Wisconsin Great Lakes Restoration Projects: Producing Results for People, Communities

This report provides updates on 12 Great Lakes restoration projects occurring in Wisconsin

Do Predictors Exist for a Successful Withdrawal of Preoperative Prostaglandin E1 from Neonates with d-Transposition of the Great Arteries and Intact Ventricular Septum?

Prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) is given to neonates with d-transposition of the great arteries (d-TGA) to reduce cyanosis by reopening and maintaining the patency of the ductus arteriosus. To avoid side effects, this medication can be stopped for hemodynamically stable patients after balloon atrial septostomy (BAS). A consecutive series of neonates with d-TGA and an intact ventricular septum (IVS) presenting from 2000 through 2005 was analyzed retrospectively to search for side effects of PGE1 and to identify predictors for a safe preoperative withdrawal. The medication was stopped for hemodynamically stable patients with transcutaneous oxygen saturations higher than 80% after BAS and reinitiated for patients with an oxygen saturation lower than 65%. Patients successfully weaned were compared with those who had failed weaning in terms of atrial septal defect (ASD) size, ductus arteriosus size, and the transcutaneous oxygen saturation. Prostaglandin E1 was initiated for all 43 neonates with d-TGA. The median maintenance dose of PGE1 was 0.00625μg/kg/min (range, 0.00313-0.050μg/kg/min) for a median duration of 6days (range, 1-12days). For 16 patients, PGE1 was preoperatively withdrawn but then had to be reinitiated for 7 of the 16 patients. No predictors for a successful weaning of PGE1 were found based on ASD size, ductus arteriosus size, or oxygen saturation. The adverse effects of PGE1 were apnea in 10 patients and fever in 19 patients. Neither seizures nor necrotizing enterocolitis was documented. Prostaglandin E1 was successfully withdrawn for a minority of hemodynamically stable patients with d-TGA. No predictors for a successful weaning could be identified. Because apnea and fever are common side effects, withdrawal of PGE1 after BAS may improve patient safety and comfort. In this patient group, if PGE1 withdrawal was not well tolerated, it could be safely reinitiated. There were no serious side effects of PGE

Phonological Factors Affecting L1 Phonetic Realization of Proficient Polish Users of English

Acoustic phonetic studies examine the L1 of Polish speakers with professional level proficiency in English. The studies include two tasks, a production task carried out entirely in Polish and a phonetic code-switching task in which speakers insert target Polish words or phrases into an English carrier. Additionally, two phonetic parameters are studied: the oft-investigated VOT, as well as glottalization vs. sandhi linking of word-initial vowels. In monolingual Polish mode, L2 interference was observed for the VOT parameter, but not for sandhi linking. It is suggested that this discrepancy may be related to the differing phonological status of the two phonetic parameters. In the code-switching tasks, VOTs were on the whole more English-like than in monolingual mode, but this appeared to be a matter of individual performance. An increase in the rate of sandhi linking in the code-switches, except for the case of one speaker, appeared to be a function of accelerated production of L1 target items

Organic Entrainment and Preservation in Volcanic Glasses

Unaltered pyroclastic deposits have previously been deemed to have "low" potential for the formation, concentration and preservation of organic material on the Martian surface. Yet volcanic glasses that have solidified very quickly after an eruption may be good candidates for containment and preservation of refractory organic material that existed in a biologic system pre-eruption due to their impermeability and ability to attenuate UV radiation. Analysis using NanoSIMS of volcanic glass could then be performed to both deduce carbon isotope ratios that indicate biologic origin and confirm entrainment during eruption. Terrestrial contamination is one of the biggest barriers to definitive Martian organic identification in soil and rock samples. While there is a greater potential to concentrate organics in sedimentary strata, volcanic glasses may better encapsulate and preserve organics over long time scales, and are widespread on Mars. If volcanic glass from many sites on Earth could be shown to contain biologically derived organics from the original environment, there could be significant implications for the search for biomarkers in ancient Martian environments

Outcome of Biventricular Repair in Infants With Multiple Left Heart Obstructive Lesions

The decision to perform biventricular repair for infants with multiple obstructive or hypoplastic left heart lesions (LHL) and borderline left ventricle (LV) may be controversial. This study sought to assess the mortality and morbidity of patients with LHL after biventricular repair and to determine the growth of the left-sided cardiac structures. Retrospective analysis of 39 consecutive infants with LHL who underwent biventricular repair was performed. The median age at surgery was 7days (range 1-225days), and the median follow-up period was 34months (range 1-177months). Between diagnosis and the end of the follow-up period, the size of the aortic annulus (z-score −4.1±2.8 vs. −0.1±2.7) and the LV (LV end-diastolic diameter z-score −1.7±2.8 vs. 0.21±1.7) normalized. During the follow-up period, 23 patients required 39 reinterventions (62%) consisting of redo surgery for 21 patients (57%) and catheter-guided reinterventions for 8 patients (22%). At the end of the follow-up period, 25 of 34 patients were doing subjectively well; 10 children (29%) received cardiac medication; 12 (35%) presented with failure to thrive (weight ≤ P3) and 5 (15%) with pulmonary hypertension. The overall mortality rate was 13%. Biventricular repair for patients with multiple LHL results in sufficient growth of the left-sided cardiac structures. Nevertheless, residual or newly developing obstructive lesions and pulmonary hypertension are frequent, causing significant morbidity that requires reinterventio

Evolved Gas Measurements Planned for the Lower Layers of the Gale Crater Mound with the Sample Analysis at Mars Instrument Suite

The lower mound strata of Gale Crater provide a diverse set of chemical environments for exploration by the varied tools of the Curiosity Rover of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mission. Orbital imaging and spectroscopy clearly reveal distinct layers of hydrated minerals, sulfates, and clays with abundant evidence of a variety of fluvial processes. The three instruments of the MSL Sample Analysis at aMars (SAM) investigation, the Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (QMS), the Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS), and the Gas Chromatograph (GC) are designed to analyze either atmospheric gases or volatiles thermally evolved or chemically extracted from powdered rock or soil. The presence or absence of organic compounds in these layers is of great interest since such an in situ search for this type of record has not been successfully implemented since the mid-60s Viking GCMS experiments. However, regardless of the outcome of the analysis for organics, the abundance and isotopic composition of thermally evolved inorganic compounds should also provide a rich data set to complement the mineralogical and elemental information provided by other MSL instruments. In addition, these evolved gas analysis (EGA) experiments will help test sedimentary models proposed by Malin and Edgett (2000) and then further developed by Milliken et al (2010) for Gale Crater. In the SAM EGA experiments the evolution temperatures of H2O, CO2, SO2, O2, or other simple compounds as the samples are heated in a helium stream to 1000 C provides information on mineral types and their associations. The isotopic composition of O, H, C, and S can be precisely determined in several evolved compounds and compared with the present day atmosphere. Such SAM results might be able to test mineralogical evidence of changing sedimentary and alteration processes over an extended period of time. For example, Bibring et al (2006) have suggested such a major shift from early nonacidic to later acidic alteration. We will illustrate through a variety of evolved gas experiments implemented under SAM-like gas flow and temperature ramp conditions on terrestrial analog minerals on high fidelity Sam breadboards the type of chemical information we expect SAM to provide

ChatGPT, what is a 'Glasanwalt'? - Linguistic strategies in a large language model's interpretation of novel compounds

This study presents a large language model, GPT-4o, with a dataset of artificial German noun-noun compounds that consist of two simplex noun constituents, each associated with a typical interpretation pattern. The task is to derive plausible interpretations. We find that GPT-4o performed very well, displaying stable compositional reasoning strategies. As expected from linguistic literature, typical patterns of the constituents were clearly preferred, with a tendency to favor patterns typical for the head constituent

Evidence for Smectite Clays from MSL SAM Analyses of Mudstone at Yellowknife Bay, Gale Crater, Mars

Drilled samples of mudstone from the Sheepbed unit at Yellowknife Bay were analyzed by MSL instruments including the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments in MSL's Analytical Laboratory. CheMin analyses revealed the first in situ X-ray diffraction based evidence of clay minerals on Mars, which are likely trioctahedral smectites (e.g., saponite) and comprise approx 20% of the mudstone sample (e.g., Bristow et al., this meeting). SAM analyses, which heated the mudstone samples to 1000 C and monitored volatiles evolved to perform in situ evolved gas analysis mass spectrometry (EGA-MS), resulted in a H2O trace exhibiting a wide evolution at temperatures < 500 C, and an evolution peak at higher temperatures near approx 750 C. The low temperature H2O evolution has many potential contributors, including adsorbed H2O, smectite interlayer H2O, and structural H2O/OH from bassanite and akaganeite (identified by CheMin) and H2O/OH from amorphous phases in the sample. The high temperature H2O is consistent with the evolution of H2O from the dehydroxylation of the smectite clay mineral. Comparison to EGA-MS data collected under SAM-like conditions on a variety of clay mineral reference materials indicate that a trioctahedral smectite, such as saponite, is most consistent with the high temperature H2O evolution observed. There may also be SAM EGA-MS evidence for a small high temperature H2O evolution from scoop samples from the Yellowknife Bay Rocknest sand shadow bedform. As in the mudstone samples, this evolution may indicate the detection of smectite clays, and the idea that minor clays may be present in Rocknest materials that could be expected to be at least partially derived from local sources is reasonable. But, because smectite clays were not definitively observed in CheMin analyses of Rocknest materials, they must be present at much lower abundances than the approx 20% observed in the mudstone samples. This potential detection underscores the complementary nature of the MSL CheMin and SAM instruments for investigations of martian sample mineralogy. Information on the nature of Yellowknife Bay clay minerals may also be available from the detection of H2 evolved during SAM EGA-MS at high temperature. A likely source of at least some of this H2 is H2O evolved from the smectite clays at high temperature, and it is possible these evolutions can be used in a similar fashion to high temperature H2O releases to provide constraints on the clay minerals in a sample. In addition, the D/H of this high temperature H2, as well as the H2O, can be derived from SAM MS and Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) data, respectively. These D/H values may help to inform the provenance of high and low temperature water evolved from martian sample

Exceptional case of aortic atresia associated with atypical double aortic arch

We present the unique case of atretic aortic valve associated with hypoplastic ascending aorta and double aortic arch of unusual configuration supplying retrograde blood flow to the coronary arteries

Primordial argon isotope fractionation in the atmosphere of Mars measured by the SAM instrument on Curiosity and implications for atmospheric loss

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/102170/1/grl51048.pd