The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Data Holdings

Since its inception in 1993, the ADS Abstract Service has become an indispensable research tool for astronomers and astrophysicists worldwide. In those seven years, much effort has been directed toward improving both the quantity and the quality of references in the database. From the original database of approximately 160,000 astronomy abstracts, our dataset has grown almost tenfold to approximately 1.5 million references covering astronomy, astrophysics, planetary sciences, physics, optics, and engineering. We collect and standardize data from approximately 200 journals and present the resulting information in a uniform, coherent manner. With the cooperation of journal publishers worldwide, we have been able to place scans of full journal articles on-line back to the first volumes of many astronomical journals, and we are able to link to current version of articles, abstracts, and datasets for essentially all of the current astronomy literature. The trend toward electronic publishing in the field, the use of electronic submission of abstracts for journal articles and conference proceedings, and the increasingly prominent use of the World Wide Web to disseminate information have enabled the ADS to build a database unparalleled in other disciplines. The ADS can be accessed at http://adswww.harvard.eduComment: 24 pages, 1 figure, 6 tables, 3 appendice

Pharmacokinetics of recombinant human erythropoietin applied subcutaneously to children with chronic renal failure

The single-dose pharmacokinetics of recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEPO) given SC was investigated in 20 patients aged 7-20 years at different stages of chronic renal failure. In a pilot study we confirmed the lower bioavailability of the drug in 2 children when given SC compared with the IV route (24% and 43%, respectively). Following administration of 4,000 units/m2, rHuEPO SC effective serum erythropoietin concentrations increased from a mean baseline level (+/- SD) of 23 +/- 13 units/l to a mean peak concentration of 265 +/- 123 units/l, which was reached after 14.3 +/- 9.4 h, followed by a slow decline until baseline values were attained at 72 h. Mean residence time was 30 +/- 9 h and mean elimination half-time 14.3 +/- 7 h. The single-dose kinetics of SC rHuEPO in children with different degrees of renal failure are comparable to those in adult patients. Possibly, the higher efficacy of SC rHuEPO in patients with renal anaemia compared with IV rHuEPO is related to its prolonged action

Role of protein kinase C in inhibition of renin release caused by vasoconstrictors

It was the aim of the present study to get insight into some of the intracellular mechanisms by which the vasoconstrictor hormones angiotensin II (ANG II), arginine vasopressin (AVP), and norepinephrine (NE) inhibit renin release from renal juxtaglomerular cells. To this end a primary cell culture from rat renal cortex was established that consisted of 50% juxtaglomerular cells. The cultured juxtaglomerular cells contained prominent renin granules closely resembling those in the intact kidney and responded to a number of stimuli of renin release. By using these cultures, we found that ANG II (10(-7) M), AVP (10(-6) M), and NE (10(-5) M) inhibited renin release and increased the calcium permeability of the plasma membrane of the cultured cells. Both the effects on renin release and on calcium permeability could be diminished or even be abolished by the calcium channel blocker verapamil (Vp) (10(-5) M). ANG II, AVP, and NE led to an increased formation of diacylglycerol (DAG), a well-known stimulator of protein kinase C (PKC). Moreover, a direct stimulation of PKC by 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) (10(-8)-10(-6) M) also inhibited renin release and increased the calcium permeability of the cell membrane. Similar to ANG II, AVP, and NE, the effects of TPA on calcium permeability and renin release could be diminished by Vp. In conclusion, these results point toward a common mechanism by which vasoconstrictors inhibit renin release from renal juxtaglomerular cells: ANG II, AVP, and NE activate a phospholipase C, which generates DAG.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS

The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Architecture

The powerful discovery capabilities available in the ADS bibliographic services are possible thanks to the design of a flexible search and retrieval system based on a relational database model. Bibliographic records are stored as a corpus of structured documents containing fielded data and metadata, while discipline-specific knowledge is segregated in a set of files independent of the bibliographic data itself. The creation and management of links to both internal and external resources associated with each bibliography in the database is made possible by representing them as a set of document properties and their attributes. To improve global access to the ADS data holdings, a number of mirror sites have been created by cloning the database contents and software on a variety of hardware and software platforms. The procedures used to create and manage the database and its mirrors have been written as a set of scripts that can be run in either an interactive or unsupervised fashion. The ADS can be accessed at http://adswww.harvard.eduComment: 25 pages, 8 figures, 3 table

The NASA Astrophysics Data System: The Search Engine and its User Interface

The ADS Abstract and Article Services provide access to the astronomical literature through the World Wide Web (WWW). The forms based user interface provides access to sophisticated searching capabilities that allow our users to find references in the fields of Astronomy, Physics/Geophysics, and astronomical Instrumentation and Engineering. The returned information includes links to other on-line information sources, creating an extensive astronomical digital library. Other interfaces to the ADS databases provide direct access to the ADS data to allow developers of other data systems to integrate our data into their system. The search engine is a custom-built software system that is specifically tailored to search astronomical references. It includes an extensive synonym list that contains discipline specific knowledge about search term equivalences. Search request logs show the usage pattern of the various search system capabilities. Access logs show the world-wide distribution of ADS users. The ADS can be accessed at http://adswww.harvard.eduComment: 23 pages, 18 figures, 11 table

The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Overview

The NASA Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service has become a key component of astronomical research. It provides bibliographic information daily, or near daily, to a majority of astronomical researchers worldwide. We describe the history of the development of the system and its current status. We show several examples of how to use the ADS, and we show how ADS use has increased as a function of time. Currently it is still increasing exponentially, with a doubling time for number of queries of 17 months. Using the ADS logs we make the first detailed model of how scientific journals are read as a function of time since publication. The impact of the ADS on astronomy can be calculated after making some simple assumptions. We find that the ADS increases the efficiency of astronomical research by 333 Full Time Equivalent (2000 hour) research years per year, and that the value of the early development of the ADS for astronomy, compared with waiting for mature technologies to be adopted, is 2332 FTE research years. The ADS is available at http://adswww.harvard.edu/.Comment: 19 pages, 22 figure

A law of large numbers approximation for Markov population processes with countably many types

When modelling metapopulation dynamics, the influence of a single patch on the metapopulation depends on the number of individuals in the patch. Since the population size has no natural upper limit, this leads to systems in which there are countably infinitely many possible types of individual. Analogous considerations apply in the transmission of parasitic diseases. In this paper, we prove a law of large numbers for rather general systems of this kind, together with a rather sharp bound on the rate of convergence in an appropriately chosen weighted $\ell_1$ norm.Comment: revised version in response to referee comments, 34 page

The Emerging Scholarly Brain

It is now a commonplace observation that human society is becoming a coherent super-organism, and that the information infrastructure forms its emerging brain. Perhaps, as the underlying technologies are likely to become billions of times more powerful than those we have today, we could say that we are now building the lizard brain for the future organism.Comment: to appear in Future Professional Communication in Astronomy-II (FPCA-II) editors A. Heck and A. Accomazz