FM1-43 is a permeant blocker of mechanosensitive ion channels in sensory neurons and inhibits behavioural responses to mechanical stimuli

The molecular identity and pharmacological properties of mechanically gated ion channels in sensory neurons are poorly understood. We show that FM1-43, a styryl dye used to fluorescently label cell membranes, permeates mechanosensitive ion channels in cultured dorsal root ganglion neurons, resulting in blockade of three previously defined subtypes of mechanically activated currents. Blockade and dye uptake is voltage dependent and regulated by external Ca(2+). The structurally related larger dye FM3-25 inhibited mechanically activated currents to a lesser degree and did not permeate the channels. In vivo, FMI-43 decreases pain sensitivity in the Randall-Selitto test and increases the withdrawal threshold from von Frey hairs, together suggesting that the channels expressed at the cell body in culture mediate mechanosensation in the intact animal. These data give further insight into the mechanosensitive ion channels expressed by somatosensory neurons and suggest FM dyes are an interesting tool for studying them

Shadow IT Use, Outcome Effects, and Subjective Performance Evaluation

Abstract: The use of shadow IT (information technology systems not sanctioned or monitored by a company’s IT department) may be seen as either a form of organizational misbehavior or proactive and creative problem-solving. We examine whether these differing possible perceptions have implications for the subjective evaluation of subordinate performance. In our experiment, participants choose whether to award a bonus to an employee when different IT systems are used (normal vs. shadow IT) across different outcome levels (high vs. low outcomes). We find that employees using shadow IT are less likely to receive the bonus in both high and low outcome conditions relative to employees using the normal IT system. Our results suggest that shadow IT usage is more likely to be viewed as organizational misbehavior and to cast a negative light on employee performance

Drag Reduction of a Modern Straight Truck

A wind tunnel test program was conducted at the Langley Full Scale Tunnel (LFST) to evaluate the performance of five passive drag reduction configurations on a modern straight truck at full scale. Configurations were tested in a build-up fashion with results representing a cumulative effect. Tested configurations include a front valance, a front box fairing, a boat-tail, an ideal side-skirt, and a practical side-skirt. Configurations were evaluated over a nominal 9 degree yaw sweep to establish wind averaged drag coefficients using SAE J1252. Genuine replicate yaw sweeps were used in an uncertainty analysis. Results show up to 28% improvement in wind-averaged drag coefficient and that significant gains can be made in straight truck fuel economy, even at non-highway speeds. © 2011 SAE International

Understanding Practical Limits to Heavy Truck Drag Reduction

A heavy truck wind tunnel test program is currently underway at the Langley Full Scale Tunnel (LFST). Seven passive drag reducing device configurations have been evaluated on a heavy truck model with the objective of understanding the practical limits to drag reduction achievable on a modern tractor trailer through add-on devices. The configurations tested include side skirts of varying length, a full gap seal, and tapered rear panels. All configurations were evaluated over a nominal 15 degree yaw sweep to establish wind averaged drag coefficients over a broad speed range using SAE J1252. The tests were conducted by first quantifying the benefit of each individual treatment and finally looking at the combined benefit of an ideal fully treated vehicle. Results show a maximum achievable gain in wind averaged drag coefficient (65 mph) of about 31 percent for the modern conventional-cab tractor-trailer. © 2009 SAE International

High-threshold mechanosensitive ion channels blocked by a novel conopeptide mediate pressure-evoked pain

Little is known about the molecular basis of somatosensory mechanotransduction in mammals. We screened a library of peptide toxins for effects on mechanically activated currents in cultured dorsal root ganglion neurons. One conopeptide analogue, termed NMB-1 for noxious mechanosensation blocker 1, selectively inhibits (IC50 1 µM) sustained mechanically activated currents in a subset of sensory neurons. Biotinylated NMB-1 retains activity and binds selectively to peripherin-positive nociceptive sensory neurons. The selectivity of NMB-1 was confirmed by the fact that it has no inhibitory effects on voltage-gated sodium and calcium channels, or ligand-gated channels such as acid-sensing ion channels or TRPA1 channels. Conversely, the tarantula toxin, GsMTx-4, which inhibits stretch-activated ion channels, had no effects on mechanically activated currents in sensory neurons. In behavioral assays, NMB-1 inhibits responses only to high intensity, painful mechanical stimulation and has no effects on low intensity mechanical stimulation or thermosensation. Unexpectedly, NMB-1 was found to also be an inhibitor of rapid FM1-43 loading (a measure of mechanotransduction) in cochlear hair cells. These data demonstrate that pharmacologically distinct channels respond to distinct types of mechanical stimuli and suggest that mechanically activated sustained currents underlie noxious mechanosensation. NMB-1 thus provides a novel diagnostic tool for the molecular definition of channels involved in hearing and pressure-evoked pain

The Effects of Different Types of Internal Controls on Self-Control

One reason companies implement internal controls is to reduce the likelihood of unethical behavior. Yet, ego depletion theory suggests that some controls may cause reductions in employees’ self-control, which could undermine the ability of controls to reduce unethical behavior. We examine whether various types of controls impact self-control and ethical judgments. Our results show that contrary to the ego depletion hypothesis, we find no significant relation between self-control and internal controls. Furthermore, we find that controls have no effect on ethical judgments or ethical ideology. Thus, our results suggest that internal controls do not differentially impact self-control and ethical decision-making

Shadow IT Use, Outcome Effects, and Subjective Performance Evaluation

Using shadow IT may be seen as either a form of organizational misbehavior or proactive and creative problem-solving. These perceptions have implications for the subjective evaluation of subordinate performance. In our experiment, participants choose whether to award a bonus to an employee when different IT systems are used across different outcome levels. We find that employees using shadow IT are less likely to receive the bonus in both high and low outcome conditions relative to employees using the normal IT system, suggesting that managers consider shadow IT usage an organizational misbehavior which casts a negative light on employee performance

Geologic and Tectonic History of the Western Snake River Plain, Idaho and Oregon

The western Snake River Plain is a Neogene-aged intracontinental rift basin, about 70 km wide and 300 km long, trending northwest across the southern Idaho batholith. Its southeastern end merges with the northeast-trending eastern plain, a structural downwarp associated with extension along the track of the Yellowstone hot spot. Orientation of the western plain rift is parallel to several regional northwest-trending crustal discontinuities, such as the Olympic-Wallowa lineament and the Brothers fault zone, suggesting that the rift failed along zones of lithospheric weakness, as the lithosphere was softened by the passing hot spot. Crustal refraction data and gravity show that the rift is not simply underlain by granitic rock, despite its appearance of having broken and extended the southern end of the Idaho batholith. Instead, the crust beneath 1 to 2 km of basin fill is mostly of mafic composition down to the top of the mantle, about 42 km deep beneath the plain. North and south of the plain, the upper crust has velocities more typical of granitic rock. South of the plain, beneath the 9-11 Ma Bruneau-Jarbidge eruptive center of silicic volcanics, is a zone of slightly high seismic velocity at a depth of 23 km that could be restite or an underplate of basalt related to formation of the silicic magma. In this paper we show that some (12-10 Ma) rhyolite flows and domes erupted near the margins of the plain, but that thick rhyolite does not occur in deep wells in the subsurface of the plain northwest of Boise. For this reason, we suspect that much of the area of the plain was an upland and not a large depositional basin during the period of silicic volcanism. Geochronology of volcanic rocks on both sides indicate major faulting began about 11 Ma and was largely finished by 9 Ma. Since about 9 Ma, slip rates have been low (less than 0.01 mm/year) with the exception of a short (about 10-km) segment of late Quaternary faulting in the Halfway Gulch-Little Jacks Creek area on the south side. Earliest sediment of the plain is associated with basalt volcanism and high rates of faulting. Interbedded arkose, mudstone, and volcanic ash constitute this earliest sediment mapped as the Chalk Hills Formation. Local basalt lava fields (dated 10-7 Ma) occur at several levels in the Chalk Hills Formation. An active rift environment is envisioned with lakes interconnected at times by a river system. The faulted and tilted Chalk Hills Formation is dissected by an erosion surface at the basin margins, indicating a regression of lakes to the deeper basins. Depositional records of the regression are generally absent from the margins, but we suggest that the east Boise fan aquifer sediments and deep basin fill might be such a record. Nothing is known of the cause of the regression of the Chalk Hills lake. A transgressive lacustrine sequence encroached over slightly deformed and eroded Chalk Hills Formation on the plain margins, locally leaving basal coarse sand, or a thin beach pebble layer now iron-oxide cemented. The upper part of this transgression deposited shoreline oolitic sand deposits, indicating increased alkalinity of a closed lake. In the Boise foothills, much of the exposed sediment appears to be this transgressive lacustrine sequence where it is mapped as the Terteling Springs Formation, with shoreline sands and small deltas interfingering basinward with lake muds. The lake rose to its highest elevation of about 3,600 feet (1,100 m) in a period of less than a few million years. At that highest level, it overtopped the spill point into ancestral Hell’s Canyon and the Columbia-Salmon river drainage. Reliable geochronology constrains the time of overflow between 6.4 and 1.7 Ma and is in need of better resolution. The rise in lake level may have been indirectly caused by regional tectonic movement of the migrating uplift of the Yellowstone hot spot, as an associated Continental Divide migrated about 200 km eastward from the Arco area to its position in Yellowstone National Park over the period 6 Ma to present. In doing so, the catchment area of the Snake River may have increased as much as 50,000 square km. Captured runoff associated with the shifting topographic divide is hypothesized to have caused the level of Lake Idaho to rise to its spill point about 4 million years ago. Downcutting of the outlet was apparently slow (about 120 m/Ma) during which time sandy sediment eroded from the basin margins and filled the remaining lake basin with interbedded mud and sand of lacustrine delta systems. This sedimentary sequence of a slowly lowering base level constitutes most of the Glenns Ferry Formation and the main sand-bearing aquifer section of the western plain. It is represented in the Boise foothills by a 60-m-thick unit of coarse sand with Gilbert-type foreset bedding called the Pierce Park sand. Subsequently, fluvial systems with gradients necessary to produce braid-plain sandy gravel deposits flowed to the outlet region near Weiser. These gravel deposits should decrease in age and altitude to the northwest, and at Weiser these oldest gravels occur at elevation 2,500 feet. During the late stages of the draining of Lake Idaho, basalt volcanism resumed in the western plain, focusing along a line of vents that trends obliquely across the plain at about N. 70º W., named here the Kuna-Mountain Home volcanic rift. Both sublacustrine and subaerial volcanoes erupted and built a basalt upland with elevations of highest shields to 3,600 feet over the last 2.2 million years. Aligned vents and fissures of these volcanoes indicate the present orientation of the principal tectonic stress is N. 70º W., contrasting with the N. 45º W. boundary of the plain and the N. 30º W. alignment of vents in the eastern plain. This N. 70º W. alignment is similar to the same vent features of Quaternary basalt fields in eastern Oregon, suggesting that a province of similar tectonic stress orientation includes the western plain and much of eastern Oregon