MAVL/StickWRLD: analyzing structural constraints using interpositional dependencies in biomolecular sequence alignments

The increasing availability of structurally aligned protein families has made it possible to use statistical methods to discover regions of interpositional dependencies of residue identity. Such dependencies amongst residues often have structural or functional implications, and their discovery can supply valuable constraints that assist in the refinement of measured, or predicted molecular structure assignments. Multiple Alignment Variation Linker (MAVL) and StickWRLD [W. Ray (2004) Nucleic Acids Res., 32, W59–W63] were developed to analyze and visualize nucleic acid and protein alignments, to discover and illuminate position/location relationships to the user. The original system analyzed users' data from a web-form submission and presented the user with a static VRML diagram describing their data. We are pleased to report that MAVL/StickWRLD has been completely redesigned and rewritten. MAVL/StickWRLD now functions as a platform-independent Java applet, with real-time dynamic controls that enable much more intuitive exploration and interaction with the data. The system has also been upgraded to enable visualization of a range of aggregate residue properties, and an extensive database of pre-computed StickWRLD diagrams based on PFAM families is now available directly from the interface. The Java StickWRLD applet is available via the WWW at

Public Health and the Incident Command System: A Shift From Disasters To Every Day Management

The organizational structure of a public health agency can directly affect the success or failure of its programs. Currently within public health, quality improvement initiatives are being undertaken in order to improve the provision of services and response to the needs of the public. As a part of the identification of areas for improvement, the assessment of the organizational structure of the public health entity needs to become an integral part of that process. The current needs and challenges that public health entities confront are expanding and changing. The services, projects, and programs that local health departments are responsible for are varied and broad. Those entities need an organizational structure that allows for an efficient and effective response to those broad needs. The Incident Command System (ICS) is an organizational structure that will facilitate the most effective and efficient response to everyday needs or issues that arise from a sudden disaster. The ICS is currently utilized mainly in response to disasters. The features detailed in this paper, along with case studies of ICS use, will support the proposal that the ICS is an effective organizational structure for every day management of a public health entity. The foundations and boundaries that the ICS establishes allows all types of organizations—hospitals, veterinary clinics, local health departments (LHD), etc.—to tailor the structure to meet the specific needs and mission of the organization. It allows for response to the broad range of needs that public health entities see daily. When a disaster does occur, the structure is already in place to respond and valuable time and resources are not lost in the transition. Personnel education and training about the ICS is vital. To ensure effective management and operation within the structure, as well as support from involved personnel, education is incredibly important. Quality improvement initiatives have allowed for LHDs to improve 2 services and organizational function. The use of an ICS structure will complement and greatly facilitate CQI initiatives.Master of Public Healt

Development and Validation of Preenlistment Screening Composites for Army Enlisted Personnel

Prepared for: US Army Recruiting Command Program Analysis and Evaluation Directorate Research and Studies Divisionhttp://archive.org/details/developmentvalid56zimmNAN

New sub-millimeter limits on dust in the 55 Cancri planetary system

We present new, high-sensitivity sub-millimeter observations towards 55 Cancri, a nearby G8 star with one, or possibly two, known planetary companion(s). Our 850 $\mu$m map, obtained with the SCUBA instrument on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, shows three peaks of emission at the 2.5 mJy level in the vicinity of the star's position. However, the observed peaks are 25\arcsec--40\arcsec away from the star and a deep $R$-band optical image reveals faint point sources that coincide with two of the sub-millimeter peaks. Thus, we do not find evidence for dust emission spatially associated with 55 Cancri. The excess 60 $\mu$m emission detected with ISO may originate from one or more of the 850 $\mu$m peaks that we attribute to background sources. Our new results, together with the HST/NICMOS coronographic images in the near-infrared, place stringent limits on the amount of dust in this planetary system, and argue against the existence of a detectable circumstellar dust disk around 55 Cnc.Comment: 11 pages, 2 PostScript figures, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letter

Siviculture and Management Strategies Applicable to Southern Hardwoods

Southern hardwood forests stretch from the Virginias to Florida and from the mid-Atlantic to Missouri. They can generally be grouped into upland forests and bottomland forests. The upland hardwood forests of the southern region are usually associated with the mountainous topography of the Appalachians and Ozarks. Bottomland hardwoods are found along the floodplains of larger rivers in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains, including the Mississippi River floodplain. Southern hardwood forests are owned by a variety of governmental and private owners, but the vast majority of owners are nonindustrial private individuals. These owners seldom engage in intensive forest management, often exploiting the resource. The silvicultural systems applicable to the management of hardwoods are the same as those recommended for pines, but in hardwood management, reliance on natural regeneration is more common than use of plantation silviculture. Oak species are very important in the southern hardwood forests, and lack of oak regeneration in present-day forests is a major concern. Lack of fire and the resurgence of white-tailed deer throughout the southern region are proposed as reasons for poor oak regeneration. Many stands, either due to their stage of development or neglect, are in need of intermediate management operations such as thinning and improvement cutting. Crop-tree management is a method that is particularly useful in southern hardwoods. It was concluded that although hardwoods make up a significant part of the southern forest resource, they are generally managed with less intensity than pines, and hardwood management is an opportunity area for the South in the future

Recent Decisions

Comments on recent decisions by William C. Rindone, Ray F. Drexler, Eugene G. Griffin, Ronald Patrick Smith, and John G. Curran

Dust in the 55 Cancri planetary system

The presence of debris disks around $\sim$ 1-Gyr-old main sequence stars suggests that an appreciable amount of dust may persist even in mature planetary systems. Here we report the detection of dust emission from 55 Cancri, a star with one, or possibly two, planetary companions detected through radial velocity measurements. Our observations at 850$\mu$m and 450$\mu$m imply a dust mass of 0.0008-0.005 Earth masses, somewhat higher than that in the the Kuiper Belt of our solar system. The estimated temperature of the dust grains and a simple model fit both indicate a central disk hole of at least 10 AU in radius. Thus, the region where the planets are detected is likely to be significantly depleted of dust. Our results suggest that far-infrared and sub-millimeter observations are powerful tools for probing the outer regions of extrasolar planetary systems.Comment: 8 pages and 2 figures, to appear in the Astrophysical Journa

Evaluation of Stent and Baffle Deformation in Hybrid Comprehensive Stage II Procedure

Introduction: Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS) is a Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) that leads to a single ventricle circulation (SV). The existing three-stage palliative operation leads to 50% survival rates. To reduce the morbidity and mortality rate associated with the procedure, an alternative technique called Hybrid Comprehensive Stage II (HCSII) featuring the inclusion of a stent and baffle in the left and right pulmonary arteries shown is proposed. The included stent included has the potential to become fractured as a result of oscillatory asymmetric external loads. Materials and Methods: A dynamically-scaled mock flow loop (MFL) study of HCSII shows the effects of fluid pressure on the stent and baffle to infer long term complications validated with numerical simulations. The MFL includes a patient-specific 3D printed model of the reconstructed anatomy, incorporating an intra-pulmonary baffle graft and a stent. Through the inclusion of the digital video otoscope DE500, videos of the stent and baffle are captured and post-processed to determine baffle displacement during the systolic and diastolic phases. Stent deformation is quantified using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).Experimental results are cross-validated, using finite element analysis done in Abaqus. Results and Discussion: The displacement of the baffle is tracked in three different locations throughout the cycles. Between peak systole to peak diastole, the computed baffle displacement for each tracked location, based on the processed image data, is 38, 4 and 6 pixels respectively. Conclusions: For 10 cycles, the stent and the baffle deformations are small. Results indicate the left and right pulmonary flow remain unobstructed despite cyclic deformation of the baffle, hence the likelihood of patient death due to total pulmonary obstruction following stent collapse is low

Word and Nonword Reading Efficiency in Postlingually Deafened Adult Cochlear Implant Users

HYPOTHESIS: This study tested the hypotheses that 1) experienced adult cochlear implants (CI) users demonstrate poorer reading efficiency relative to normal-hearing controls, 2) reading efficiency reflects basic, underlying neurocognitive skills, and 3) reading efficiency relates to speech recognition outcomes in CI users. BACKGROUND: Weak phonological processing skills have been associated with poor speech recognition outcomes in postlingually deaf adult CI users. Phonological processing can be captured in nonauditory measures of reading efficiency, which may have wide use in patients with hearing loss. This study examined reading efficiency in adults CI users, and its relation to speech recognition outcomes. METHODS: Forty-eight experienced, postlingually deaf adult CI users (ECIs) and 43 older age-matched peers with age-normal hearing (ONHs) completed the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE-2), which measures word and nonword reading efficiency. Participants also completed a battery of nonauditory neurocognitive measures and auditory sentence recognition tasks. RESULTS: ECIs and ONHs did not differ in word (ECIs: M = 78.2, SD = 11.4; ONHs: M = 83.3, SD = 10.2) or nonword reading efficiency (ECIs: M = 42.0, SD = 11.2; ONHs: M = 43.7, SD = 10.3). For ECIs, both scores were related to untimed word reading with moderate to strong effect sizes (r = 0.43–0.69), but demonstrated differing relations with other nonauditory neurocognitive measures with weak to moderate effect sizes (word: r = 0.11–0.44; nonword: r = (−)0.15 to (−)0.42). Word reading efficiency was moderately related to sentence recognition outcomes in ECIs (r = 0.36–0.40). CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that postlingually deaf adult CI users demonstrate neither impaired word nor nonword reading efficiency, and these measures reflect different underlying mechanisms involved in language processing. The relation between sentence recognition and word reading efficiency, a measure of lexical access speed, suggests that this measure may be useful for explaining outcome variability in adult CI users