of reinforcement was affected by handling (marking) following correct and incorrect choices, and by the location in which the delay-of-reinforcement interval was spent. In Experiments 1A and 1B, rats that were immediately picked up and returned to the arm just chosen showed significant acquisition of the discrimination, but so did rats that were simply left in that arm without handling. Rats that were picked up and placed in their home cages, in the arm opposite to that just chosen, or in the stem of the maze for the delay interval showed little or no acquisition of the discrimination. Experiment 2A showed that rats that were handled, returned to the arm just chosen for a 1-min delay, and then reinforced in that arm if correct learned no faster than a similar group whose choice responses were not marked. Both delay-of-reinforcement groups learned significantly slower, however, than an immediately reinforced group. Experiment 2B replicated these latter results under conditions in which visual cues were reduced or eliminated by ambient red light. Together, our findings suggest that long-delay learning in the T-maze by rats is neither ensured nor facilitated by marking per se, but that acquisition is strongly affected by the location in which the animal spends the delay interval.
Biomechanical evaluation of distal radioulnar reconstructions

Numerous reconstructive procedures have been described for the treatment of chronic instability of the distal radioulnar joint or instability of the stump of the resected distal ulna. This biomechanical study presents an evaluation of the three basic design types that have been used in reconstruction. The initial static stability provided by the reconstructions was tested and compared with the stability of the intact joint. Our findings show that all reconstructive procedures failed to restore natural joint stability. A radioulnar sling design was the most effective of the three types, whereas tenodesis procedures and ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction were much less effective in providing stability. We conclude that current designs have significant biomechanical shortcomings. On the basis of our observations during testing, we believe that improved designs will require an intra-articular reconstruction that more closely duplicates the biomechanical functions of the triangular fibrocartilage complex.
Authorship, dissemination of research findings, and related matters.

F YOU WERE BUYING or selling a house with a group of people, you would probably make sure that you understood the implications of the partnership and set some ground rules. When you are conducting and publishing research, you are, in essence, forming a partnership with your colleagues. In this partnership, you are working with an intellectual property that, like any property, has legal, economic, and ethical responsibilities and obligations. For example, a copyright holder has a vested economic interest in maintaining the rights for reproducing the work. Scientific misconduct can result when the ethical standards are misunderstood or ignored. Research can be impeded, interpersonal relationships disrupted, and careers impacted negatively. The following is a discussion of the generally accepted guidelines for authorship, the roles and responsibilities of each author, strategies for determining the order of authorship, and ethical issues that need to be understood by all participants. Reforms that are presently in debate are briefly mentioned.
Role of N-Terminal Amino Acids in the Potency of Anthrax Lethal Factor

Anthrax lethal factor (LF) is a Zn+2-dependent metalloprotease that cleaves several MAPK kinases and is responsible for the lethality of anthrax lethal toxin (LT). We observed that a recombinant LF (LF-HMA) which differs from wild type LF (LF-A) by the addition of two residues (His-Met) to the native Ala (A) terminus as a result of cloning manipulations has 3-fold lower potency toward cultured cells and experimental animals. We hypothesized that the “N-end rule”, which relates the half-life of proteins in cells to the identity of their N-terminal residue, might be operative in the case of LF, so that the N-terminal residue of LF would determine the cytosolic stability and thereby the potency of LF. Mutational studies that replaced the native N-terminal residue of LF with known N-end rule stabilizing or destabilizing residues confirmed that the N-terminal residue plays a significant role in determining the potency of LT for cultured cells and experimental animals. The fact that a commercially-available LF preparation (LF-HMA) that is widely used in basic research studies and for evaluation of vaccines and therapeutics is 3-fold less potent than native LF (LF-A) should be considered when comparing published studies and in the design of future experiments.
Intramolecular Electron Transfer in Biferrocene Monocation: Evaluation of Franck−Condon Effects via a Time-Dependent Analysis of Resonance Raman Scattering in the Extended Near-Infrared

Franck-Condon effects associated with intramolecular electron transfer in the biferrocene monocation have been evaluated via time-dependent analyses of resonance Raman scattering intensities and the intervalence absorption line shape. Quantitative studies in the extended near-infrared (1320 and 1064 nm excitation) reveal that three vibrational modes are displaced in the electron-transfer process. The most significant of these, the symmetrical ring-Fe-ring stretch, has also been implicated in prior X-ray crystallographic studies. Mode or bond displacements obtained from the Raman analysis are slightly larger than estimates based on crystallographic displacements. These differences together with contributions from two additional modes identified by Raman appear to account for seemingly disparate estimates of vibrational reorganization energies provided by (a) the crystallographic method and (b) “Pekar plot” intercepts derived from intervalence absorption maxima. Implications for electron exchange kinetics are also discussed.
MARKET STRUCTURE AND TRADING VOLUME

Historically, trading volume reported for NASDAQ stocks has been overstated vis-a-vis New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) stocks, both because of the dealer's participation in trades as a market maker and because of interdealer trading. Beginning in 1997, the Securities and Exchange Commission changed order-handling rules and trade-reporting rules, which may have reduced or eliminated the overstatement of NASDAQ trading. We examine trading volumes of firms changing from NASDAQ to the NYSE since 1997 and document that reported trading volume for NASDAQ stocks continues to be overstated. Moreover, the degree of overstatement is much larger for firms with high trading volume.
Automated VOI analysis in 18 F-FDDNP PET using structural warping: Validation through classification of Alzheimer's disease patients

In the field of quantitative imaging, the creation of accurate volumes of interest (VOIs) is often of central importance. However, the process of creating these VOIS for multiple subjects can be time-intensive and there are many chances to introduce variability on inter- and intra-investigator levels. Although pre­vious work has shown that image normalization through cortical surface mapping can be helpful in VOI analysis, the process is complicated and labor-intensive. In this paper we present a method to eliminate this variability by warping structural and functional images to a common space in which valid VOIs already exist. We apply this method to a study of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 2-(1-{6-[(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)(methyl)amino]-2-naphthyl}ethylidene)malononitrile (FDDNP), which is known to co-localize with amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. We normalize the MRIs of control subjects and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and AD patients, to a common space. The same normalization is applied to FDDNP PET images. The normalization technique reduces average voxel-to-voxel variance in MRIs by 54% as compared to linear normalization alone. Biologically important structures, such as the segmentation between white and gray matter, are maintained after normalization. Discriminant analysis shows that data extracted from VOIs in the common space out-performs data extracted from unnormalized PET images in classifying subjects as control, MCI, or AD. This suggests that image normalization may be useful in eliminating inter- and intra-investigator variability and increasing the predic­tive capability of data extracted from imaging modalities. Further study will examine the applicability of this method to predicting longitudinal changes in cognitive ability from functional imaging data.
Enlightenment political philosophy and organizational citizenship behaviour: Contextualizing historical discourse

Organizational citizenship behaviours are employee contributions that management neither explicitly requires nor formally rewards. While the definition is straightforward, the theoretical meaning o...
Image reconstruction techniques for the Infrared-Optical Telescope Array

Hybrid mapping techniques originally developed for radio aperture synthesis imaging are applied to the case of image reconstruction in optical interferometry. It is found that the use of redundant baselines with hybrid mapping can increase the fraction of phase information that is obtained in a realistic optical experiment to approach that obtained in a typical multistation radio experiment. However, this additional information does not greatly improve the quality of the resulting maps in cases with good coverage of the u-v plane. Thus, in constructing an experiment with redundant baselines, the adequacy of the u-v coverage should be considered along with any desire for redundancy. The use of phase differences between two colors in a dispersed fringe for hybrid mapping experiments are investigated and it is found that maps may be made of comparable quality to hybrid maps with phase closure.
Ecological analyses of nesting success in evening grosbeaks.

We studied the nesting success of Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) inhabiting two areas of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado from 1983–1987. Sixty-four nests were followed during building, incubating, brooding, and fledging; 54.7% were successful (young fledged). The largest number of nests failed during incubation. Nests started later were more successful than nests begun earlier in the season. Failure was most likely due to severe weather, abandonment during building, or predation. Specific habitat characteristics of grosbeak nesting sites and where nests were placed in trees were consistently associated with nesting success. Successful nests, when compared with nests that failed, were: (1) built in more open areas characterized by dispersed vegetation and a higher minimum canopy, (2) oriented in more southerly directions, (3) built closer to the main trunk of the nest tree, and (4) built in larger trees. Current ideas about whether or not birds actually select nest-sites are briefly discussed. We conclude that some grosbeaks “optimally select” nest sites where the likelihood of producing fledglings is higher than in other areas.
Molecule-Scale Diffusion in Polyether Hybrid Cobalt Bipyridine Molten Salts

Microband voltammetry is described in undiluted molten salts of Co(II) bipyridine complexes to which short (n = 1, 2, or 3 units) polypropylene oxide oligomers have been appended. It has been possi...
Chemical control of Cylindrocladium and Rhizoctonia root rots in blueberry propagation

Abstract Cylindrocladium and Rhizoctonia root rots, caused by Cylindrocladium parasiticum and binucleate Rhizoctonia spp., respectively, are common soilborne diseases observed during blueberry propagation in Georgia, USA. Six trials with artificially inoculated propagation medium were completed in a shade-house to determine the efficacy of select fungicides to control these diseases. For Cylindrocladium root rot, two trials with single-drench fungicide applications were made at the time the cuttings (southern highbush blueberry cultivar Rebel) were stuck. In two additional trials, a second drench application was added two weeks later. In all trials, fludioxonil (Medallion) significantly reduced lesion incidence and lesion length. Neither triflumizole (Terraguard) nor thiophanate-methyl (Cleary's 3336) consistently reduced lesion incidence with one application, indicating that a single application of these materials was not sufficient for disease suppression. The second fungicide application improved disease control for all fungicides. However, fludioxonil always performed statistically better than thiophanate-methyl and numerically better than triflumizole as indicated by lesion incidence, lesion length and girdling incidence. For Rhizoctonia root rot, two trials were completed, each with two fungicide applications (when cuttings were stuck and 2 weeks later). Fludioxonil and azoxystrobin (Heritage) significantly reduced lesion incidence and lesion length in both trials. Flutolanil (Prostar) reduced lesion incidence in both trials and also reduced lesion length in the second trial. Pending labeling for this use pattern, fludioxonil, which has provided good control of both diseases in our trials, may form the basis of a fungicide rotation program to supplement sanitation practices for managing Cylindrocladium and Rhizoctonia root rots in blueberry propagation.
Virulence factors of Helicobacter pylori.

Helicobacter pylori can be considered a very successful organism effectively colonizing the majority of the world's population. Although various disease states associated with this infection have been described, the mechanisms of pathogenicity remain unknown. The easiest virulence factors to identify are those enabling the organism to colonize the hazardous microenvironment of the gastric epithelium, survive at this site, and multiply sufficiently for transmission to a new host. The factors identified to date include the bacterial enzymes urease and catalase, flagella, and lectin-like adhesins. In addition, it is proposed that the organism has evolved mechanisms to avoid the local antibody responses of the host. Several putative virulence factors that could directly cause gastroduodenal damage have also been identified. These include the direct tissue damage by cytotoxins or the products of urease activity and the indirect tissue damage due to disruption of mucin integrity. Such mechanisms may contribute ...
Failure modes in low density aluminous cement bonded composites

Abstract Acoustic emission analysis showed that the failure of some low density aluminous cement bonded perlite composites cannot be explained adequately using the classical Griffith type approach in which it is assumed that failure is caused by the catastrophic propagation of the most severe flaw. It was found that the general concept of cumulative weakening could be applied to the failure of these composites. A change in failure mode from that of cumulative weakening to Griffith type fracture occurred when the bulk density of the composite was greater than about 1.6 lb/bd ft and/or the cement content of the material was greater than approximately 30%. In addition, microscopic examination showed a change in fracture surface morphology from primarily interparticle failure at low density or low cement contents to primarily transparticle failure at high density or high cement content.