Effect in dogs of various portal vein shunts on response to insulin

Surgical alterations of portal drainage patterns were made in dogs in order to determine the effect of redistribution of endogenous and injected insulin. With an Eck fistula, progressive diminution of hypoglycemic response to insulin was noted. With a reverse Eck fistula, the fall in venous blood sugar was comparable whether injection was given via the portal system or systemically. With portacaval transposition, in which the pancreatic drainage is diverted from the liver, no alterations in general health, fasting blood sugars, or insulin response were noted. The results are discussed in relation to recent concepts in which insulin is thought to regulate or be regulated by the liver

Conductivity and quasinormal modes in holographic theories

We show that in field theories with a holographic dual the retarded Green's function of a conserved current can be represented as a convergent sum over the quasinormal modes. We find that the zero-frequency conductivity is related to the sum over quasinormal modes and their high-frequency asymptotics via a sum rule. We derive the asymptotics of the quasinormal mode frequencies and their residues using the phase-integral (WKB) approach and provide analytic insight into the existing numerical observations concerning the asymptotic behavior of the spectral densities.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figure

Approximation of corner polyhedra with families of intersection cuts

We study the problem of approximating the corner polyhedron using intersection cuts derived from families of lattice-free sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$. In particular, we look at the problem of characterizing families that approximate the corner polyhedron up to a constant factor, which depends only on $n$ and not the data or dimension of the corner polyhedron. The literature already contains several results in this direction. In this paper, we use the maximum number of facets of lattice-free sets in a family as a measure of its complexity and precisely characterize the level of complexity of a family required for constant factor approximations. As one of the main results, we show that, for each natural number $n$, a corner polyhedron with $n$ basic integer variables and an arbitrary number of continuous non-basic variables is approximated up to a constant factor by intersection cuts from lattice-free sets with at most $i$ facets if $i> 2^{n-1}$ and that no such approximation is possible if $i \leq 2^{n-1}$. When the approximation factor is allowed to depend on the denominator of the fractional vertex of the linear relaxation of the corner polyhedron, we show that the threshold is $i > n$ versus $i \leq n$. The tools introduced for proving such results are of independent interest for studying intersection cuts

Towards a Model of Corporate and Social Stakeholder Engagement: Analyzing the Relations Between a French Mutual Bank and Its Members

International audienceThe aim of this article is to develop a new classification of stakeholders based on the concept of corporate and social engagement. Engagement is analyzed as an organizational learning process between the managers of an organization and its stakeholders. It is a necessary condition to improve the organization's impact on its economic, social, and natural environment. Applied to the membership of a French mutual bank in order to identify the members' varying levels of engagement, this new mapping technique may help managers to adapt their practices to the degree of engagement of each identified group of members, and to modify their financial products and communications to foster engagement among as many of these groups as possible

Supporting the Multi-Criteria Decision Aiding process: R and the MCDA package

Reaching a decision when multiple, possibly conflicting, criteria are taken into account is often a difficult task. This normally requires the intervention of an analyst to aid the decision maker in following a clear methodology with respect to the steps that need to be taken, as well as the use of different algorithms and software tools. Most of these tools focus on one or a small number of algorithms, some are difficult to adapt and interface with other tools, while only a few belong to dynamic communities of contributors allowing them to expand in use and functionality. In this paper, we address these issues by proposing to use the R statistical environment and the MCDA package of decision aiding algorithms and tools. This package is meant to provide a wide range of MCDA algorithms that may be used by an analyst to tailor a decision aiding process to their needs, while the choice of R takes advantage of the yet poorly explored opportunity to interface data analysis and decision aiding. We additionally demonstrate the use of this tool on a practical application following a well-defined decision aiding process

Assessing architectural evolution: A case study

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 SpringerThis paper proposes to use a historical perspective on generic laws, principles, and guidelines, like Lehman’s software evolution laws and Martin’s design principles, in order to achieve a multi-faceted process and structural assessment of a system’s architectural evolution. We present a simple structural model with associated historical metrics and visualizations that could form part of an architect’s dashboard. We perform such an assessment for the Eclipse SDK, as a case study of a large, complex, and long-lived system for which sustained effective architectural evolution is paramount. The twofold aim of checking generic principles on a well-know system is, on the one hand, to see whether there are certain lessons that could be learned for best practice of architectural evolution, and on the other hand to get more insights about the applicability of such principles. We find that while the Eclipse SDK does follow several of the laws and principles, there are some deviations, and we discuss areas of architectural improvement and limitations of the assessment approach

Denitrification and nitrous oxide emissions from riparian forests soils exposed to prolonged nitrogen runoff

Compared to upland forests, riparian forest soils have greater potential to remove nitrate (NO3) from agricultural run-off through denitrification. It is unclear, however, whether prolonged exposure of riparian soils to nitrogen (N) loading will affect the rate of denitrification and its end products. This research assesses the rate of denitrification and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from riparian forest soils exposed to prolonged nutrient run-off from plant nurseries and compares these to similar forest soils not exposed to nutrient run-off. Nursery run-off also contains high levels of phosphate (PO4). Since there are conflicting reports on the impact of PO4 on the activity of denitrifying microbes, the impact of PO4 on such activity was also investigated. Bulk and intact soil cores were collected from N-exposed and non-exposed forests to determine denitrification and N2O emission rates, whereas denitrification potential was determined using soil slurries. Compared to the non-amended treatment, denitrification rate increased 2.7- and 3.4-fold when soil cores collected from both N-exposed and non-exposed sites were amended with 30 and 60 μg NO3-N g-1 soil, respectively. Net N2O emissions were 1.5 and 1.7 times higher from the N-exposed sites compared to the non-exposed sites at 30 and 60 μg NO3-N g-1 soil amendment rates, respectively. Similarly, denitrification potential increased 17 times in response to addition of 15 μg NO3-N g-1 in soil slurries. The addition of PO4 (5 μg PO4–P g-1) to soil slurries and intact cores did not affect denitrification rates. These observations suggest that prolonged N loading did not affect the denitrification potential of the riparian forest soils; however, it did result in higher N2O emissions compared to emission rates from non-exposed forests

Further evidence for increased macrophage migration inhibitory factor expression in prostate cancer

BACKGROUND: Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is a cytokine associated with prostate cancer, based on histologic evidence and circulating (serum) levels. Recent studies from another laboratory failed to document these results. This study's aims were to extend and confirm our previous data, as well as to define possible mechanisms for the discrepant results. Additional aims were to examine MIF expression, as well as the location of MIF's receptor, CD74, in human prostatic adenocarcinoma compared to matched benign prostate. METHODS: MIF amounts were determined in random serum samples remaining following routine PSA screening by ELISA. Native, denaturing and reducing polyacrylamide gels and Western blot analyses determined the MIF form in serum. Prostate tissue arrays were processed for MIF in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry for MIF and CD74. MIF released into culture medium from normal epithelial, LNCaP and PC-3 cells was detected by Western blot analysis. RESULTS: Median serum MIF amounts were significantly elevated in prostate cancer patients (5.87 ± 3.91 ng/ml; ± interquartile range; n = 115) compared with patients with no documented diagnosis of prostate cancer (2.19 ± 2.65 ng/ml; n = 158). ELISA diluent reagents that included bovine serum albumin (BSA) significantly reduced MIF serum detection (p < 0.01). MIF mRNA was localized to prostatic epithelium in all samples, but cancer showed statistically greater MIF expression. MIF and its receptor (CD74) were localized to prostatic epithelium. Increased secreted MIF was detected in culture medium from prostate cancer cell lines (LNCaP and PC-3). CONCLUSION: Increased serum MIF was associated with prostate cancer. Diluent reagents that included BSA resulted in MIF serum immunoassay interference. In addition, significant amounts of complexed MIF (180 kDa under denaturing conditions by Western blot) found in the serum do not bind to the MIF capture antibody. Increased MIF mRNA expression was observed in prostatic adenocarcinoma compared to benign tissue from matched samples, supporting our earlier finding of increased MIF gene expression in prostate cancer

Multiplexed DNA Sequence Capture of Mitochondrial Genomes Using PCR Products

BACKGROUND: To utilize the power of high-throughput sequencers, target enrichment methods have been developed. The majority of these require reagents and equipment that are only available from commercial vendors and are not suitable for the targets that are a few kilobases in length. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We describe a novel and economical method in which custom made long-range PCR products are used to capture complete human mitochondrial genomes from complex DNA mixtures. We use the method to capture 46 complete mitochondrial genomes in parallel and we sequence them on a single lane of an Illumina GA(II) instrument. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This method is economical and simple and particularly suitable for targets that can be amplified by PCR and do not contain highly repetitive sequences such as mtDNA. It has applications in population genetics and forensics, as well as studies of ancient DNA

Moody Music Generator: Characterising Control Parameters Using Crowdsourcing.

Abstract. We characterise the expressive effects of a music generator capable of varying its moods through two control parameters. The two control parameters were constructed on the basis of existing work on va-lence and arousal in music, and intended to provide control over those two mood factors. In this paper we conduct a listener study to determine how people actually perceive the various moods the generator can produce. Rather than directly attempting to validate that our two control param-eters represent arousal and valence, instead we conduct an open-ended study to crowd-source labels characterising different parts of this two-dimensional control space. Our aim is to characterise perception of the generator’s expressive space, without constraining listeners ’ responses to labels specifically aimed at validating the original arousal/valence moti-vation. Subjects were asked to listen to clips of generated music over the Internet, and to describe the moods with free-text labels. We find that the arousal parameter does roughly map to perceived arousal, but that the nominal “valence ” parameter has strong interaction with the arousal parameter, and produces different effects in different parts of the con-trol space. We believe that the characterisation methodology described here is general and could be used to map the expressive range of other parameterisable generators.