A Leafhopper Pest of Plants in the Mint Family, Eupteryx decemnotata Rey (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadellidae), Ligurian Leafhopper, New to North America

The Ligurian leafhoppter, Eupteryx decemnotata Rey (Hemiptera: Auchenorrhyncha: Cicadellidae), is reported for the first time in North America (USA: Florida and California). Diagnostic characters for species identification, summary of hosts and damage, and U.S. known distribution are given

Preparation and characterisation of free flowing solid lipid based drug delivery systems using a twin screw extruder

In this study, a continuous manufacturing process was developed for adsorbing liquid self-emulsifying drug delivery system (SEDDS) on mesoporous silica carriers in order to produce solid free flowing SEDDS powders. An optimized liquid SEDDS, consisting of Labrafil M 1944 CS, Labrasol and Capryol 90 (15, 80, 5 %w/w), was developed. The formulation spontaneously formed a homogenous emulsion with a droplet size of less than 200 nm (in water) and possessed pH robustness (pH 1.2, pH 6.8). Two grades of mesoporous silica were investigated as solid carriers, namely Syloid XDP 3050 and 3150. A twin screw extruder, setup in the granulation configuration, was employed to assess the mixing and adsorption of liquid SEDDS onto silica particles in a continuous process. Screw configuration, ratio of solid carrier to liquid SEDDS, powder and liquid feed rates and screw speed were identified as important parameters. These parameters were tested and optimized to achieve free flowing solid SEDDS. The maximum lipid loading of Syloid XDP 3050 and 3150 was 1:2 and 1:2 to less than 1:3 ratios, respectively. Although increasing liquid SEDDS loading increased the cohesive properties of the silica particles, the resulting powders afforded acceptable flow rate indexes as determined by powder rheometry. Similar self-emulsification behaviour was observed for solid and liquid SEDDS. With increasing lipid loading, the droplet size of emulsified solid SEDDS increased and changed from a unimodal to a bimodal size distributions. This effect was more pronounced for Syloid XDP3050. Syloid XDP 3150 was less sensitive to droplet size changes as its z-average diameters at 1:2-1:3 ratio were similar to the optimized liquid SEDDS. Targeting a lipid loading ratio of 2:1, process parameters were varied to maximise material throughput. The investigated continuous process of adsorbing liquid SEDDs onto solid carriers produced solid SEDDS with good flow properties. Syloid XDP 3150 seemed more robust to the process than Syloid XDP 3050

Three-body monopole corrections to the realistic interactions

It is shown that a very simple three-body monopole term can solve practically all the spectroscopic problems--in the $p$, $sd$ and $pf$ shells--that were hitherto assumed to need drastic revisions of the realistic potentials.Comment: 4 pages, 5figure

Delays Associated with Elementary Processes in Nuclear Reaction Simulations

Scatterings, particularly those involving resonances, and other elementary processes do not happen instantaneously. In the context of semiclassical nuclear reaction simulations, we consider delays associated with an interaction for incident quantum wave-packets. As a consequence, we express delays associated with elementary processes in terms of elements of the scattering matrix and phase shifts for elastic scattering. We show that, to within the second order in density, the simulation must account for delays in scattering consistently with the mean field in order to properly model thermodynamic properties such as pressure and free-energy density. The delays associated with nucleon-nucleon and pion-nucleon scattering in free space are analysed with their nontrivial energy dependence. Finally, an example of s-channel scattering of massless partons is studied, and scattering schemes in nuclear reaction simulations are investigated in the context of scattering delays.Comment: 45 pages, 5 uuencoded Postscript figure

Collective Flow from the Intranuclear Cascade Model

The phenomenon of collective flow in relativistic heavy ion collisions is studied using the hadronic cascade model ARC. Direct comparison is made to data gathered at the Bevalac, for Au+Au at $p=1-2$ GeV/c. In contrast to the standard lore about the cascade model, collective flow is well described quantitatively without the need for explicit mean field terms to simulate the nuclear equation of state. Pion collective flow is in the opposite direction to nucleon flow as is that of anti-nucleons and other produced particles. Pion and nucleon flow are predicted at AGS energies also, where, in light of the higher baryon densities achieved, we speculate that equation of state effects may be observable.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures include

The validity of using ICD-9 codes and pharmacy records to identify patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Background: Administrative data is often used to identify patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), yet the validity of this approach is unclear. We sought to develop a predictive model utilizing administrative data to accurately identify patients with COPD. Methods: Sequential logistic regression models were constructed using 9573 patients with postbronchodilator spirometry at two Veterans Affairs medical centers (2003-2007). COPD was defined as: 1) FEV1/FVC <0.70, and 2) FEV1/FVC < lower limits of normal. Model inputs included age, outpatient or inpatient COPD-related ICD-9 codes, and the number of metered does inhalers (MDI) prescribed over the one year prior to and one year post spirometry. Model performance was assessed using standard criteria. Results: 4564 of 9573 patients (47.7%) had an FEV1/FVC < 0.70. The presence of ≥1 outpatient COPD visit had a sensitivity of 76% and specificity of 67%; the AUC was 0.75 (95% CI 0.74-0.76). Adding the use of albuterol MDI increased the AUC of this model to 0.76 (95% CI 0.75-0.77) while the addition of ipratropium bromide MDI increased the AUC to 0.77 (95% CI 0.76-0.78). The best performing model included: ≥6 albuterol MDI, ≥3 ipratropium MDI, ≥1 outpatient ICD-9 code, ≥1 inpatient ICD-9 code, and age, achieving an AUC of 0.79 (95% CI 0.78-0.80). Conclusion: Commonly used definitions of COPD in observational studies misclassify the majority of patients as having COPD. Using multiple diagnostic codes in combination with pharmacy data improves the ability to accurately identify patients with COPD.Department of Veterans Affairs, Health Services Research and Development (DHA), American Lung Association (CI- 51755-N) awarded to DHA, the American Thoracic Society Fellow Career Development AwardPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/84155/1/Cooke - ICD9 validity in COPD.pd

Convergent origination of a Drosophila-like dosage compensation mechanism in a reptile lineage

Sex chromosomes differentiated from different ancestral autosomes in various vertebrate lineages. Here, we trace the functional evolution of the XY Chromosomes of the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis), on the basis of extensive high-throughput genome, transcriptome and histone modification sequencing data and revisit dosage compensation evolution in representative mammals and birds with substantial new expression data. Our analyses show that Anolis sex chromosomes represent an ancient XY system that originated at least ≈160 million years ago in the ancestor of Iguania lizards, shortly after the separation from the snake lineage. The age of this system approximately coincides with the ages of the avian and two mammalian sex chromosomes systems. To compensate for the almost complete Y Chromosome degeneration, X-linked genes have become twofold up-regulated, restoring ancestral expression levels. The highly efficient dosage compensation mechanism of Anolis represents the only vertebrate case identified so far to fully support Ohno’s original dosage compensation hypothesis. Further analyses reveal that X up-regulation occurs only in males and is mediated by a male-specific chromatin machinery that leads to global hyperacetylation of histone H4 at lysine 16 specifically on the X Chromosome. The green anole dosage compensation mechanism is highly reminiscent of that of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Altogether, our work unveils the convergent emergence of a Drosophila-like dosage compensation mechanism in an ancient reptilian sex chromosome system and highlights that the evolutionary pressures imposed by sex chromosome dosage reductions in different amniotes were resolved in fundamentally different ways

Quantum Tunneling in Nuclear Fusion

Recent theoretical advances in the study of heavy ion fusion reactions below the Coulomb barrier are reviewed. Particular emphasis is given to new ways of analyzing data, such as studying barrier distributions; new approaches to channel coupling, such as the path integral and Green function formalisms; and alternative methods to describe nuclear structure effects, such as those using the Interacting Boson Model. The roles of nucleon transfer, asymmetry effects, higher-order couplings, and shape-phase transitions are elucidated. The current status of the fusion of unstable nuclei and very massive systems are briefly discussed.Comment: To appear in the January 1998 issue of Reviews of Modern Physics. 13 Figures (postscript file for Figure 6 is not available; a hard copy can be requested from the authors). Full text and figures are also available at http://nucth.physics.wisc.edu/preprints

Elastic scattering and breakup of 17^F at 10 MeV/nucleon

Angular distributions of fluorine and oxygen produced from 170 MeV 17^F incident on 208^Pb were measured. The elastic scattering data are in good agreement with optical model calculations using a double-folding potential and parameters similar to those obtained from 16^O+208^Pb. A large yield of oxygen was observed near \theta_lab=36 deg. It is reproduced fairly well by a calculation of the (17^F,16^O) breakup, which is dominated by one-proton stripping reactions. The discrepancy between our previous coincidence measurement and theoretical predictions was resolved by including core absorption in the present calculation.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure