Use of Rearing Cover by Mearns Cottontail

Intensive research on the Mearns cottontail was conducted from March 26 to September 18, 1954, on an 80-acre tract of the Floyd Fleming farm in Decatur County, Iowa. The cover on the 80 acres was alfalfa for hay 13 acres, alfalfa in pasture 21 acres, grass in pasture 8 acres, corn 22 acres, fallow grassland 11 acres, and trees, shrubs and vines along fencelines and gullies and in a catalpa planting about 5 acres. The plants of the fallow grassland, fencelines and gullies were listed by Hubbard and Hendrickson (1952) in some detail

A new unattached sediment sampler

An improved sediment sampler that is used without winch or wire has been developed, tested, and used at sea. The device employs an expendable iron-ballast, steel-casing combination and a recoverable glass-float, plastic-liner assembly. Of 50 samplers launched in deep water under a variety of conditions, 46 instruments were recovered. Forty-one of these contained samples...

Pressure dependence of the spin dynamics around a quantum critical point : An inelastic neutron scattering study of Ce0.87La0.13Ru2Si2

Inelastic neutron scattering experiments performed on a single crystal of the antiferromagnetic compound Ce$_{0.87}$La$_{0.13}$Ru$_{2}$Si$_{2}$ under applied pressures of up to 5 kbar are reported. A quantum critical point is reached at around 2.6 kbar where long-range magnetic order disappears. The variation of the characteristic energy scales with respect to temperature and pressure is followed and found to saturate in the ordered phase.Comment: 14 pages (6 figures

Cytokine Profiles of Stimulated Blood Lymphocytes in Asthmatic and Healthy Adolescents Cross the School Year

T cell cytokines play an important role in mediating airway inflammation in asthma. The predominance of a Th2 cytokine profile, particularly interleukin (IL)-4 and IL-5, is associated with the pathogenesis and course of asthma. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that a stressful life event alters the pattern of cytokine release in asthmatic individuals. Thirteen healthy controls and 21 asthmatic adolescents gave blood samples three times over a semester: midsemester, during the week of final examinations, and 2-3 weeks after examinations. Interferon-γ (IFN-γ), IL-2, IL-4, and IL-5 were measured from supernatants of cells stimulated with PHA/PMA for 24 h. Cells from asthmatic subjects released significantly more IL-5 during the examination and postexamination periods, whereas cells from healthy controls released significantly more IL-2 during the midsemester and examination periods, thereby indicating a bias for a Th2-like pattern in asthmatics and a Th 1-like pattern in healthy controls. IL-4 and IL-5 production showed a marked decrease during and after examinations in healthy controls, whereas this decline was absent in asthmatics. The ratios of IFN-γ:IL-4 and IFN-γ:IL-5 also revealed significant changes in the profile of cytokine release across the semester. These results indicate differential cytokine responses in asthmatics that may become pronounced during periods of cellular activation

Natural killer (NK) cell response to virus infections in mice with severe combined immunodeficiency. The stimulation of NK cells and the NK cell-dependent control of virus infections occur independently of T and B cell function

The activation, proliferation, and antiviral properties of natural killer (NK) cells were examined in severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice to determine the influence of mature T or B cells on virus-induced NK cell functions and to more conclusively determine the antiviral properties of prototypical CD3- NK cells. NK cells were activated to high levels of cytotoxicity 3 d after infection of mice with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) or murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV). Analyses of spleen leukocytes from LCMV-infected mice by a variety of techniques indicated that the NK cells proliferated and increased in number during infection. Propidium iodide staining of the DNA of cycling cells revealed that the great majority of proliferating spleen leukocytes 3 d after LCMV infection was of the NK cell phenotype (CD3-, Ig-, Mac-1+, CZ1+, 50% Thy-1+), in contrast to uninfected mice, whose proliferating cells were predominantly of other lineages. Analyses of the NK cell responses over a 2 wk period in control CB17 mice infected with MCMV indicated a sharp rise in serum interferon (IFN) and spleen NK cell activity early (days 3-5) in infection, followed by sharp declines at later stages. In SCID mice the IFN levels continued to rise over a 10-d period, whereas the NK cell response peaked on day 3-5 and gradually tapered. In contrast to the immunocompetent CB17 mice, SCID mice did not clear the MCMV infection and eventually succumbed. SCID mice, again in contrast to immunocompetent CB17 mice, also failed to clear infections with LCMV and Pichinde virus (PV); these mice, infected as adults, did not die but instead developed long-term persistent infections. Depletion of the NK cells in vivo with antiserum to asialo GM1 rendered both SCID and CB17 control mice much more sensitive to MCMV infection, as shown by titers of virus in organs and by survival curves. In contrast, similar depletions of NK cells did not enhance the titers of the NK cell-resistant virus, LCMV. Two variants of PV, one sensitive to NK cells and the other selected for resistance to NK cells by in vivo passage, were also tested in NK cell-depleted SCID mice. The NK-sensitive PV replicated to higher titers in NK cell-depleted SCID mice, whereas the titers of the NK cell-resistant PV were the same, whether or not the mice had NK cells. These experiments support the concept that CD3- prototypical NK cells mediate resistance to NK cell-sensitive viruses via a mechanism independent of antiviral or natural antibody.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS

Application of two procedures for dual-point design of transonic airfoils

Two dual-point design procedures were developed to reduce the objective function of a baseline airfoil at two design points. The first procedure to develop a redesigned airfoil used a weighted average of the shapes of two intermediate airfoils redesigned at each of the two design points. The second procedure used a weighted average of two pressure distributions obtained from an intermediate airfoil redesigned at each of the two design points. Each procedure was used to design a new airfoil with reduced wave drag at the cruise condition without increasing the wave drag or pitching moment at the climb condition. Two cycles of the airfoil shape-averaging procedure successfully designed a new airfoil that reduced the objective function and satisfied the constraints. One cycle of the target (desired) pressure-averaging procedure was used to design two new airfoils that reduced the objective function and came close to satisfying the constraints

On composite systems of dilute and dense couplings

Composite systems, where couplings are of two types, a combination of strong dilute and weak dense couplings of Ising spins, are examined through the replica method. The dilute and dense parts are considered to have independent canonical disordered or uniform bond distributions; mixing the models by variation of a parameter $\gamma$ alongside inverse temperature $\beta$ we analyse the respective thermodynamic solutions. We describe the variation in high temperature transitions as mixing occurs; in the vicinity of these transitions we exactly analyse the competing effects of the dense and sparse models. By using the replica symmetric ansatz and population dynamics we described the low temperature behaviour of mixed systems.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figures, submitted to JPhys

Inclusion of Experimental Information in First Principles Modeling of Materials

We propose a novel approach to model amorphous materials using a first principles density functional method while simultaneously enforcing agreement with selected experimental data. We illustrate our method with applications to amorphous silicon and glassy GeSe$_2$. The structural, vibrational and electronic properties of the models are found to be in agreement with experimental results. The method is general and can be extended to other complex materials.Comment: 11 pages, 8 PostScript figures, submitted to J. Phys.: Condens. Matter in honor of Mike Thorpe's 60th birthda

Evaluation of the Galalpha1-3Gal epitope as a host modification factor eliciting natural humoral immunity to enveloped viruses

Human sera contain high levels of natural antibody (Ab) to Galalpha1-3Gal, a terminal glycosidic structure expressed on the surface of cells of mammals other than Old World primates. Incorporation of this determinant onto retroviral membranes by passage of viruses in cells encoding alpha-1-3-galactosyltransferase (GT) renders retroviruses sensitive to lysis by natural Ab and complement in normal human serum (NHS). Plasma membrane-budding viruses representing four additional virus groups were examined for their sensitivities to serum inactivation after passage through human cell lines that lack a functional GT or human cells expressing recombinant porcine GT. The inactivation of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) by NHS directly correlated with host modification of the virus via expression of Galalpha1-3Gal and was blocked by incorporation of soluble Galalpha1-3Gal disaccharide into the inactivation assay. GT-deficient mice immunized to make high levels of Ab to Galalpha1-3Gal (anti-Gal Ab) were tested for resistance to LCMV passaged in GT-expressing cells. Resistance was not observed, but in vitro analyses of the mouse immune sera revealed that the antiviral activity of the sera was insufficient to eliminate LCMV infectivity on its natural targets of infection, macrophages, which express receptors for Ab and complement. Newcastle disease virus and vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) were inactivated by NHS regardless of cell passage history, whereas Sindbis virus (SV) passaged in human cells resisted inactivation. Both VSV and SV passaged in Galalpha1-3Gal-expressing human cells incorporated this sugar moiety onto their major envelope glycoproteins. SV passaged in mouse cells expressing Galalpha1-3Gal was moderately sensitive to inactivation by NHS. These results indicate that enveloped viruses expressing Galalpha1-3Gal differ in their sensitivities to NHS and that a potent complement source, such as that in NHS, is required for efficient inactivation of sensitive viruses in vitro and in vivo