cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Precursor Lesions of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (a.k.a. PDAC) is a disease of near-uniform lethality. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that PDAC does not arise de novo. Several distinct subtypes of non-invasive precursors of PDAC have been identified in the past two decades, including the microscopic Pancreatic intraepith­elial neoplasia (PanIN), which is by far the most common precursor lesion, f­ollowed by the macroscopic (cystic) precursor lesions, comprised of Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasm (IPMN) and Mucinous Cystic Neoplasm (MCN). In this review, we discuss the diagnostic features for each of these PDAC precursor subtypes, and present the salient molecular alterations underlying their path­ogenesis and progression to invasive neoplasia. Finally, the translational implications of identifying PDAC precursor lesions are discussed, particularly in the context of early detection of PDAC in at-risk populations.
Transitions: Researchers' Positionality and Malleability of Site and Self over Time

In this research article, Sarah Dryden-Peterson explores the concept of researcher positionality, focusing on its malleability over time. The methodological analysis is situated in an empirical stu...
Chapter 44 – Vitamin A

: Vitamin A exists as a provitamin in vegetables (i.e., b-carotene). Vitamin A exists in three oxidation states; retinal, retinol, and retinoic acid (retin A). Retinal plays an important role in vision. Retinoic acid plays an important role in reproductive biology, bone remodeling, and epithelial tissue homeostasis. Although retinol and retinal are stored in the body, retinoic acid is not. Vitamin A is best associated with thyroid hormone action. Vitamin A and D excess can be toxic, whereas E and K excess is generally nontoxic. Several aspects of vitamin A metabolism are Zn++-dependent.
Inspiratory muscle strength training lowers blood pressure and sympathetic activity in older adults with OSA: a randomized controlled pilot trial.

Older, obese adults with moderate-severe obstructive sleep apnea who perform 5 min/day high-intensity inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) exhibit lowered casual and nighttime systolic blood...
The Peace of God

Scholars have argued that the politically fractured landscape of medieval Western Europe was foundational to the evolution of constitutionalism and rule of law. In making this argument, Salter and Young (2019) have recently emphasized that the constellation of political property rights in the High Middle Ages was polycentric and hierarchical; holders of those rights were residual claimants to the returns on their governance and sovereign. The latter characteristics – residual claimancy and sovereignty – imply a clear delineation of jurisdictional boundaries and their integrity. However, historians’ description of the “feudal anarchy” that followed the tenth-century disintegration of the Carolingian Empire does not suggest clearly-delineated and stabile boundaries. In this paper, I highlight the role of the Peace of God movement in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in delineating and stabilizing the structure of political property rights. In terms of historical political economy, the Peace of God movement provides an important link between the early medieval era and the constitutional arrangements of the High Middle Ages.
Creating Positive Lived Experiences in Schools for International Relocatee Parents and Their Children

Children benefit from strong home–school relationships. Yet, parents who are immigrants and refugees are expected to follow frameworks for school involvement that are incongruent with their cultural backgrounds and experiences. Drawing on aspects of world-making (Kondo in World-making: Race, performance, and the work of creativity. Duke University Press, Durham, NC, 2018) and funds of knowledge (Moll et al. Theory Pract 31(2):132–141, 1992), this mixed-method case study explores how one group of international parents at a university laboratory school perceive their roles and responsibilities in the education of their young children. Data collection tools included a school-wide survey and semi-structured interviews distributed during two phases of data collection. Research findings indicate that this group of parents is highly invested in their children’s education. They see their responsibilities as supporting the teacher, reinforcing the curriculum, and helping their children understand that school practices can differ from those that occur in the home. Further, these parents seek deeper connections with faculty and staff and other parents to form stronger relationships. The majority of interviewees indicated that they would like to participate more fully in the life of the school but didn’t know how to do so, given their biographical experiences and within the current school structure.
Allele-Specific Recombinase Polymerase Amplification to Detect Sickle Cell Disease in Low-Resource Settings

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of common, life-threatening disorders caused by a point mutation in the β globin gene. Early diagnosis through newborn and early childhood screening, parental education, and preventive treatments are known to reduce mortality. However, the cost and complexity of conventional diagnostic methods limit the feasibility of early diagnosis for SCD in resource-limited areas worldwide. Although several point-of-care tests are commercially available, most are antibody-based tests, which cannot be used in patients who have recently received a blood transfusion. Here, we describe the development of a rapid, low-cost nucleic acid test that uses real-time fluorescence to detect the point mutation encoding hemoglobin S (HbS) in one round of isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA). When tested with a set of clinical samples from SCD patients and healthy volunteers, our assay demonstrated 100% sensitivity for both the βA globin and βS globin alleles and 94.7 and 97.1% specificities for the βA globin allele and βS globin allele, respectively (n = 91). Finally, we demonstrate proof-of-concept sample-to-answer genotyping of genomic DNA from capillary blood using an alkaline lysis procedure and direct input of diluted lysate into RPA. The workflow is performed in <30 min at a cost of <$5 USD on a commercially available benchtop fluorimeter and an open-source miniature fluorimeter. This study demonstrates the potential utility of a rapid, sample-to-answer nucleic acid test for SCD that may be implemented near the point of care and could be adapted to other disease-causing point mutations in genomic DNA.
The Shapley Value, Average Productivity Differentials, and Coalition Size

The Shapley value is arguably the most well-known solution concept for cooperative, transferable utility games. In this Note we show, in contrast to its many marginal characterizations, that the Shapley value can also be viewed as a solution based on average productivity. Specifically, we show that the Shapley value can be axiomatized by means of symmetry, efficiency and a property we call coalition size neutrality. This property requires, roughly, that the payoff to each player depend only on that player’s overall relative average productivity and not on how that productivity is distributed over coalition size. In addition, we observe how a weakened version of coalition size neutrality may be used to characterize the vector space of all linear combinations of the Shapley value and the well-known equal division solution.
Leveraging Big Data to Discover High Yield Prognostics Applications

A common scenario for many organizations in this information age entails volumes of data that are easily collected and stored in repositories, but are not subsequently leveraged to improve products or processes due to a lack of resources, such as knowledgeable personnel or sufficient computing power. Rather than being collected as the result of a specific mandate for improvement, the data are collected simply because it is easy and inexpensive to do so, and because the data allegedly possess some, as of yet unknown, value. As the field of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) grows, the research that is invested into finding the remaining useful life (RUL) of high value components can leverage these data repositories in many different ways. However, the task can seem overwhelming when there is no clear direction on how to use data to further specific goals. In this paper, we discuss the importance of PHM and provide a data-driven approach for discovering impactful uses of data for PHM challenges. This approach is illustrated through a research effort that explored a set of vehicle maintenance data and determined that analysis of vehicle generators would constitute the best initial return on investment.
Light Triggered Thyristors For HVDC Applications

The status of a present EPRI funded research program on a directly light triggered thyristor for HVDC application is reviewed. An existing 53mm, 2600V, I000A electrically fired device was suitably modified to be turned on with an incident photo-pulse of 30nJ the basic problem being the retention of a 2000 volt per microsecond dv/dt capability. Design trade offs between dv/dt and gate sensitivity are discussed as well as di/dt problems encountered in turning on a 2 inch device with such a small gate signal. Special experiments and design and analysis computer programs have helped in assessing temperature excursion during turn-on and led to improved design with a di/dt capability approaching that of the original electrically gated device.
Inhibition of cloned adenylyl cyclases by mutant-activated Gi-alpha and specific suppression of type 2 adenylyl cyclase inhibition by phorbol ester treatment

Inhibition of the various cloned Gs-sensitive adenylyl cyclases was studied. The effect of mutant-activated Gi2-alpha on types 2, 3, and 6 adenylyl cyclases was analyzed after co-transfection into COS-7 cells. These adenylyl cyclases were chosen as representative members of the distinct families of mammalian adenylyl cyclases. COS-7 cells were transfected with cDNAs encoding (a) the required type of adenylyl cyclase, (b) luteinizing hormone receptor, and (c) Q205LGi2-alpha or Q205LGo1-alpha. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG)-stimulated cAMP accumulation was then measured. Transfection with Q205LGi2-alpha but not Q205LGo1-alpha resulted in 50-60% inhibition of hCG-stimulated cAMP accumulation of the type 2 adenylyl cyclase. hCG stimulation of types 3 and 6 adenylyl cyclases was also extensively inhibited by co-transfection with the Q205LGi2-alpha cDNA. Treatment with 4 beta-phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate of cells transfected with the type 2 enzyme cDNA resulted in a 2-fold increase of the hCG-stimulated cAMP accumulation and a complete suppression of the Q205LGi2-alpha inhibition of the type 2 adenylyl cyclase. However, similar treatment did not affect Q205LGi2-alpha inhibition of the type 3 and type 6 adenylyl cyclases. These data indicate that many if not all types of adenylyl cyclases may be susceptible to inhibition by Gi2-alpha, but this inhibition can be regulated by protein kinase C in a type-specific manner.
Improved speaker model migration via stochastic synthesis [speaker recognition applications]

Model migration in speaker recognition is a task of converting parametrically-obsolete models to new structures and configurations without the requirement to store the original speech waveforms or feature vector sequences along with the models. This paper reports on further enhancements of a statistical migration technique based on Gaussian mixture models, introduced previously. The present approach is based on a stochastic synthesis of feature sequences from obsolete models that are subsequently used to create the new models. Here, in addition to Gaussian means and priors, as utilized in the previous contribution, also the covariances are included resulting in significant performance gains in the migrated models, compared to the mean-only method. Overall, measured on the NIST 2003 cellular task, the described algorithm achieves a model migration incurring a loss in performance of 8-20% relative to a full re-enrollment from waveforms, dependent on the type of mismatch between the obsolete and the new configuration. The inclusion of the covariance information is shown to reduce the loss of performance by a factor of 3-4 as compared to the baseline mean-only migration technique.
Current Perspectives on Antiretroviral Therapy

Current estimates suggest that at least 1 million persons in the United States are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the cause of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Knowledge of the life cycle of HIV has provided the fundamental information necessary to initiate programs that will identify drugs to treat the infection. Inhibition of reverse transcriptase represents the only strategy of proved clinical value. Three such drugs are available: zidovudine, didanosine, and zalcitabine. Zidovudine is the only proved agent for therapy of asymptomatic HIV infection; and for symptomatic disease, monotherapy with zidovudine must also be regarded as the first-line approach. For patients who are intolerant, are failing clinically, or have received prior long-term treatment with zidovudine, monotherapy with didanosine or zalcitabine, or a combination of zidovudine and zalcitabine are alternatives. Progress is being made in the treatment of HIV infection, but the considerable challenge to affect the inexorable progressive nature of HIV disease remains daunting.
Mechanism of NGF-induced formation of axonal filopodia

The formation of axon collateral branches is a fundamental aspect of the development of neuronal circuits. Emergence of axonal filopodia from the axon is the first step in the formation of axon collateral branches and pre-synaptic structures. Using embryonic sensory axons as a model system, we have determined that axonal filopodia are formed from transient accumulations of F-actin within the axon, termed actin patches. We found that the branch-inducing factor NGF induces the formation of axonal actin patches and filopodia. NGF signaling, through PI3K, promotes the formation of localized axonal microdomains of PIP3 accumulation. The microdomains in turn drive formation of actin patches. Under basal conditions, only a subset of actin patches gives rise to filopodia, and many patches dissipate without forming a filopodium. Neither NGF nor direct activation of PI3K affects the probability that an actin patch will give rise to a filopodium. Thus, NGF increases formation of axonal filopodia through localized PI...
Angiogenesis in the embryonic CNS: a new twist on an old tale.

The central nervous system (CNS) acquires its vasculature by angiogenesis, a process consisting of proliferation of endothelial cells in existing blood vessels or vascular plexuses, and leading to formation of new blood vessels. Angiogenesis begins early in CNS development and continues throughout life. Prevailing notions depict CNS angiogenesis as a passive process driven primarily by demands for oxygen and other nutrients by the growing neuronal populations. Thus, although the CNS vasculature develops concomitant with neuronal identities, which emerge under the influence of compartment-specific cell autonomous factors, cell autonomous patterning signals are not considered to instruct vascular development. We have challenged this prevailing notion by showing that angiogenesis in the mouse telencephalon progresses in an orderly, ventral-to-dorsal gradient regulated in a cell-autonomous manner by compartment-specific homeobox transcription factors. These are the same transcription factors that confer compa...
Sequential estimation of the mean survival time under random censorship

The paper considers the problem of sequential estimation of the mean survival time using randomly right censored data when the loss is measured by the sum of the squared error of estimation and the cost of observations made with per unit cost c being constant. The sequential estimator defined here is shown to be asymptotically risk efficient and asymptotically normal as c 4 ↓ 0 under certain regularity conditions. These conditions are shown to be satisfied by a wide variety of survival distributions and censoring distributions. Furthermore, they hold trivially when the mean survival experience over a finite interval [0,T], T < ∞, is of interest.
Chemical Selection for Catalysis in Combinatorial Antibody Libraries

For the past decade the immune system has been exploited as a rich source of de novo catalysts. Catalytic antibodies have been shown to have chemoselectivity, enantioselectivity, large rate accelerations, and even an ability to reroute chemical reactions. In many instances catalysts have been made for reactions for which there are no known natural or man-made enzymes. Yet, the full power of this combinatorial system can only be exploited if there was a system that allows for the direct selection of a particular function. A method that allows for the direct chemical selection for catalysis from antibody libraries was so devised, whereby the positive aspects of hybridoma technology were preserved and re-formatted in the filamentous phage system to allow direct selection of catalysis. This methodology is based on a purely chemical selection process, making it more general than biologically based selection systems because it is not limited to reaction products that perturb cellular machinery.
Crystal structure of sodium isosaccharate, NaC6H11O6·H2O

Abstract Sodium isosaccharate, NaC6H11O6·H2O (Na-ISA), has been synthesized, and its crystal structure solved by single-crystal X-ray diffraction methods. Na-ISA crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P21 (#4) with cell parameters a=9.2267(11) A, b=5.0765(6) A, c=9.7435(11) A, β=103.304(2)°, V=444.13(9) A3, Z=2. The structure was refined by full-matrix least-squares on F2 yielding final R-values (all data) R1=0.0361 and Rw2=0.0935. The structure of Na-ISA consists of (C6H11O6)− anions arranged in layers parallel to the bc plane. An extended network of O–H⋯O hydrogen bonds links the (ISA)− anions and the crystal water molecules. Each sodium atom is coordinated by four oxygen atoms belonging to four different (ISA)− anions and by one water molecule. The resulting NaO5 polyhedra are linked by sharing common corners in zig-zag chains running parallel to the b-axis.
Preparation of α-alumina-supported mesoporous bentonite membranes for reverse osmosis desalination of aqueous solutions

Abstract In this study, mesoporous bentonite clay membranes approximately 2 μm thick were prepared on porous α-alumina substrates by a sol–gel method. Nanosized clay particles were obtained from commercial Na-bentonite powders (Wyoming) by a process of sedimentation, washing, and freeze-drying. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and nitrogen adsorption–desorption were employed for membrane characterization. It was found that the content of solids, concentration of polymer binder, and pH value of the clay colloidal suspension had critical influences on membrane formation during the dip-coating process. The membranes were tested for reverse osmosis separation of a 0.1 M NaCl solution. Both water permeability and Na+ rejection rate of the supported membranes were comparable to those of the compacted thick membranes reported in the literature. However, due to the drastically reduced membrane thickness, water permeance and flux of the supported membranes were significantly higher than those of the compacted thick membranes. It was also observed that the calcination temperature played a critical role in determining structural stability in water and desalination performance of the clay membrane.
Confessions of a botanical editor

When erstwhile friends and colleagues urged me to talk on this occasion about editing, specifically editing of Economic Botany, I resisted on the grounds that there would be little interest, except on the part of a few aficionados. But on further reflection I was persuaded by several counter considerations: 1. Clearly, journals, or serials, as librarians are wont to style them, constitute a considerable part of our culture; indeed, they are the basis of a sizeable industry. I note in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Anonymous 1988) that some of our more renowned research universities receive over 90,000 serials. We are further told (Broad 1988) of that number some 40,000 are scientific journals. All in all not an insignificant aspect of science. 2. Economic Botany, now in its 42nd volume, along with the annual meetings with their research papers and symposia form the core of the activities of the Society for Economic Botany. The journal itself produces an annual income of approximately $80,000, which is available for its publication activities. 3. Under the circumstances, members of the Society deserve a full account of editorial activities-fuller than can be presented in our annual business meetings. They should learn something of the pleasures and the frustrations behind the azure quarterly that appears regularly on their desks. After all, at irregular intervals we seek another editor and thus we need to enlighten all prospects. And so I launch on these confessions, with apologies to DeQuincey. But first let me inform you what this paper is not going to be, as well as what it will include. This will not be an all-inclusive, or comprehensive, treatise on the preparation of scientific papers. We do not have the time nor is this the proper forum for such an encyclopedic endeavor. Besides we already have excellent publications of this kind, i.e., the rightfully renowned Chicago manual of style, the 13th edition of which appeared in 1982 (University of Chicago Press 1982) the useful CBE style manual (CBE Style Manual Committee 1983); Day's (1983) eminently readable and witty How to write and publish a scientific paper; and a host of other laudable guides. Instead of competing with these old standbys, I propose to select a few topics of interest to me, topics that may not even be the most important; indeed, some of the content may seem to be rather trivial, but I remind you that much of the editor's time is devoted to trivia. My account-whatever its meritsis based on my experience as editor of Economic Botany and as editor of the American Journal of Botany, plus an occasional and minor reference to other editorial or literary exposures. Involving the two journals will serve to broaden the base of the data pool-to use a current popular phrase-and will help to increase the desirable anonymity, for I have no wish to embarrass any individual.
Photonic phased-array antenna system based on detector-switched optical blass matrix true-time delay steering and heterodyne RF generation

We have proposed and designed a photonic true-time delay (TTD) steered phased-array antenna system that can work at high RF frequency with high angular resolution. Several elementary techniques have been studied and developed, including an optical realization of the Blass matrix based on our substrate-guided wave fanout structure, switching operation of wideband MSM and PIN photodetectors, and heterodyne RF signal generation. A design for the system demonstration that has the bandwidth from 18 to 26GHz is reported.
Kinetic energy—mass distributions from the fission of nuclei lighter than radium

The distributions in masses and total kinetic energies of fission fragments from a number of elements ranging from erbium to bismuth have been measured. The nuclei undergoing fission were produced by bombarding a variety of targets with projectiles ranging from He4 to O16. The energies of coincident fission fragments were measured using solid-state counters. The energy data were transformed to give mass-total kinetic energy density-of-events distributions. These distributions were compared with those calculated from an approximate version of the liquid-drop model which applies to this region of elements. General agreement in the shapes and widths of the distributions was found, particularly in the cases which involved small angular momenta and small nuclear temperatures. The dependence of the widths of the experimental distributions on the nuclear temperature was found to differ from that predicted by the theory, but uncertainties in the evaluation of nuclear temperatures for the reactions investigated may be large. Analysis of these uncertainties indicated that they were not large enough to alone account for the discrepancy, although this analysis was subject to some error. Angular momentum effects were studied by using certain combinations of targets and projectiles to give the compound nucleus Os186 at the same excitation energy but with different angular momenta. The effect of increasing angular momentum was to broaden and change the shape of the experimental distributions.
Binding and degradation of 125I-labeled insulin by a clonal line of rat pituitary tumor cells.

Abstract Receptor sites for insulin on GH 3 cells were characterized. Uptake of 125 I-labeled insulin by the cells was dependent upon time and temperature, with apparent steady-states reached by 120, 20 and 10 min at 4, 23 and 37°C, respectively. The binding sites were sensitive to trypsin, suggesting that the receptors contain protein. Insulin competed with 125 I-labeled insulin for binding sites, with half-maximal competition observed at 5 nM insulin. Neither adrenocorticotropic hormone nor growth hormone competed for 125 I-labeled insulin binding sites. 125 I-labeled insulin binding was reversible, and saturable with respect to hormone concentration. 125 I-labeled insulin was degraded at both 4 and 37°C by GH 3 cells, but not by medium conditioned by these cells. After a 5 min incubation at 37°C, products of 125 I-labeled insulin degradation could be recovered from the cells but were not detected extracellularly. Extending the time of incubation resulted in the recovery of fragments of 125 I-labeled insulin from both cells and the medium. Native insulin inhibited most of the degradation of 125 I-labeled insulin suggesting that degradation resulted, in part, from a saturable process. At steady-state, degradation products of 125 I-labeled insulin, as well as intact hormone, were recovered from GH 3 cells. After 30 min incubation at 37°C, 80% of the cell-bound radioactivity was not extractable from GH 3 cells with acetic acid.
Erythema multiforme in dogs and cats: literature review and case material from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine (1988-96).

A review of case material from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine from 1988 to 1996 identified 20 dogs and one cat with definitive or presumed erythema multiforme. An additional 24 dogs and five cats with definitive or presumed erythema multiforme were found in the veterinary literature. Erythema multiforme accounted for only 0.40% and 0.11%, respectively, of all the canine and feline dermatology cases examined over a 9-year period. German Shepherd dogs and Pembroke Welsh Corgis appeared predisposed. The condition was manifested as a vesiculobullous and/or ulcerative dermatosis in the majority of dogs and cats. In dogs, the most commonly affected body sites included the ventrum (especially axillae and groin), mucocutaneous junctions, oral cavity, pinnae, and footpads. Histopathological findings in cutaneous and mucocutaneous biopsy specimens were consistent with previously published criteria. In dogs, erythema multiforme occurred more frequently in patients receiving drug therapy. In cats, all cases of erythema multiforme were presumed to be drug related. Elimination of the associated trigger factor and supportive care usually resulted in resolution of the erythema multiforme within 1–2 weeks. Four dogs with severe idiopathic erythema multiforme were successfully managed with glucocorticoids or azathioprine.
The extractable lipid of the cholera enterotoxin.

It was reported by Coleman et al. [1] that the enterotoxin of Vibrio cholerae, demonstrable in the rabbit ileal loop [2], is eluted in deionized water from diethylaminoethyl (DEAE) Sephadex and contains about 3096 extractable lipid. It was subsequently observed that the chloroform-methanol extracted residue, as well as the extract, was nontoxic, but that the toxic activity could be quantitatively precipitated by ethanol-ether in the cold. This could be taken to imply that the toxic activity might be associated with lipid soluble in chloroform-methanol but not in ethanol-ether, and this possibility was investigated.
An examination of the IT satisfaction of small-business users

Although there are many articles in the NIS literature which address small-business computing, in effect the organizations represented in these studies are, in many ways, similar to medium- and large-sized organizations. In this article, we focus on businesses that are truly small: they have very few employees and there is no formal NIS department. In this environment, the small business owner/manager is the principal user and has to perform most of the IT functions. For such an environment, an IT satisfaction construct and measurement instrument are presented. A survey, using the measurement instrument, of a representative sample of small businesses was conducted to identify user satisfaction patterns. Key areas of IT dissatisfactions are: training and education (the most important), software maintenance, documentation, and vendor support. These deficiency areas can be appropriately addressed by software vendors and consultants. Finally, a contingency analysis of IT satisfaction based on business-related factors and owner characteristics was performed. A general observation was that the owner attributes have a greater impact on IT satisfaction than any of the business factors. The ones that stood out the most were the gender and the age of the owner.
Management of Massively Dilated Ureters in Children

The presence of a congenital megaureter in infants and children constitutes a therapeutic challenge. This entity predisposes, and many times is associated with profound renal failure. The most important factor in its management is recognition of the precise cause. Medical and/or surgical management are determined by the appropriate etiologic diagnosis. A new classification has been recommended (1), and it should be universally adopted to be able to compare similar groups in future discussions (2, 3). Although there are many reports referring to indications and surgical techniques in the management of megaureters, there is little mention of treatment and results of the different groups and subgroups. In the new classification, there are three major categories of megaureters: reflux, obstructed, and nonrefluxing, nonobstructed megaureters.
A low temperature plant for the production of heavy water

A plant for the production of heavy water, which was erected by Sulzer Brothers for Emser Werke AG. at Domat/Ems, Switzerland, is described. The raw material is natural water which first undergoes seven-fold deuterium enrichment in three electrolysis stages. The gaseous mixture of hydrogen and deuterium produced by electrolytic dissociation is cooled to --251 ts C. The liquid then goes to a Kuhn rectifying column, where the exchange processes taking place at 22 ts K result in 400-fold deuterium enrichment. The product of the column is burned with oxygen and then passed to a second Kuhn column in which the D/sub 2/O concentration is brought up to 99.8%. The plant at Ems employs oil-free labyrinth-piston compressors and highspeed expansion turbines for hydrogen. High vacuum is used to insulate all heat exchangers, turbines, and control units. (auth)
Superinfection immunity and prophage repression in phage P1 and P7. III. Induction by virulent mutants.

Abstract Two types of virulent mutants (virB and virC) have been isolated for phage Pl; both induce a Pl prophage to replicate after superinfection of a lysogen. The genetic lesion of P1virB (and P7virB) is located in the immunity-specific region of the phage, and these mutants induce only a homoimmune prophage. The virB mutants appear to depend for prophage induction on titration of the phage-specific c4 immunity repressor in the lysogen, since DNA synthesis of the superinfecting phage is needed for this induction process. The P1virC mutation, which is located at the left end of the phage map, induces both homoimmune and heteroimmune prophages. The virC mutant causes prophage induction in the absence of phage DNA replication and may induce because of constitutive synthesis of a vegetative repressor (c1) antagonist.
Quantitative Analysis of Polymerase Chain Reaction Products by Dot Blot

Abstract Quantitative analysis of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) products is usually accomplished by gel electrophoresis and Southern blotting. We have developed an alternative technique that allows PCR products to be directly quantitated from unfractionated samples. The PCR was used to amplify genomic (endogenous) DNA sequences (actin) and exogenous DNA (herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) ribonucleotide reductase) isolated from the trigeminal ganglia of rabbits to demonstrate the dot blot method of PCR product analysis. Two primer pairs (actin and ribonucleotide reductase) were coamplified, resulting in two different PCR products. Duplicate aliquots of the PCR products were applied to separate nylon membranes and hybridized with 32 P-labeled oligonucleotide probes. Each radioactive probe was specific for target (HSV-1 DNA) or control (actin DNA) products. Quantitation using a laser scanning PhosphorImager and ImageQuant software demonstrated that the dot blot method can be used to rapidly analyze a large number of PCR samples.
Isolation of Δ4-Pregnene-11β, 17α, 20α, 21-tetrol-3-one from urine of man

Abstract Δ 4 -Pregnene-11β, 17β, 20α, 21-tetrol-3-one (as the diacetate) has been isolated in crystalline form from urinary extracts of normal subjects after the administration of hydrocortisone.
Voltage and var control to enable high penetration of distributed photovoltaic systems

Increasing utilization of renewable energy will reduce reliance on fossil-fuel-based generation and reduce greenhouse gas and pollutant emissions, benefiting the environment and economic growth. However, the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources such as photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy systems imposes great challenges on power system voltage and reactive power control. This paper presents a novel solution based on Cyber-Physical System (CPS) design principles that removes this technical barrier so that more renewable energy sources can be deployed and integrated into the power grid. This paper focuses on solar power integration and control, but the proposed solution is expected to be also applicable to integrating other intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind energy. Camera and weather stations will be installed to capture weather data. The solar generation in a future time horizon will be estimated. An intelligent algorithm is then applied to maintain the required voltage levels. Proper communication schemes will also be designed to ensure interoperability and security of the CPS. This paper presents the overall framework of the proposed solution, designs of the major components of the system, and preliminary results.
Discrete signal representation by the method of kernel expansion

In digital processing of continuous-time signals it is necessary to represent the signal by a sequence. In this letter a number of transforms are presented, generalizing the Poisson transform, which in addition to generating the sequences they also map continuous time-invariant convolution to discrete shift-invariant convolution.
Pituitary-Adrenal Function in the Rat After Gonadectomy and Gonadal Hormone Replacement1

Gonadectomy in male rats impaired growth but increased pituitary and adrenal weight and adrenal RNA and DNA content. Pituitary ACTH content increased also. Testosterone replacement lowered both ACTH content and adrenal weight to control levels. Estradiol administration increased pituitary ACTH without a further increment in adrenal weight. Gonadectomy and adrenalectomy together increased pituitary ACTH content compared with adrenalectomy alone. Under these conditions, testosterone replacement reduced pituitary ACTH and estradiol administration increased it further. Plasma corticosterone (Cpd. B) concentrations in castrated males at rest, after stress or after ACTH injection did not differ from those observed in intact controls. Biological half-life in vivo was shortened and hepatic inactivation of steroid in vitro was increased. Steroid production by adrenal slices in vitro was diminished by castration, and the output of steroid in adrenal venous blood also decreased. Increased steroid secretion was produ...
Structural determinants of PLD2 inhibition by α-synuclein

The presynaptic protein alpha-synuclein has been implicated in both neuronal plasticity and neurodegenerative disease, but its normal function remains unclear. We described the induction of an amphipathic alpha-helix at the N terminus (exons 2-4) of alpha-synuclein upon exposure to phospholipid vesicles, and hypothesized that lipid-binding might serve as a functional switch by stabilizing alpha-synuclein in an active (alpha-helical) conformation. Others have shown that alpha and beta-synucleins inhibit phospholipase D (PLD), an enzyme involved in lipid-mediated signaling cascades and vesicle trafficking. Here, we report that all three naturally occurring synuclein isoforms (alpha, beta, and gamma-synuclein) are similarly effective inhibitors of PLD2 in vitro, as is the Parkinson's disease-associated mutant A30P. The PD-associated mutant A53T, however, is a more potent inhibitor of PLD2 than is wild-type alpha-synuclein. We analyze mutations of the alpha-synuclein protein to identify critical determinants of human PLD2 inhibition in vitro. Deletion of residues 56-102 (exon 4) decreases PLD2 inhibition significantly; this activity of exon 4 may require adoption of an alpha-helical conformation, as mutations that disrupt alpha-helicity also abrogate inhibition. Deletion of C-terminal residues 130-140 (exon 6) completely abolishes inhibitory activity. In addition, PLD2 inhibition is blocked by phosphorylation at serine 129 or at tyrosine residues 125 and 136, or by mutations that mimic phosphorylation at these sites. We conclude that PLD2 inhibition by alpha-synuclein is mediated by a lipid-stabilized alpha-helical structure in exon 4 and also by residues within exon 6, and that this inhibition can be modulated by phosphorylation of specific residues in exons 5 and 6.
Vibrations of the phenoxyl radical.

Phenoxyl radical (C6H5O) was prepared photochemically in low-temperature argon matrices. The infrared absorption spectra were obtained for C6H5O and for the isotopically labeled species C6D5O and 1-13C12C5H5O. All but one IR-active fundamental vibrations were detected, most of them not previously observed. Combination of results from IR linear dichroism measurements on photooriented samples, determination of absolute IR intensities with the help of internal standards, analysis of isotopic shifts, and quantum chemical predictions (B3LYP/cc-pVTZ) led to a detailed assignment of phenoxyl radical vibrations. Significant frequency shifts are observed with respect to previously reported data based on resonance Raman studies in polar solutions. For some vibrations, these shifts reflect environment-induced structural changes, such as increase of the quinoid character of the phenoxyl radical in polar media. In particular, the frequency of the CO stretching vibration, readily observable in both IR and Raman experim...
Gaussian Weighted Neighborhood Connectivity of Nonlinear Line Attractor for Learning Complex Manifolds

The human brain has the capability to process high quantities of data quickly for detection and recognition tasks. These tasks are made simpler by the understanding of data, which intentionally removes redundancies found in higher dimensional data and maps the data onto a lower dimensional space. The brain then encodes manifolds created in these spaces, which reveal a specific state of the system. We propose to use a recurrent neural network, the nonlinear line attractor (NLA) network, for the encoding of these manifolds as specific states, which will draw untrained data towards one of the specific states that the NLA network has encoded. We propose a Gaussian-weighted modular architecture for reducing the computational complexity of the conventional NLA network. The proposed architecture uses a neighborhood approach for establishing the interconnectivity of neurons to obtain the manifolds. The modified NLA network has been implemented and tested on the Electro-Optic Synthetic Vehicle Model Database created by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which contains a vast array of high resolution imagery with several different lighting conditions and camera views. It is observed that the NLA network has the capability for representing high dimensional data for the recognition of the objects of interest through its new learning strategy. A nonlinear dimensionality reduction scheme based on singular value decomposition has found to be very effective in providing a low dimensional representation of the dataset. Application of the reduced dimensional space on the modified NLA algorithm would provide fast and more accurate recognition performance for real time applications.
Hydrology and subsurface transport of oil-field brine at the U.S. Geological Survey OSPER site "A", Osage County, Oklahoma

Abstract Spillage and improper disposal of saline produced water from oil wells has caused environmental damage at thousands of sites in the United States. In order to improve understanding of the fate and transport of contaminants at these sites, the U.S. Geological Survey carried out multidisciplinary investigations at two oil production sites near Skiatook Lake, Oklahoma. As a part of this effort, the hydrology and subsurface transport of brine at OSPER site “A”, a tank battery and pit complex that was abandoned in 1973, was investigated. Based on data from 41 new boreholes that were cored and completed with monitoring wells, a large (∼200 m × 200 m × 20 m) plume of saline ground water was mapped. The main dissolved species are Na and Cl, with TDS in the plume ranging as high as 30,000 mg/L. Analysis of the high barometric efficiency of the wells indicated a confined aquifer response. Well-slug tests indicated the hydraulic conductivity is low (0.3–7.0 cm/day). Simplified flow and transport modeling supports the following conceptual model: (1) prior to the produced water releases, recharge was generally low (∼1 cm/a); (2) in ∼60 a of oil production enough saline produced water in pits leaked into the subsurface to create the plume; (3) following abandonment of the site in 1973 and filling of Skiatook Reservoir in the mid-1980s, recharge and lateral flow of water through the plume returned to low values; (4) as a result, spreading of the brine plume caused by mixing with fresh ground water recharge, as well as natural attenuation, are very slow.
Kinetic Model for the Reaction of Cobalt Porphyrins with Olefins under Free Radical Conditions1

A general kinetic model to describe the interaction of two dissimilar olefins with cobalt(II) tetrakis(anisyl)porphyrin complexes in the presence of organic radicals has been developed. The kinetic scheme presumes the formation of organometallic products both by radical addition to Co(II) and by reaction of hydridocobalt(III) complexes with the corresponding olefins. The proposed general mechanism also presumes that cobalt hydride is formed by two pathwayseither by bimolecular reaction of the Co(II) porphyrin complex with the radical or by unimolecular β-hydrogen atom elimination from the organocobalt(III) species. The general model is then modified to the specific case of competition between methacrylonitrile and aliphatic olefins. On application of the simplifying assumption that most of the hydride forms through the bimolecular reaction and that both olefins follow the same predominant reaction pathways, a model describing the concentration of organometallic species derived from both olefins is develop...
Household size and urban spatial change: end of an era?

A dominant demographic trend of the last few decades has been the declining size of house-holds in Western industrialized countries. Following closely upon the Baby Boom, the development became a major topic of discussion for almost two decades. The basis for, and consequences of, these changes have been well covered in the demographic literature, but their spatial implications have received less attention. Yet the, phenomenon has had a pro-found spatial impact at every level of the urban system. Recent statistics indicate that house-hold size continues to decline, but does so at a rapidly decreasing rate. The present paper considers the spatial repercussions of this trend. More specifically, the paper has three aims. (1) The paper summarizes and puts into present-day perspective, a volume of research con-ducted a decade ago upon the spatial impact of declining household size upon the U.S. urban system (Sinclair, 1991). (2) Considers more recent demographic developments, ask-ing whether the impact of declining household size upon the urban system is declining or coming to a close, (3) Considers other demographic developments which might he taking the place of declining household size in driving the urban system. In sum, the paper at-tempts to answer the question. Is an era, which has signifycantly impacted the U.S. urban system, coming to a close?
Infrapyramidal mossy fibers in the hippocampus of methylazoxymethanol acetate-induced microcephalic rats

Treatment of pregnant rats with methylazoxymethanol acetate results in the invasion of mossy fibers into the infrapyramidal region of the hippocampus in the offspring. Since such an invasion of mossy fibers has also been reported in neonatal hyperthyroidism, prenatal ethanol exposure and neonatal lesion of CA3, a common etiology for this phenomenon is proposed.
Epidermolysis Bullosa Dystrophica: Report of Two Cases

Oral conditions of patients with an advanced form of epidermolysis bullosa dystrophica, a rare disease of unknown cause, include poorly calcified teeth and hypoplastic enamel. Generally, the patients cannot use good oral hygiene techniques because of trauma to the gingival tissues. The dental treatment of a young boy with the disease involved restoration of all carious deciduous teeth. A fourteen-year-old patient is undergoing extraction of all his teeth. Although he had complained of toothaches and abscess formations, he never had had dental treatment.
Adjuvant therapy of HER2+ breast cancer

Adjuvant therapy of HER2+ breast cancer has evolved dramatically over the past 4 years. It is now widely appreciated that treatment with trastuzumab, when administered concurrently or sequentially with chemotherapy, will decrease the risk of disease recurrence by approximately 50%. Clinical trials have also demonstrated a modest improvement in overall survival, and it is anticipated that this survival advantage will increase with further follow-up. Nevertheless, there are patients who will experience disease recurrence in spite of optimal trastuzumab-based therapy, and new treatment approaches are needed for these individuals. The results of the initial randomized trials have also given rise to a number of difficult questions that clinicians and patients face on a daily basis. The presentation will focus on controversial topics in the adjuvant treatment of HER2+ disease, including: the treatment of small, node-negative tumors; the uncertainty surrounding intermediate HER2+ test results; and the concerns about cardiac toxicity. New treatment approaches for HER2+ breast cancer that hold promise for the adjuvant setting will also be discussed.