Significance Arithmetic for Fortran

Significance tracing arithmetic for Fortra

Irrigation system performance assessment and diagnosis

Performance evaluation / Irrigation programs / Irrigation management / Irrigation systems / Case studies / Hydraulics / Management / Environmental effects / Asia / Africa / South America

Chemistry in Bioinformatics

A preprint of an invited submission to BioMedCentral Bioinformatics. This short manuscript is an overview or the current problems and opportunities in publishing chemical information. Full details of technology are given in the sibling manuscript http://www.dspace.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/34579 The manuscript is the authors' preprint although it has been automatically transformed into this archived PDF by the submission system. The authors are not responsible for the formattingChemical information is now seen as critical for most areas of life sciences. But unlike Bioinformatics, where data is Openly available and freely re−usable, most chemical information is closed and cannot be re−distributed without permission. This has led to a failure to adopt modern informatics and software techniques and therefore paucity of chemistry in bioinformatics. New technology, however, offers the hope of making chemical data (compounds and properties) Free during the authoring process. We argue that the technology is already available; we require a collective agreement to enhance publication protocols

Botulinum neurotoxin type C protease induces apoptosis in differentiated human neuroblastoma cells

Neuroblastomas constitute a major cause of cancer-related deaths in young children. In recent years, a number of translation-inhibiting enzymes have been evaluated for killing neuroblastoma cells. Here we investigated the potential vulnerability of human neuroblastoma cells to protease activity derived from botulinum neurotoxin type C. We show that following retinoic acid treatment, human neuroblastoma cells, SiMa and SH-SY5Y, acquire a neuronal phenotype evidenced by axonal growth and expression of neuronal markers. Botulinum neurotoxin type C which cleaves neuron-specific SNAP25 and syntaxin1 caused apoptotic death only in differentiated neuroblastoma cells. Direct comparison of translation-inhibiting enzymes and the type C botulinum protease revealed one order higher cytotoxic potency of the latter suggesting a novel neuroblastoma-targeting pathway. Our mechanistic insights revealed that loss of ubiquitous SNAP23 due to differentiation coupled to SNAP25 cleavage due to botulinum activity may underlie the apoptotic death of human neuroblastoma cells

Health Status, Insurance, and Expenditures in the Transition from Work to Retirement

This paper analyzes the dynamics of health insurance coverage, health expenditures, and health status in the decade expanding from 1992 to 2002, for a cohort of older Americans. We follow 13,594 individuals interviewed in Waves 1 to 6 of the Health and Retirement Study, most of whom were born between 1930 and 1940, as they transition from work into retirement. Although this “depression cohort” is by and large fairly well prepared for retirement in terms of pension coverage and savings, we identify significant gaps in their health insurance coverage, especially among the most disadvantaged members of this cohort. We find that government health insurance programs—particularly Medicare and Medicaid—significantly reduce the number of individuals who are uninsured and the risks of large out of pocket health care costs. However, prior to retirement large numbers of these respondents were uninsured, nearly 18% at the first survey in 1992. Moreover, a much larger share, about 55% of this cohort, are transitorily uninsured, that is, they experience one or more spells, lasting from several months to several years, without health insurance coverage. We also identify a much smaller group of persistently uninsured individuals, and show that this group has significantly less wealth, and higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and health problems, disability, and higher mortality rates than the rest of the members of the cohort under study. We provide evidence that lack of health insurance coverage is correlated with reduced utilization of health care services; for example, respondents with no health insurance visit the doctor one fourth as often as those with private insurance and are also more likely to report declines in health status. We also analyze the components of out of pocket health care costs, and show that prescription drug costs constituted a rapidly rising share of the overall cost of health care during the period of analysis.

Mobility and Trapping of Molecules During Oxygen Adsorption on Cu(110)

Adsorption of oxygen on Cu(110) at 4 K has been investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. We have observed that weakly bound, “trapped” molecules coexist with pairs of atoms which are preferentially oriented along [110] and [001]. Molecules and atoms are both adsorbed in hollow sites. Clustering of O2 at step edges perpendicular to [110] indicates substantial anisotropic mobility of the molecular precursor. It is concluded that precursor dynamics and multidimensionality of the potential energy surface have a dominant influence on the dissociative chemisorption of O2 on Cu(110)

The influence of long- and short-term volcanic strain on aquifer pressure:a case study from Soufrière Hills Volcano, Montserrat (W.I.)

Aquifers are poroelastic bodies that respond to strain by changes in pore pressure. Crustal deformation due to volcanic processes induces pore pressure variations that are mirrored in well water levels. Here, we investigate water level changes in the Belham valley on Montserrat over the course of two years (2004-2006). Using finite element analysis, we simulate crustal deformation due to different volcanic strain sources and the dynamic poroelastic aquifer response. While some additional hydrological drivers cannot be excluded, we suggest that a poroelastic strain response of the aquifer system in the Belham valley is a possible explanation for the observed water level changes. According to our simulations, the shallow Belham aquifer responds to a steadily increasing sediment load due to repeated lahar sedimentation in the valley with rising aquifer pressures. A wholesale dome collapse in May 2006 on the other hand induced dilatational strain and thereby a short-term water level drop in a deeper-seated aquifer, which caused groundwater leakage from the Belham aquifer and thereby induced a delayed water level fall in the wells. The system thus responded to both gradual and rapid transient strain associated with the eruption of Soufrière Hills Volcano (Montserrat). This case study gives field evidence for theoretical predictions on volcanic drivers behind hydrological transients, demonstrating the potential of hydrological data for volcano monitoring. Interrogation of such data can provide valuable constraints on stress evolution in volcanic systems and therefore complement other monitoring systems. The presented models and inferred results are conceptually applicable to volcanic areas worldwide