1,306 research outputs found
Contour farming for soil and water conservation
In order to keep Iowa soils from becoming less fertile and from being washed away, it is necessary that every farmer develop and carry out a program of soil and moisture conservation for his farm. This program need not be complicated. Any Iowa farmer can, by following practical methods, keep his soil fertile and in place.
Every acre of a farm should be planned to produce its maximum income in whatever crop it is adapted to produce. Soils on level areas can be kept fertile by proper crop rotation and necessary soil treatments. Rolling land should be handled the same way except that as it becomes steeper other practices must be adopted to keep the soil from washing away. Some lands must remain in pasture, while those less fertile areas which are becoming eroded should be planted to trees
Acetylcholine increases voltage-activated Ca2+ current in freshly dissociated smooth muscle cells.
Guanfacine treatment improves ADHD phenotypes of impulsivity and hyperactivity in a neurofibromatosis type 1 mouse model
BACKGROUND:
Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is an autosomal dominant disorder with a mutation in one copy of the neurofibromin gene (NF1+/-). Even though approximately 40-60% of children with NF1 meet the criteria for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), very few preclinical studies, if any, have investigated alterations in impulsivity and risk-taking behavior. Mice with deletion of a single NF1 gene (Nf1+/-) recapitulate many of the phenotypes of NF1 patients.
METHODS:
We compared wild-type (WT) and Nf1+/- mouse strains to investigate differences in impulsivity and hyperactivity using the delay discounting task (DDT), cliff avoidance reaction (CAR) test, and open field. We also investigated whether treatment with the clinically effective alpha-2A adrenergic receptor agonist, guanfacine (0.3 mg/kg, i.p.), would reverse deficits observed in behavioral inhibition.
RESULTS:
Nf1+/- mice chose a higher percentage of smaller rewards when both 10- and 20-s delays were administered compared to WT mice, suggesting Nf1+/- mice are more impulsive. When treated with guanfacine (0.3 mg/kg, i.p.), Nf1+/- mice exhibited decreased impulsive choice by waiting for the larger, delayed reward. Nf1+/- mice also exhibited deficits in behavioral inhibition compared to WT mice in the CAR test by repetitively entering the outer edge of the platform where they risk falling. Treatment with guanfacine ameliorated these deficits. In addition, Nf1+/- mice exhibited hyperactivity as increased distance was traveled compared to WT controls in the open field. This hyperactivity in Nf1+/- mice was reduced with guanfacine pre-treatment.
CONCLUSIONS:
Overall, our study confirms that Nf1+/- mice exhibit deficits in behavioral inhibition in multiple contexts, a key feature of ADHD, and can be used as a model system to identify alterations in neural circuitry associated with symptoms of ADHD in children with NF1
Global compactness results for nonlocal problems
International audienceWe obtain a Struwe type global compactness result for a class of nonlinear nonlocal problems involving the fractional Laplacian operator and nonlinearities at critical growth
Hysteresis and hierarchies: dynamics of disorder-driven first-order phase transformations
We use the zero-temperature random-field Ising model to study hysteretic
behavior at first-order phase transitions. Sweeping the external field through
zero, the model exhibits hysteresis, the return-point memory effect, and
avalanche fluctuations. There is a critical value of disorder at which a jump
in the magnetization (corresponding to an infinite avalanche) first occurs. We
study the universal behavior at this critical point using mean-field theory,
and also present preliminary results of numerical simulations in three
dimensions.Comment: 12 pages plus 2 appended figures, plain TeX, CU-MSC-747
Nucleation in Systems with Elastic Forces
Systems with long-range interactions when quenced into a metastable state
near the pseudo-spinodal exhibit nucleation processes that are quite different
from the classical nucleation seen near the coexistence curve. In systems with
long-range elastic forces the description of the nucleation process can be
quite subtle due to the presence of bulk/interface elastic compatibility
constraints. We analyze the nucleation process in a simple 2d model with
elastic forces and show that the nucleation process generates critical droplets
with a different structure than the stable phase. This has implications for
nucleation in many crystal-crystal transitions and the structure of the final
state
A Simple HEPA Filtering Facepiece
Shortages of efficient filtering facepiece respirators leave the public vulnerable to transmission of infectious diseases in small particle aerosols. This study demonstrates that a high-filtration-efficiency facepiece capable of filtering out >95% of 0.05μm particles while being worn can be simply produced with available materials
The medical student
The Medical Student was published from 1888-1921 by the students of Boston University School of Medicine
Does Proximity to Retailers Influence Alcohol and Tobacco Use Among Latino Adolescents?
Despite decades of research surrounding determinants of alcohol and tobacco (A&T) use among adolescents, built environment influences have only recently been explored. This study used ordinal regression on 205 Latino adolescents to explore the influence of the built environment (proximity to A&T retailers) on A&T use, while controlling for recognized social predictors. The sample was 45% foreign-born. A&T use was associated with distance from respondents’ home to the nearest A&T retailer (−), acculturation (+), parents’ consistent use of contingency management (−), peer use of A&T (+), skipping school (+), attending school in immediate proximity to the US/Mexico border (+), and the interaction between the distance to the nearest retailer and parents’ consistent use of contingency management (+). The association between decreasing distance to the nearest A&T retailer and increased A&T use in Latino adolescents reveals an additional risk behavior determinant in the US–Mexico border region
Determination of Inflationary Observables by Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy Experiments
Inflation produces nearly Harrison-Zel'dovich scalar and tensor perturbation
spectra which lead to anisotropy in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). The
amplitudes and shapes of these spectra can be parametrized by , , and where and are the scalar and
tensor contributions to the square of the CMB quadrupole and and
are the power-lawspectral indices. Even if we restrict ourselves to information
from angles greater than one third of a degree, three of these observables can
be measured with some precision. The combination can be
known to better than . The scalar index can be determined to
better than . The ratio can be known to about for and slightly better for smaller . The precision with which
can be measured depends weakly on and strongly on . For
can be determined with a precision of about . A
full-sky experiment with a beam using technology available today, similar
to those being planned by several groups, can achieve the above precision. Good
angular resolution is more important than high signal-to-noise ratio; for a
given detector sensitivity and observing time a smaller beam provides
significantly more information than a larger beam. The uncertainties in
and are roughly proportional to the beam size. We briefly discuss the
effects of uncertainty in the Hubble constant, baryon density, cosmological
constant and ionization history.Comment: 28 pages of uuencoded postscript with 8 included figures. A
postscript version is also available by anonymous ftp at
ftp://astro.uchicago.edu/pub/astro/knox/fullsim.p
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