A New Name for a Continuing Publication

With this issue, the former Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science becomes The Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science, a change which coincides with the l00th annual meeting of the Academy. This concludes a process started in 1971 when the Proceedings became a quarterly periodical which also included papers that had not been presented at the previous annual meeting

Variational Perturbation Theory for Markov Processes

We develop a convergent variational perturbation theory for conditional probability densities of Markov processes. The power of the theory is illustrated by applying it to the diffusion of a particle in an anharmonic potential.Comment: Author Information under http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/institution.html Latest update of paper also at http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/33

Fluctuation Pressure of a Stack of Membranes

We calculate the universal pressure constants of a stack of N membranes between walls by strong-coupling theory. The results are in very good agreement with values from Monte-Carlo simulations.Comment: Author Information under http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/institution.html Latest update of paper also at http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/31

Professionalism in Fishery Biology

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142028/1/naaq0044.pd

Some Chemical Characteristics of Iowa Lakes and Reservoirs

Chemical analyses were made of the surface waters of 61 Iowa lakes and reservoirs during the summer of 1964. With the exception of one bog lake, they all had typical hard waters of the bicarbonate type. Their average composition was similar to the 10-year average compositions of the Iowa and Cedar rivers. There was a tendency for the lakes lying within the Wisconsin glacial drift sheet to have higher values for all parameters measured, although the differences were not considered biologically significant

Substrate Adhesion of a Nongrafted Flexible Polymer in a Cavity

In a contact density chain-growth study we investigate the solubility-temperature pseudo-phase diagram of a lattice polymer in a cavity with an attractive surface. In addition to the main phases of adsorbed and desorbed conformations we find numerous subphases of collapsed and expanded structures.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

State of Harmonization of 24 Serum Albumin Measurement Procedures and Implications for Medical Decisions

BACKGROUND: Measurements of serum and plasma albumin are widely used in medicine, including as indicators of quality of patient care in renal dialysis centers. METHODS: Pools were prepared from residual patient serum (n = 50) and heparin plasma (n = 48) from patients without renal disease, and serum from patients with kidney failure before hemodialysis (n = 53). Albumin was measured in all samples and in ERM-DA470k/IFCC reference material (RM) by 3 immunochemical, 9 bromcresol green (BCG), and 12 bromcresol purple (BCP) methods. RESULTS: Two of 3 immunochemical procedures, 5 of 9 BCG, and 10 of 12 BCP methods recovered the RM value within its uncertainty. One immunochemical and 3 BCG methods were biased vs the RM value. Random error components were small for all measurement procedures. The Tina-quant immunochemical method was chosen as the reference measurement procedure based on recovery and results of error analyses. Mean biases for BCG vs Tina-quant were 1.5% to 13.9% and were larger at lower albumin concentrations. BCP methods\u27 mean biases were -5.4% to 1.2% irrespective of albumin concentration. Biases for plasma samples were generally higher than for serum samples for all method types. For most measurement procedures, biases were lower for serum from patients on hemodialysis vs patients without kidney disease. CONCLUSIONS: Significant differences among immunochemical, BCG, and BCP methods compromise interpretation of serum. albumin results. Guidelines and calculations for clinical management of kidney and other diseases must consider the method used for albumin measurement until harmonization can be achieved

Conformational Mechanics of Polymer Adsorption Transitions at Attractive Substrates

Conformational phases of a semiflexible off-lattice homopolymer model near an attractive substrate are investigated by means of multicanonical computer simulations. In our polymer-substrate model, nonbonded pairs of monomers as well as monomers and the substrate interact via attractive van der Waals forces. To characterize conformational phases of this hybrid system, we analyze thermal fluctuations of energetic and structural quantities, as well as adequate docking parameters. Introducing a solvent parameter related to the strength of the surface attraction, we construct and discuss the solubility-temperature phase diagram. Apart from the main phases of adsorbed and desorbed conformations, we identify several other phase transitions such as the freezing transition between energy-dominated crystalline low-temperature structures and globular entropy-dominated conformations.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figure