GIS Processing for Geocoding Described Collection Locations

Much useful data is currently not available for use in contemporary geographic information systems because location is provided as descriptive text and not in a recognized coordinate system format. This is particularly true for datasets with significant temporal depth such as museum collections. Development is just beginning on applications that automate the conversion of descriptive text based locations to geographic coordinate values. These applications are a type of geocoding or locator service and require functionality in two domains: natural language processing and geometric calculation. Natural language processing identifies the spatial semantics of the text describing a location and tags the individual text elements according to their spatially descriptive role. This is referred to as geoparsing. Once identified, these tagged text elements can be either converted directly to numeric values or used as pointers to geometric objects that represent geographic features identified in the description. These values and geometries can be employed in a series of functions to determine coordinates for the described location. This is referred to as geoprocessing. Selection of appropriate text elements from a location description and ancillary data as input is critical for successful geocoding. The traverse, one of many types of location description is selected for geocoding development. Specific text elements with spatial meaning are identified and incorporated into an XML format for use as geoprocessing input. Information associated with the location is added to the XML format to maintain database relations and geoprocessing error checking functionality. ESRI’s ArcGIS 8.3 is used as a development environment where geoprocessing functionality is tested for XML elements using ArcObjects and VBA forms

Trimethylsulfonium Methanesulfonate

In the title compound, C3H9S+.CH3O3S-, a thermal decomposition product of dimethyl sulfoxide, both cation and anion lie on mirror planes. In the cation, the S atom lies 0.792 (2) Å out of the plane defined by the three C atoms, with S-C distances of 1.781 (2) and 1.786 (3) Å. In the anion, the S-O distances are 1.4556 (14) and 1.4646 (19) Å, and the S-C distance is 1.759 (3) Å

“Farm School : Recalling Meaning & Memory of the Lynn Bachman School

This project tells the story of a generation, a region, and a unique educational moment in Appalachian history through a series of hand printed, hand bound, illustrated artists books. Capturing the lived experience of elders in the communities of Polk County, Tennessee and Cherokee County, North Carolina, the research expands our understanding of Appalachian education and social work before public education was introduced to the area. The project appropriately merged Dockery’s interdisciplinary work in visual arts, art education and Appalachian Studies and expanded the scholarship on rural education. Utilizing an arts based research methodology, the research introduces the Lynn Bachman Memorial School and Home to the growing body of literature related to Appalachian Settlement Schools. Three elders were interviewed, an archives of historical and artistic images of the Bachman school was generated, and a limited edition of artists’ books that utilize the heirloom craft of letterpress, photo transfer, and German book binding technique was created

Nondestructive SEM for surface and subsurface wafer imaging

The scanning electron microscope (SEM) is considered as a tool for both failure analysis as well as device characterization. A survey is made of various operational SEM modes and their applicability to image processing methods on semiconductor devices

Cardiopulmonary bypass, myocardial management, and support techniques Changes in autonomic response of the cerebral circulation after normothermic extracorporeal circulation

AbstractPatients who undergo cardiopulmonary bypass frequently have neuropsychologic dysfunction. This study was undertaken to determine whether altered cerebral perfusion and vascular responses may in part lead to these neuropsychologic changes. Pigs were placed on normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass for 2 hours. Basal cerebral blood flow and in vivo responses to administration by internal carotid artery of neuronally released vasoactive substances were evaluated before and 5 to 15 minutes after termination of cardiopulmonary bypass. Another group of pigs were placed on cardiopulmonary bypass for 2 hours and then perfused off bypass for 1 additional hour. In vitro responses of cerebral arterial microvessels (100 to 175 μm) from both groups were examined in a pressurized (40 mm Hg) no-flow state with videomicroscopy. Vessels from uninstrumented pigs served as control preparations for in vitro studies. Cerebrovascular resistance and cerebral perfusion were maintained constant during cardiopulmonary bypass and after separation from bypass. The internal carotid artery infusion of acetylcholine (cholinergic agonist) caused increased internal carotid artery blood flow before cardiopulmonary bypass but decreased blood flow after cardiopulmonary bypass. After 2 hours of cardiopulmonary bypass, the increase in internal carotid artery blood flow induced by isoproterenol (a β-adrenoceptor agonist) was reduced, whereas the response to sodium nitroprusside (a guanylate cyclase activator) was unchanged. In vitro acetylcholine-induced microvascular vasodilation was converted to a contractile response and isoproterenol elicited less relaxation after 2 hours of cardiopulmonary bypass. One hour of cerebral perfusion after cardiopulmonary bypass caused a further reduction in isoproterenol-induced relaxation but had no further effect on the cholinergically mediated response. In vitro relaxation responses to sodium nitroprusside and forskolin (an adenylate cyclase activator) were similar in all experimental groups, suggesting that second-messenger mechanisms remain intact after normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass. In conclusion, basal cerebrovascular resistance and internal carotid artery blood flow are maintained if the systemic circulation and pressure are supported with fluid administration after cardiopulmonary bypass. Agonist-induced vasodilation of cerebral microvessels to cholinergic and β-adrenoceptor stimulation are selectively impaired after normothermic cardiopulmonary bypass, whereas second-messenger mechanisms remain intact. (J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 1996;112:450-61

Relationship between serum total magnesium and serum potassium in emergency surgical patients in a tertiary hospital in Ghana

Introduction: Potassium and magnesium are the two most abundant intra cellular cations. They play pivotal roles in many essential biological processes. Deficiencies of these electrolytes are of clinical importance in hospitalised patients.Aim: To determine the relationship between serum total magnesium and potassium levels in adult patients requiring an emergency intra-abdominal surgery and the clinical utility of this relationship in the care of patients.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted over a five month period at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. All 101 adult patients admitted for emergency intra abdominal surgery, who met the inclusion criteria and gave informed consent, were consecutively recruited and enrolled into the study. Patients’ characteristics preoperative total serum magnesium, serum potassium and albumin levels were determined. Regression analysis and correlation coefficients were used to determine the relation between serum magnesium and potassium. Analysis was done using SPSS version 20.Results: Mean serum total magnesium and serum potassium were 0.66±0.20mmol/L and 3.79±0.65mmol/L respectively. There was a significant but weak positive correlation between serum hypokalaemia and serum magnesium levels. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (2 tailed) was 0.21, R2= 0.04, p = value 0.038. Analysis generated a regression model: [Mg] = 0.06[K] + 0.42mmol/L, with a p-value = 0.038.Conclusion: A mathematical relationship was found between serum total magnesium and serum potassium among adult patients who require emergency intra-abdominal surgery. However, it had limited clinical utility.Funding: None declaredKeywords: Potassium, magnesium, electrolyte, preoperative perio

NGL-2 regulates pathway-specific neurite growth and lamination, synapse formation, and signal transmission in the retina

Parallel processing is an organizing principle of many neural circuits. In the retina, parallel neuronal pathways process signals from rod and cone photoreceptors and support vision over a wide range of light levels. Toward this end, rods and cones form triad synapses with dendrites of distinct bipolar cell types, and the axons or dendrites, respectively, of horizontal cells (HCs). The molecular cues that promote the formation of specific neuronal pathways remain largely unknown. Here, we discover that developing and mature HCs express the leucine-rich repeat (LRR)-containing protein netrin-G ligand 2 (NGL-2). NGL-2 localizes selectively to the tips of HC axons, which form reciprocal connections with rods. In mice with null mutations in Ngl-2 (Ngl-2(−/−)), many branches of HC axons fail to stratify in the outer plexiform layer (OPL) and invade the outer nuclear layer. In addition, HC axons expand lateral territories and increase coverage of the OPL, but establish fewer synapses with rods. NGL-2 can form transsynaptic adhesion complexes with netrin-G2, which we show to be expressed by photoreceptors. In Ngl-2(−/−) mice, we find specific defects in the assembly of presynaptic ribbons in rods, indicating that reverse signaling of complexes involving NGL-2 regulates presynaptic maturation. The development of HC dendrites and triad synapses of cone photoreceptors proceeds normally in the absence of NGL-2 and in vivo electrophysiology reveals selective defects in rod-mediated signal transmission in Ngl-2(−/−) mice. Thus, our results identify NGL-2 as a central component of pathway-specific development in the outer retina

Photoprotection in Plants Involves a Change in Lutein 1 Binding Domain in the Major Light-harvesting Complex of Photosystem II

Nonphotochemical quenching (NPQ) is the fundamental process by which plants exposed to high light intensities dissipate the potentially harmful excess energy as heat. Recently, it has been shown that efficient energy dissipation can be induced in the major light-harvesting complexes of photosystem II (LHCII) in the absence of protein-protein interactions. Spectroscopic measurements on these samples (LHCII gels) in the quenched state revealed specific alterations in the absorption and circular dichroism bands assigned to neoxanthin and lutein 1 molecules. In this work, we investigate the changes in conformation of the pigments involved in NPQ using resonance Raman spectroscopy. By selective excitation we show that, as well as the twisting of neoxanthin that has been reported previously, the lutein 1 pigment also undergoes a significant change in conformation when LHCII switches to the energy dissipative state. Selective two-photon excitation of carotenoid (Car) dark states (Car