Covert cavitation: Spectral peak suppression in the acoustic emissions from spatially configured nucleations

Dual laser-nucleation is used to precisely configure two cavitation bubbles within a focused ultrasound field of f0 = 692 kHz, in proximity to the tip of a needle hydrophone. With both bubbles responding in the f0/2 sub-harmonic regime, confirmed via ultra-high speed shadowgraphic imaging, an emission spectrum with no sub-harmonic content is demonstrated, for an inter-bubble spacing ≈λ0. A spectral model for periodic shock waves from multiple nucleations demonstrates peak suppressions at nf0/2 when applied to the experiment, via a windowing effect in the frequency domain. Implications for single-element passive detection of cavitation are discussed

Employment Outcomes among Individuals with Visual Impairments: The Role of Client Satisfaction and Acceptance of Vision Loss

This study examined the relationship of client satisfaction with the vocational rehabilitation (VR) process and acceptance of vision loss with respect to employment outcomes among former VR clients with visual impairments. Participants were 128 clients of the Michigan Commission for the Blind (MCB) whose cases were closed between fiscal years 2003 and 2004. The results of a logistic regression analysis indicated that participants who reported higher levels of client satisfaction and who focused on their remaining assets (e.g., functions, abilities) after vision loss were more likely to be employed at the time of case closure than their counterparts who did not. Implications for rehabilitation practice and suggestions for future research are provided

Enhancing the Rehabilitation Counseling Process: Understanding the Obstacles to Asian Americans\u27 Utilization of Services

Improving rehabilitation services for Asian Americans with disabilities through the rehabilitation counseling process remains as an ongoing challenge. Despite being the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, past studies have reported low utilization rates of vocational rehabilitation and mental health services among this population. This article (a) describes Asian American views on disabilities from religious, philosophical, and spiritual perspectives; (b) reviews factors that may contribute to their being underserved in the rehabilitation; (c) discusses the influence of family dynamics on the rehabilitation process; (d) underscores unique employment challenges facing the Asian Immigrant community; and (e) draws out the implications of such an analysis for rehabilitation counseling

Evaluation of combinatorial cis-regulatory elements for stable gene expression in chicken cells

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: Recent successes in biotechnological application of birds are based on their unique physiological traits such as unlimited manipulability onto developing embryos and simple protein constituents of the eggs. However it is not likely that target protein is produced as kinetically expected because various factors affect target gene expression. Although there have been various attempts to minimize the silencing of transgenes, a generalized study that uses multiple cis-acting elements in chicken has not been made. The aim of the present study was to analyze whether various cis-acting elements can help to sustain transgene expression in chicken fibroblasts. Results: We investigated the optimal transcriptional regulatory elements for enhancing stable transgene expression in chicken cells. We generated eight constructs that encode enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) driven by either CMV or CAG promoters (including the control), containing three types of key regulatory elements: a chicken lysozyme matrix attachment region (cMAR), 5′-DNase I-hypersensitive sites 4 (cHS4), and the woodchuck hepatitis virus posttranscriptional regulatory element (WPRE). Then we transformed immortalized chicken embryonic fibroblasts with these constructs by electroporation, and after cells were expanded under G418 selection, analyzed mRNA levels and mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) by quantitative real-time PCR and flow cytometry, respectively. We found that the copy number of each construct significantly decreased as the size of the construct increased (R2 = 0.701). A significant model effect was found in the expression level among various constructs in both mRNA and protein (P < 0.0001). Transcription with the CAG promoter was 1.6-fold higher than the CMV promoter (P = 0.027) and the level of eGFP expression activity in cMAR- or cHS4-flanked constructs increased by two- to three-fold compared to the control CMV or CAG promoter constructs. In addition, flow cytometry analysis showed that constructs having cis-acting elements decreased the level of gene silencing as well as the coefficient of variance of eGFP-expressing cells (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: Our current data show that an optimal combination of cis-acting elements and promoters/enhancers for sustaining gene expression in chicken cells is suggested. These results provide important information for avian transgenesis and gene function studies in poultry

The mTORC2 Component Rictor Contributes to Cisplatin Resistance in Human Ovarian Cancer Cells

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Resistance to cisplatin-based therapy is a major cause of treatment failure in human ovarian cancer. A better understanding of the mechanisms of cisplatin resistance will offer new insights for novel therapeutic strategies for this deadly disease. Akt and p53 are determinants of cisplatin sensitivity. Rictor is a component of mTOR protein kinase complex 2, which is required for Akt phosphorylation (Ser473) and full activation. However, the precise role of rictor and the relationship between rictor and p53 in cisplatin resistance remains poorly understood. Here, using sensitive wild-type p53 (OV2008 and A2780s), resistant wild-type p53 (C13* and OVCAR433), and p53 compromised (A2780cp, OCC1, and SKOV-3) ovarian cancer cells, we have demonstrated that (i) rictor is a determinant of cisplatin resistance in chemosensitive human ovarian cancer cells; (ii) cisplatin down-regulates rictor content by caspase-3 cleavage and proteasomal degradation; (iii) rictor down-regulation sensitizes chemo-resistant ovarian cancer cells to cisplatin-induced apoptosis in a p53-dependent manner; (iv) rictor suppresses cisplatin-induced apoptosis and confers resistance by activating and stabilizing Akt. These findings extend current knowledge on the molecular and cellular basis of cisplatin resistance and provide a rationale basis for rictor as a potential therapeutic target for chemoresistant ovarian cancer

Age-Related Changes in Egg Quality of Hy-Line Brown Hens

Abstract: The present study was conducted to monitor age-related changes in egg quality during the entire production cycle of laying hens. Thirty eggs were sampled from the commercial farm on a weekly basis for egg analysis. In order to increase in confidence in sampling, farm personnel were educated to collect the eggs from the pre-determined cages during the whole period and all layers were subjected to an identical farm management and fed a commercial layer diet. In total, 1,470 eggs were sampled and transported to the laboratory of Korea Institute for Animal Products Quality Evaluation. The parameters for egg quality included egg weight, eggshell color, eggshell breaking strength, eggshell thickness, Haugh unit and yolk color. It was shown that egg weight increased as the hen aged. Eggshell breaking strength gradually decreased, but eggshell thickness was randomly scattered without showing any age-related trends during the laying period. The intensity of eggshell color kept relatively constant while yolk color increased with age. Finally, Haugh unit as an indicator of freshness of eggs was consistently decreased as the hens aged. In this study, we noticed that eggshell breaking strength and egg weight were negatively correlated (r= -0.500, p&lt;0.001). Eggshell color did not significantly correlate with eggshell thickness (r = -0.074, p&gt;0.50), but marginally and positively correlated with egg weight (r = 0.248, p = 0.082). It is concluded that among the various egg quality parameters analyzed, egg weight, eggshell breaking strength or Haugh unit reduced as the hens aged. Further study is needed to include various parameters of egg quality such as chemical or nutritional composition which will provide more insight into the age-mediated changes in egg quality

Small anisotropy of the lower critical field and s±s_\pm-wave two-gap feature in single crystal LiFeAs

The in- and out-of-plane lower critical fields and magnetic penetration depths for LiFeAs were examined. The anisotropy ratio $\gamma_{H_{c1}}(0)$ is smaller than the expected theoretical value, and increased slightly with increasing temperature from 0.6$T_c$ to $T_c$. This small degree of anisotropy was numerically confirmed by considering electron correlation effect. The temperature dependence of the penetration depths followed a power law($\sim$$T^n$) below 0.3$T_c$, with $n$$>$3.5 for both $\lambda_{ab}$ and $\lambda_c$. Based on theoretical studies of iron-based superconductors, these results suggest that the superconductivity of LiFeAs can be represented by an extended $s_\pm$-wave due to weak impurity scattering effect. And the magnitudes of the two gaps were also evaluted by fitting the superfluid density for both the in- and out-of-plane to the two-gap model. The estimated values for the two gaps are consistent with the results of angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy and specific heat experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure