Evidence of shifts in intra-household allocation under exogenous changes in family policy and administrative procedures: The case of school enrollment in Chile

Replaced with revised version of paper 07/31/09.Consumer/Household Economics, International Development, Public Economics,

The use of visually evoked cortical potentials to evaluate changes in the rate of recovery from phenobarbital anesthesia in the rat

Signal averaging of visually evoked cortical potentials was done on Wistar strain rats during recovery from nembutal (sodium pentobarbital) anesthesia. Several studies (Dafny, 1978; Gines et al., 1963; Roig et al., 1961) have shown significant differences between recordings from unanesthetized rats and from rats anesthetized with various agents. The purpose of this study was to evaluate changes in the cortical response throughout an eight hour nembutal recovery period in order to determine the feasibility of using a signal averaging technique for classification of anesthetic depth. The results of this study show that the recovery from nembutal anesthesia is characterized by three major changes in the cortical response: the presence or absence of the secondary response component, the appearance of desynchronized cortical firing and a change in the latency of the individual component peaks. Using these neurophysiological signs, the rate of recovery from nembutal anesthesia can be described and quantified. The characterization of these changes will provide future researchers with a tool to evaluate electrophysiologically the usefulness of various treatments at altering the rate of recovery from anesthesia

Harnessing Administrative Records for Official Statistics on People and Households

The availability and excessiveness of alternative (non-survey) data sources, collected on a daily, hourly, and sometimes second-by-second basis, has challenged the federal statistical system to update existing protocol for developing official statistics. Federal statistical agencies collect data primarily through survey methodologies built on frames constructed from administrative records. They compute survey weights to adjust for non-response and unequal sampling probabilities, impute answers for nonresponse, and report official statistics via tabulations from these survey. The U.S. federal government has rigorously developed these methodologies since the advent of surveys -- an innovation produced by the urgent desire of Congress and the President to estimate annual unemployment rates of working age men during the Great Depression. In the 1930s, Twitter did not exist; high-scale computing facilities were not abundant let alone cheap, and the ease of the ether was just a storyline from the imagination of fiction writers. Today we do have the technology, and an abundance of data, record markers, and alternative sources, which, if curated and examined properly, can help enhance official statistics. Researchers at the Census Bureau have been experimenting with administrative records in an effort to understand how these alternative data sources can improve our understanding of official statistics. Innovative projects like these have advanced our knowledge of the limitations of survey data in estimating official statistics. This paper will discuss advances made in linking administrative records to survey data to-date and will summarize the research on the impact of administrative records on official statistics

Long-term Effects from Early Exposure to Research: Evidence from the NIH “Yellow Berets”

In the late 1960s, the federal government was looking for young, healthy men to enlist in the military to help ensure success in the Vietnam War. Not enough men were voluntarily choosing to enlist. In 1969, the federal government implemented a lottery draft. Recruiters traveled the U.S. encouraging enlistment and explaining the draft requirements. They made visits to medical schools explaining options to newly minted MDs. Those options included: (1) be drafted and (possibly) go to war or (2) enlist in the Public Health Service (PHS) using the skills learned in their medical profession in the U.S. The PHS included an option to travel to Bethesda, Maryland and enlist as a Training Associate (TA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to work in one of the scientific intramural labs on campus and receive training by some of the top medical research scientists in the nation. For this study, we searched the National Archives for the physical paper applications of those individuals who applied to the NIH Intramural Training Associates program before, during, and after the lottery draft. We digitalized their applications, combed public documents in search of up-to-date career information, and linked them to their publications and patents to-date. We created a rich linked dataset of administrative records from which we examine the impact of early career, high intensity research training on the probability of staying in research and the overall impact on advancing science. This paper describes our results evaluating the impact of this federal program

Advancing biomedical science through investments in elite training

How can governments invest in the public good of science in a way that accelerates advancement and encourages innovation at the frontier of science–all the while acknowledging that investing in science means investing in scientists? The Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) program is a research-training program administered by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that makes such investments. This study examines the impact of NRSA postdoctoral fellowships on subsequent career outcomes using NIH administrative records on applicants for the fellowship from 1996 to 2008. It finds that fellowships increased the probability of receiving subsequent research awards from 4.0 to 6.3 percentage points and of achieving a major independent research award from 2.6 to 4.6 percentage points. The findings demonstrate that federally funded fellowships promote the retention of scientists in the biomedical research workforce

Characterization of the Ebola virus nucleoprotein–RNA complex

When Ebola virus nucleoprotein (NP) is expressed in mammalian cells, it assembles into helical structures. Here, the recombinant NP helix purified from cells expressing NP was characterized biochemically and morphologically. We found that the recombinant NP helix is associated with non-viral RNA, which is not protected from RNase digestion and that the morphology of the helix changes depending on the environmental salt concentration. The N-terminal 450 aa residues of NP are sufficient for these properties. However, digestion of the NP-associated RNA eliminates the plasticity of the helix, suggesting that this RNA is an essential structural component of the helix, binding to individual NP molecules via the N-terminal 450 aa. These findings enhance our knowledge of Ebola virus assembly and understanding of the Ebola virus life cycle

What’s in a Name?

Numerous concerns have been raised about the sustainability of the biomedical research enterprise in the United States. Improving the postdoctoral training experience is seen as a priority in addressing these concerns, but even identifying who the postdocs are is made difficult by the multitude of different job titles they can carry. Here, we summarize the detrimental effects that current employment structures have on training, compensation and benefits for postdocs, and argue that academic research institutions should standardize the categorization and treatment of postdocs. We also present brief case studies of two institutions that have addressed these challenges and can provide models for other institutions attempting to enhance their postdoctoral workforces and improve the sustainability of the biomedical research enterprise

Biochemical and Structural Evidence in Support of a Coherent Model for the Formation of the Double-Helical Influenza A Virus Ribonucleoprotein

Influenza A virions contain eight ribonucleoproteins (RNPs), each comprised of a negative-strand viral RNA, the viral polymerase, and multiple nucleoproteins (NPs) that coat the viral RNA. NP oligomerization along the viral RNA is mediated largely by a 28-amino-acid tail loop. Influenza viral RNPs, which serve as the templates for viral RNA synthesis in the nuclei of infected cells, are not linear but rather are organized in hairpin-like double-helical structures. Here we present results that strongly support a coherent model for the assembly of the double-helical influenza virus RNP structure. First, we show that NP self-associates much more weakly in the absence of RNA than in its presence, indicating that oligomerization is very limited in the cytoplasm. We also show that once NP has oligomerized, it can dissociate in the absence of bound RNA, but only at a very slow rate, indicating that the NP scaffold remains intact when viral RNA dissociates from NPs to interact with the polymerase during viral RNA synthesis. In addition, we identify a previously unknown NP-NP interface that is likely responsible for organizing the double-helical viral RNP structure. This identification stemmed from our observation that NP lacking the oligomerization tail loop forms monomers and dimers. We determined the crystal structure of this NP dimer, which reveals this new NP-NP interface. Mutation of residues that disrupt this dimer interface does not affect oligomerization of NPs containing the tail loop but does inactivate the ability of NPs containing the tail loop to support viral RNA synthesis in minigenome assays

Direction of the formation of anterior lumbar vertebral osteophytes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>X-ray images of lumbar degenerative diseases often show not only claw osteophytes, but also pairs of osteophytes that form in a direction away from the adjacent disc. We have investigated the direction of the formation of anterior lumbar vertebral osteophytes across the lumbar vertebrae using a sufficient number of lumbar radiographs, because osteophytes images can provide essential information that will contribute to the understanding of the pathology and progress of lumbar spine degeneration.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The direction of the formation of 14,250 pairs of anterior lumbar vertebral osteophytes across the adjacent intervertebral discs in 2,850 patients who were all over 60 years old was investigated. Anterior lumbar vertebral osteophytes were distributed into six groups based on the direction of extension of each pair of osteophytes across the intervertebral disc space.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In L1–L2 and L2–L3, the number of patients classified into groups B (the pair of osteophytes extended in the direction of the adjacent disc) and C (almost complete bone bridge formation by a pair of osteophytes across the intervertebral disc space) was larger than that classified into group D (the pair of osteophytes extended in a direction away from the adjacent disc). In L3–L4, L4–L5 and L5-S1, the number of patients in group D was greater than that of patients belonging to groups B and C.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study showed that pairs of osteophytes frequently formed in the direction of the adjacent disc in the upper lumbar vertebrae (L1–L2 and L2–L3) and in the direction away from the adjacent disc in middle or lower lumbar vertebrae (L3–L4, L4–L5, and L5-S1).</p

Redistribution of Mitochondria Leads to Bursts of ATP Production During Spontaneous Mouse Oocyte Maturation

During mammalian oocyte maturation there are marked changes in the distribution of mitochondria that supply the majority of the cellular ATP. Such redistribution of mitochondria is critical for oocyte quality, as oocytes with a poor developmental potential display aberrant mitochondrial distribution and lower ATP levels. Here we have investigated the dynamics of mitochondrial ATP production throughout spontaneous mouse oocyte maturation, using live measurements of cytosolic and mitochondrial ATP levels. We have observed three distinct increases in cytosolic ATP levels temporally associated with discrete events of oocyte maturation. These changes in cytosolic ATP levels are mirrored by changes in mitochondrial ATP levels, suggesting that mitochondrial ATP production is stimulated during oocyte maturation. Strikingly, these changes in ATP levels correlate with the distribution of mitochondria undergoing translocation to the peri-nuclear region and aggregation into clusters. Mitochondrial clustering during oocyte maturation was concomitant with the formation of long cortical microfilaments and could be disrupted by cytochalasin B treatment. Furthermore, the ATP production bursts observed during oocyte maturation were also inhibited by cytochalasin B suggesting that mitochondrial ATP production is stimulated during oocyte maturation by microfilament-driven, sub-cellular targeting of mitochondria. J. Cell. Physiol. 224: 672–680, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc