The Use of Lanthanide Triflates as a Method for Reducing Ytterbium(III) to Ytterbium(II)

High purity lutetium (99.999%) is employed in the manufacture of cerium-doped lutetium oxyorthosilicate. Such lutetium is in high demand because the cerium-doped lutetium oxyorthosilicate is the best gamma-detecting scintillator known. Solvent extraction is the most widely used method for separating the rare earths on an industrial scale at 99.999% purity. However, this process is time consuming and requires 80-100 separation stages. The major difficulty in pure lutetium production is the separation from the adjacent element, ytterbium. If ytterbium(III) could be reduced to ytterbium(II), this would permit a different chemistry between ytterbium(II) and the trivalent state elements, allowing a more facile separation process by opening the separation gap between ytterbium and lutetium. This has been previously achieved through the use of mercury cathodes or amalgams. Unfortunately, any process involving mercury is unacceptable industrially because of the toxicity of mercury. Literature has shown that reduction with magnesium metal can be carried out with proper selection of solvent. A maximum amount of 85% ± 5% can be obtained. The ideal system would be one which would remove all of the ytterbium(III). This project was performed to develop a more efficient reduction by the use of the triflate system. Anhydrous solutions were used in the project because of the capability of water to oxidize ytterbium(II) to ytterbium(III). With the set of systems that were attempted, about 50% ytterbium(II) was achieved. The hypothesis that the absence of water would increase the percent recovery of ytterbium did not solve the problem

Harmonizing Conversion and the Means Test in Bankruptcy

Determining whether the means test applies in cases converted from Chapter 13 to Chapter 7 has divided courts across the United States and has even caused bankruptcy judges within the same district court to disagree. In the nearly 15 years since the enactment of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (“BAPCPA”), a majority of courts have held that the means test applies in converted cases. However, a considerable minority view has emerged, which virtually all scholarship on the issue has adopted. Although both the majority and minority views cause interpretive problems, this article argues that the means test should apply in cases converted from Chapter 13 to Chapter 7. This view promotes a better reading of § 707(b) and the Bankruptcy Code in general and prevents debtors from manipulating the bankruptcy system by filing under Chapter 13 and then converting to Chapter 7 to avoid the means test. Additionally, this article also provides language that Congress should adopt in amending the Bankruptcy Code to codify the view that the means test applies in converted cases

The ZO-1–associated Y-box factor ZONAB regulates epithelial cell proliferation and cell density

Epithelial tight junctions regulate paracellular permeability, restrict apical/basolateral intramembrane diffusion of lipids, and have been proposed to participate in the control of epithelial cell proliferation and differentiation. Previously, we have identified ZO-1–associated nucleic acid binding proteins (ZONAB), a Y-box transcription factor whose nuclear localization and transcriptional activity is regulated by the tight junction–associated candidate tumor suppressor ZO-1. Now, we found that reduction of ZONAB expression using an antisense approach or by RNA interference strongly reduced proliferation of MDCK cells. Transfection of wild-type or ZONAB-binding fragments of ZO-1 reduced proliferation as well as nuclear ZONAB pools, indicating that promotion of proliferation by ZONAB requires its nuclear accumulation. Overexpression of ZONAB resulted in increased cell density in mature monolayers, and depletion of ZONAB or overexpression of ZO-1 reduced cell density. ZONAB was found to associate with cell division kinase (CDK) 4, and reduction of nuclear ZONAB levels resulted in reduced nuclear CDK4. Thus, our data indicate that tight junctions can regulate epithelial cell proliferation and cell density via a ZONAB/ZO-1–based pathway. Although this regulatory process may also involve regulation of transcription by ZONAB, our data suggest that one mechanism by which ZONAB and ZO-1 influence proliferation is by regulating the nuclear accumulation of CDK4

An Exploration of Experiences that Influence Occupational Therapy Students\u27 Motivations to Pursue Occupational Therapy as a Career

Occupational therapy (OT) is a client-centered healthcare profession that uses therapeutic activities to increase an individual’s, group’s, or population\u27s participation in meaningful activities, otherwise known as occupations. The general underlying factors that motivate one’s decision to choose this career path is well established within the existing literature. However, research into the experiences of students working alongside an occupational therapist (OT) prior currently faces a significant gap. The aim of this study is to identify and understand what first-hand experiences of OT brought OT students to pursue a career in occupational therapy. Through the lens of narrative inquiry, participants were given a narrative prompt to describe their first-hand experiences with occupational therapy. Following the participants’ completion of a narrative prompt, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four pre-OT students from Dominican University of California and one entry level doctorate student from University of St. Augustine, Miami. Wilcock’s (1999) Doing, Being and Becoming was referenced as a guided theory during the thematic analysis as it reflects on “how a dynamic balance between doing and being is central to healthy living and how becoming whatever a person is best fitted to become is dependent on both” (1999, p.2). Through the utilization of these themes, the findings reveal that initial OT observation hours are highly influential towards one’s decision to pursue OT as a career. Additionally, these findings suggest a need for required hours to include reflection and adequate hands-on experiences as provided by OT departments within colleges and universities

Glucose Attenuation of Auxin-Mediated Bimodality in Lateral Root Formation Is Partly Coupled by the Heterotrimeric G Protein Complex

Auxin and glucose are both essential elements in normal root development. The heterotrimeric G protein complex in Arabidopsis thaliana, defined as containing alpha (AtGPA1), beta (AGB1), and gamma (AGG) subunits and a GTPase accelerating protein called Regulator of G Signaling 1 protein (AtRGS1), are involved in glucose signaling and regulate auxin transport.A systems approach was used to show that formation of lateral roots, a process requiring coordinated cell division followed by targeted cell expansion, involves a signaling interaction between glucose and auxin. We dissected the relationship between auxin and glucose action using lateral root formation as the biological context. We found that auxin and glucose act synergistically to yield a complex output involving both stimulatory and antagonist glucose effects on auxin responsiveness. Auxin-induced, lateral-root formation becomes bimodal with regard to auxin dose in the presence of glucose. This bimodality is mediated, in part, by the G protein complex defined above.Auxin and glucose are essential signals controlling the rate of cell proliferation and expansion in roots. Auxin promotes the formation of lateral roots and is consequently essential for proper root architecture. Glucose affects the activation state of the heterotrimeric G protein complex which regulates auxin distribution in the root. The bimodality of auxin-induced, lateral-root formation becomes prominent in the presence of glucose and in roots lacking the G protein complex. Bimodality is apparent without added glucose in all loss-of-function mutants for these G protein components, suggesting that the heterotrimeric G protein complex attenuates the bimodality and that glucose inhibits this attenuation through the complex. The bimodality can be further resolved into the processes of lateral root primordia formation and lateral root emergence, from which a model integrating these signals is proposed

Selection of optimised ligands by fluorescence-activated bead sorting

The chemistry of aptamers is largely limited to natural nucleotides, and although modifications of nucleic acids can enhance target aptamer affinity, there has not yet been a technology for selecting the right modifications in the right locations out of the vast number of possibilities, because enzymatic amplification does not transmit sequence-specific modification information. Here we show the first method for the selection of specific nucleoside modifications that increase aptamer binding efficacy, using the oncoprotein EGFR as a model target. Using fluorescence-activated bead sorting (FABS), we have successfully selected optimized aptamers from a library of >65 000 variations. Hits were identified by tandem mass spectrometry and validated by using an EGFR binding assay and computational docking studies. Our results provide proof of concept for this novel strategy for the selection of chemically optimised aptamers and offer a new method for rapidly synthesising and screening large aptamer libraries to accelerate diagnostic and drug discovery

Доля ромів Криму, засуджених за політичними мотивами в 30-40 роки ХХ століття

На основі недоступних раніше архівно-слідчих справ репресованих громадян з’ясовано, що на теренах Криму виявлені лише поодинокі факти репресій щодо ромів.На основе раньше недоступных архивно-следственных дел установлено, что на территории Крыма были единичные факты репрессий ромов.The author examined archive-investigation cases and stated that there were single facts of Romanies repressions on the territory of Crimea

Exploration of cloud computing late start LDRD #149630 : Raincoat. v. 2.1.

This report contains documentation from an interoperability study conducted under the Late Start LDRD 149630, Exploration of Cloud Computing. A small late-start LDRD from last year resulted in a study (Raincoat) on using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to enhance security in a hybrid cloud environment. Raincoat initially explored the use of OpenVPN on IPv4 and demonstrates that it is possible to secure the communication channel between two small 'test' clouds (a few nodes each) at New Mexico Tech and Sandia. We extended the Raincoat study to add IPSec support via Vyatta routers, to interface with a public cloud (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)), and to be significantly more scalable than the previous iteration. The study contributed to our understanding of interoperability in a hybrid cloud

Indolinyl-Thiazole Based Inhibitors of Scavenger Receptor-BI (SR-BI)-Mediated Lipid Transport

A potent class of indolinyl-thiazole based inhibitors of cellular lipid uptake mediated by scavenger receptor, class B, type I (SR-BI) was identified via a high-throughput screen of the National Institutes of Health Molecular Libraries Small Molecule Repository (NIH MLSMR) in an assay measuring the uptake of the fluorescent lipid DiI from HDL particles. This class of compounds is represented by ML278 (17–11), a potent (average IC50 = 6 nM) and reversible inhibitor of lipid uptake via SR-BI. ML278 is a plasma-stable, noncytotoxic probe that exhibits moderate metabolic stability, thus displaying improved properties for in vitro and in vivo studies. Strikingly, ML278 and previously described inhibitors of lipid transport share the property of increasing the binding of HDL to SR-BI, rather than blocking it, suggesting there may be similarities in their mechanisms of action