Space activities in the Soviet Union, Japan, and the People's Republic of China

The space programs of the Soviet Union, Japan, and China are discussed. The types of launch vehicles they used and the classes of spacecraft they launched are examined. The political motivations of these nations are analyzed

Political Symbolism in Juvenile Justice: Reforming Florida\u27s Juvenile Detention Criteria

A recent reform in Florida\u27s juvenile detention criteria was over-turned during the subsequent legislative session. This paper describes both the initial reform and its reversal and suggests that symbolic political rewards may often be more important than the actual consequences of a policy. Recommendations are made for accomplishing policy reform in a traditional political culture

Identifying Factors that Influence Terrorist Decisions and Target Selection

Currently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) elicits probabilistic judgements from the intelligence community on actions terrorists may take to attack the continental U.S. For example, how likely is the adversary to choose agent \u27x\u27 over \u27y\u27 or target \u27a\u27 over target \u27b\u27? Eliciting these types of judgements is difficult and time consuming. The National Academies and others have suggested that a better approach may be to elicit information on adversary\u27s preferences, perceptions, and capabilities and use this information to calculate probabilities of interest to DHS. Some terrorist groups are thinking about using weapons of mass destruction (WMD), each with its own values, perceptions of reality, and capabilities. This presentation details the findings on the factors & relationships among factors that lead to a terrorist decision to initiate an attack against the continental U.S. as well as target selection. To accomplish this, we assembled international experts in WMD, adversary modeling, political science, terrorism, psychiatry, social sciences as well as experts from national laboratories, the Commonwealth of Virginia State Fusion Center, and Hampton Roads Emergency Management. This paper provides a summary of the findings from an Adaptive Adversary Workshop. In this paper, we provide an overview of the motivation for and design of the workshop as well as 19 emerging themes. The purpose of the workshop was to illicit expert opinions on terrorist decision-making and target selections in an effort to improve our understanding of adversaries (individuals, local/regional groups, transnational groups, states) who may initiate a bioterrorism attack in the from of releasing biological agents upon U.S. interests. Furthermore, these expert opinions are intended to be used to inform Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) models of terrorist networks. These models must be informed or populated with substantive information about the intelligent and adaptive adversary who may initiate an attack. To this end, a conceptual framework, informed broadly by the social sciences community, is intended to capture the terrorists\u27 motivations, methods, and decision calculi

Shared reading of children's interactive picture books

We report on a study of children and parents shared reading of interactive printed books. We investigated the differences between books with interactive features and books with expressive typography in order to evaluate which features within a book encouraged interaction between the reading participants and the book. 11 parent and child groups took part in the study that involved three observed reading sessions. From our observations we offer suggestions for the development of books and eBooks to encourage shared reading practices

Integrating a Simple Traffic Incident Model for Rapid Evacuation Analysis

Road transportation networks are a segment of society\u27s critical infrastructure particularly susceptible to service disruptions. Traffic incidents disrupt road networks by producing blockages and increasing travel times, creating significant impacts during emergency events such as evacuations. For this reason, it is extremely important to incorporate traffic incidents in evacuation planning models. Emergency managers and decision makers need tools that enable rapid assessment of multiple, varied scenarios. Many evacuation simulations require high-fidelity data input making them impractical for rapid deployment by practitioners. Since there is such variation in evacuation types and the method of disruption, evacuation models do not require the high-fidelity data needed by other types of transportation models. This paper\u27s purpose is to show that decision makers can gain useful information from rapid evacuation modeling which includes a simple traffic incident model. To achieve this purpose, the research team integrated a generic incident model into the Real-time Evacuation Planning Model (RtePM), a tool commissioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help emergency planners determine regional evacuation clearance times in the United States. RtePM is a simple, web-based tool that enables emergency planners to consider multiple evacuation plans at no additional cost to the user. Using this tool, we analyzed a simple scenario of the United States\u27 National Capital Region (NCR) to determine the impact of traffic incidents when different destination routes are blocked. The results indicate significant variations in evacuation duration when blockages are considered

Recognizing and Overcoming Difficult Site Conditions for Afforestation of Bottomland Hardwoods

In the last decade, about 370,000 acres (150,000 ha) of economically marginalfarmland in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV) have been restored tobottomland hardwood forests (Stanturf and others 1998, King and Keeland 1999,Schoenholtz and others 2001). Planting of this considerable acreage is due to several federal programs, such as the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), that assist landowners by financing afforestation (Figure 1). Unfortunately, these operational plantings have not performed as well as smaller plantings or research plots (Stanturf and others 2001a). For example, a recent survey of WRP plantings in westcentral Mississippi revealed that more than 90 percent of the sites failed to meet the criteria of 100 woody stems per acre (247 stems per ha) three years after planting or direct seeding. While planting 1-0 bareroot seedlings of oak was more successful than direct-seeding acorns, only 23percent of the land planted with seedlings met the criteria (C.J. Schweitzer unpublished data). Planting and direct seeding oak (Quercus spp.) on public land in the same area has been more successful. Meanwhile, Allen (1990) found 70 percent of the planted bottomland hardwood stands on the national wildlife refuges he evaluated had more than 200 trees per acre (494 stems per ha).We believe that the recurring problems in operational plantings on privatelands are due in part to the failure of planters to recognize adverse site conditions and their failure to use appropriate methods for overcoming site limitations. Our objectives in this paper are to synthesize research and experience into guidelines for recognizing adverse site conditions due to hydroperiod, soil, competing vegetation, and herbivory. We describe techniques for overcoming these conditions and suggest promising research areas

Performing a High-Throughput Virtual Screening (HVTS) to identify potential therapeutic targets of YB-1 protein

Background: Hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) is a primary malignancy of the liver. Hispanic-Texans have several risk factors and disparities that compound the risk of HCC diagnosis and treatment. The most used chemotherapeutic drug against HCC is sorafenib, but many liver cancers have developed a resistance to this drug. The knockdown of Y-box binding protein-1 (YB-1) has been shown to greatly increase sensitivity to sorafenib. In this study, we will discuss identification of potential YB-1 inhibitors, which can lead to re-sensitization of liver cancer cells to sorafenib. Methodology: The RCSB protein data bank (pdb) was used to retrieve the crystal structure of YB1, while the DrugBank database was used to obtain a list of experimental and approved drugs. A multiple sequence alignment (MSA) of YB-1 & Lin28 was done by Clustal Omega. Biovia Discovery Studio 2020 was used to visualize 3D models and perform a High-Throughput Virtual Screening (HTVS), which includes rigid docking via the LibDock extension, flexible docking via the CDocker extension, and a pharmacokinetic profiling via an ADMET analysis. Results: The cold shock domain of YB-1 was found to be conserved with Lin28, as a known transcription factor. 22 drug candidates were identified through HTVS. The best six show a decent binding ability in both rigid and flexible dockings and have been previously tested in different cancer types to some extent. Conclusion: We were able to identify six potential drug candidates for inhibiting our protein of interest, YB-1. Studies are in progress to study them on sorafenib-resistant HCC cell lines

A pharmacological approach using optical recording

ATP, acting through P2X 2/P2X 3 receptor-channel complexes, plays an important role in carotid body chemoexcitation in response to natural stimuli in the rat. Since the channels are permeable to calcium, P2X activation by ATP should induce changes in intracellular calcium ([Ca 2+] i). Here, we describe a novel ex vivo approach using fluorescence [Ca 2+] i imaging that allows screening of retrogradely labeled chemoafferent neurons in the petrosal ganglion of the rat. ATP-induced [Ca 2+] i responses were characterized at postnatal days (P) 5-8 and P19-25. While all labeled cells showed a brisk increase in [Ca 2+] i in response to depolarization by high KCl (60 mM), only a subpopulation exhibited [Ca 2+] i responses to ATP. ATP (250 -1,000 μM) elicited one of three temporal response patterns: fast (R1), slow (R2), and intermediate (R3). At P5-8, R2 predominated and its magnitude was attenuated 44% by the P2X 1 antagonist, NF449 (10 μM), and 95% by the P2X 1/P2X 3/P2X 2/3 antagonist, TNP-ATP (10 μM). At P19-25, R1 and R3 predominated and their magnitudes were attenuated 15% by NF449, 66% by TNP-ATP, and 100% by suramin (100 μM), a nonspecific P2 purinergic receptor antagonist. P2X 1 and P2X 2 protein levels in the petrosal ganglion decreased with development, while P2X 3 protein levels did not change significantly. We conclude that the profile of ATP-induced P2X-mediated [Ca 2+] i responses changes in the postnatal period, corresponding with changes in receptor isoform expression. We speculate that these changes may participate in the postnatal maturation of chemosensitivity.publishersversionpublishe