Effects of Purified Salmonella enteritidis Endotoxin on the Immune Response of Balb/c Mice

Wasting disease was produced in neonatal Balb/c mice with purified Salmonella enteritidis endotoxins. The endotoxins were chemically characterized to provide the study with a potent endotoxin with constant biological activity. Neonatal mice received an initial injection of 35 μg/g body weight of endotoxin and a dose of 75 μg every third day until day 18. The degree of wasting was estimated by the runting (weight loss) index. Mortality was calculated to be 46%, with a mean survival time of approximately 15 days. The hematologic studies conducted at days 10, 20, and 30 showed an absolute neutrophilia and leukocytosis by day 10 which persisted to day 30. Immunologic data indicated that the responsiveness to sheep erythrocytes was depressed to day 20 and continued to persist at day 30. It was postulated that endotoxin either directly or indirectly affects the immune apparatus which allows the normal flora of the animal to establish an infection leading to wasting and death

Hypercars: The next industrial revolution

The auto industry -- one-seventh of the GNP, and the highest expression of the Iron Age -- is about to trigger the biggest transformation in industrial structure since the microchip. Ultralight cars molded from net-shape advanced composites can be several-fold lighter than present steel cars, yet safer, sportier, and more comfortable, durable, and beautiful. Modern hybrid-electric drives boost efficiency approximately 1.3-1.5x in heavy steel cars, but approximately 5-20x in ultralight, very slippery plafforms. Synergistically combined into ultralight-hybrid 'hypercars,' these elements can yield state-of-the-shelf family cars that average 150-300+ mi/gal -- twice that with state-of-the-art technologies -- yet can also be superior in all other respects, probably including cost: carbon-fiber monocoques can actually be cheaper to mass-produce that steel unibodies. Designing cars more like aircraft and less like tanks requires not only an approximately 400-500 kg curb mass and very low air and road drag, but also an aerospace philosophy of engineering integration. Mass, cost, and complexity turn out to compound with heavy hybrids but to decompound with ultralight hybrids, owing partly to radical simplification. Excellent aerodynamics, preferable including advanced techniques for passive boundary-layer control, will be the key to successful design integration. Transforming automaking is a competitive and environmental imperative, could form the nucleus of a green industrial Renaissance, and would enhance national security by, among other things, saving as much oil as OPEC now extracts. However, this transformation faces serious cultural barriers. For example, hypercars will be more like computers with wheels than like cars with chips -- they'll have an order of magnitude more code than today's cars -- but Detroit is not a software culture. Just the transition from stamped and welded steel to integrated and adhesive-joined synthetics is difficult enough. Nonetheless, hypercars are rapidly heading to market in the late 1990s, because approximately 25 current and intending automakers are eager to capture their potentially decisive competitive advantages -- including order-of-magnitude reductions in product cycle time, tooling cost, assembly effort, and parts count. Hypercars will succeed, and may well sweep the market, not because of mandates or subsidies, but because of manufacturers' quest for competitive advantage and customers' desire for better, smarter cars

I never cared for anyone the way I care for you

Gift of Dr. Mary Jane Esplen.Piano vocal [instrumentation]Dear Dolly come to town with me [first line]I never cared for anyone the way I care for you [first line of chorus]E flat [key]Moderato [tempo]Popular song [form/genre]Decorative ; women's portrait [illustration]Frew [engraver]Publisher's advertisement on inside front and back cover [note

A novel role for 3, 4-dichloropropionanilide (DCPA) in the inhibition of prostate cancer cell migration, proliferation, and hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha expression

Background The amide class compound, 3, 4-dichloropropionanilide (DCPA) is known to affect multiple signaling pathways in lymphocyte and macrophage including the inhibition of NF-κB ability. However, little is known about the effect of DCPA in cancer cells. Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) regulates the expression of many genes including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), heme oxygenase 1, inducible nitric oxide synthase, aldolase, enolase, and lactate dehydrogenase A. HIF-1 expression is associated with tumorigenesis and angiogenesis. Methods We used Transwell assay to study cell migration, and used immunoblotting to study specific protein expression in the cells. Results In this report, we demonstrate that DCPA inhibited the migration and proliferation of DU145 and PC-3 prostate cancer cells induced by serum, insulin, and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I). We found that DCPA inhibited HIF-1 expression in a subunit-specific manner in these cancer cell lines induced by serum and growth factors, and decreased HIF-1α expression by affecting its protein stability. Conclusion DCPA can inhibit prostate cancer cell migration, proliferation, and HIF-1α expression, suggesting that DCPA could be potentially used for therapeutic purpose for prostate cancer in the future

Conditional beam splitting attack on quantum key distribution

We present a novel attack on quantum key distribution based on the idea of adaptive absorption [calsam01]. The conditional beam splitting attack is shown to be much more efficient than the conventional beam spitting attack, achieving a performance similar to the, powerful but currently unfeasible, photon number splitting attack. The implementation of the conditional beam splitting attack, based solely on linear optical elements, is well within reach of current technology.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

The weight for random quark masses

In theories in which the parameters of the low energy theory are not unique, perhaps having different values in different domains of the universe as is possible in some inflationary models, the fermion masses would be distributed with respect to some weight. In such a situation the specifics of the fermion masses do not have a unique explanation, yet the weight provides the visible remnant of the structure of the underlying theory. This paper introduces this concept of a weight for the distribution of masses and provides a quantitative estimate of it from the observed quarks and leptons. The weight favors light quark masses and appears roughly scale invariant (rho ~ 1/m). Some relevant issues, such as the running of the weight with scale and the possible effects of anthropic constraints, are also discussed.Comment: 35pages, 19 figure

Toxic Exposure of Songbirds to Lead in the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District

Mining and smelting in the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District has caused widespread contamination of soils with lead (Pb) and other metals. Soils from three study sites sampled in the district contained from approximately 1,000–3,200 mg Pb/kg. Analyses of earthworms [33–4,600 mg Pb/kg dry weight (dw)] collected in the district showed likely high Pb exposure of songbirds preying on soil organisms. Mean tissue Pb concentrations in songbirds collected from the contaminated sites were greater (p \u3c 0.05) than those in songbirds from reference sites by factors of 8 in blood, 13 in liver, and 23 in kidney. Ranges of Pb concentrations in livers (mg Pb/kg dw) were as follows: northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) = 0.11–3.0 (reference) and 1.3–30 (contaminated) and American robin (Turdus migratorius) = 0.43–8.5 (reference) and 7.6–72 (contaminated). Of 34 adult and juvenile songbirds collected from contaminated sites, 11 (32 %) had hepatic Pb concentrations that were consistent with adverse physiological effects, 3 (9 %) with systemic toxic effects, and 4 (12 %) with life-threatening toxic effects. Acid-fast renal intranuclear inclusion bodies, which are indicative of Pb poisoning, were detected in kidneys of two robins that had the greatest renal Pb concentrations (952 and 1,030 mg/kg dw). Mean activity of the enzyme delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) in red blood cells, a well-established bioindicator of Pb poisoning in birds, was decreased by 58–82 % in songbirds from the mining sites. We conclude that habitats within the mining district with soil Pb concentrations of C1,000 mg Pb/kg are contaminated to the extent that they are exposing ground-feeding songbirds to toxic concentrations of Pb

Toxic Exposure of Songbirds to Lead in the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District

Mining and smelting in the Southeast Missouri Lead Mining District has caused widespread contamination of soils with lead (Pb) and other metals. Soils from three study sites sampled in the district contained from approximately 1,000–3,200 mg Pb/kg. Analyses of earthworms [33–4,600 mg Pb/kg dry weight (dw)] collected in the district showed likely high Pb exposure of songbirds preying on soil organisms. Mean tissue Pb concentrations in songbirds collected from the contaminated sites were greater (p \u3c 0.05) than those in songbirds from reference sites by factors of 8 in blood, 13 in liver, and 23 in kidney. Ranges of Pb concentrations in livers (mg Pb/kg dw) were as follows: northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) = 0.11–3.0 (reference) and 1.3–30 (contaminated) and American robin (Turdus migratorius) = 0.43–8.5 (reference) and 7.6–72 (contaminated). Of 34 adult and juvenile songbirds collected from contaminated sites, 11 (32 %) had hepatic Pb concentrations that were consistent with adverse physiological effects, 3 (9 %) with systemic toxic effects, and 4 (12 %) with life-threatening toxic effects. Acid-fast renal intranuclear inclusion bodies, which are indicative of Pb poisoning, were detected in kidneys of two robins that had the greatest renal Pb concentrations (952 and 1,030 mg/kg dw). Mean activity of the enzyme delta-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD) in red blood cells, a well-established bioindicator of Pb poisoning in birds, was decreased by 58–82 % in songbirds from the mining sites. We conclude that habitats within the mining district with soil Pb concentrations of C1,000 mg Pb/kg are contaminated to the extent that they are exposing ground-feeding songbirds to toxic concentrations of Pb

Resonance fluorescence in a band gap material: Direct numerical simulation of non-Markovian evolution

A numerical method of calculating the non-Markovian evolution of a driven atom radiating into a structured continuum is developed. The formal solution for the atomic reduced density matrix is written as a Markovian algorithm by introducing a set of additional, virtual density matrices which follow, to the level of approximation of the algorithm, all the possible trajectories of the photons in the electromagnetic field. The technique is perturbative in the sense that more virtual density matrices are required as the product of the effective memory time and the effective coupling strength become larger. The number of density matrices required is given by $3^{M}$ where $M$ is the number of timesteps per memory time. The technique is applied to the problem of a driven two-level atom radiating close to a photonic band gap and the steady-state correlation function of the atom is calculated.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure

Separation of transferrin types in human plasma by anion-exchange high-performance liquid chromatography

An anion-exchange high-performance liquid chromatographic procedure was developed for the separation of transferrin in human plasma. The procedure allowed the four molecular forms of transferrin, which differ with respect to bound iron, to be separated from each other and from other plasma proteins. Tansferrin variants, including B and D types, could also be identified using anion-exchange high-performance liquid chromatography. The approach followed for optimizing the separation of transferrin included identification of the peaks in the chromatogram by two-dimensional polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. This approach could be extended to other proteins in plasma or biological fluids in order to optimize their separation.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25127/1/0000560.pd