We measured uptake length of super(15)NO sub(3) super(-) in 72 streams in eight regions across the United States and Puerto Rico to develop quantitative predictive models on controls of NO sub(3) ...super(-) uptake length. As part of the Lotic Intersite Nitrogen eXperiment II project, we chose nine streams in each region corresponding to natural (reference), suburban-urban, and agricultural land uses. Study streams spanned a range of human land use to maximize variation in NO sub(3) super(-) concentration, geomorphology, and metabolism. We tested a causal model predicting controls on NO sub(3) super(-) uptake length using structural equation modeling. The model included concomitant measurements of ecosystem metabolism, hydraulic parameters, and nitrogen concentration. We compared this structural equation model to multiple regression models which included additional biotic, catchment, and riparian variables. The structural equation model explained 79% of the variation in log uptake length (S sub(Wtot)). Uptake length increased with specific discharge (Q/w) and increasing NO sub(3) super(-) concentrations, showing a loss in removal efficiency in streams with high NO sub(3) super(-) concentration. Uptake lengths shortened with increasing gross primary production, suggesting autotrophic assimilation dominated NO sub(3) super(-) removal. The fraction of catchment area as agriculture and suburban-urban land use weakly predicted NO sub(3) super(-) uptake in bivariate regression, and did improve prediction in a set of multiple regression models. Adding land use to the structural equation model showed that land use indirectly affected NO sub(3) super(-) uptake lengths via directly increasing both gross primary production and NO sub(3) super(-) concentration. Gross primary production shortened S sub(Wtot), while increasing NO sub(3) super(-) lengthened S sub(Wtot) resulting in no net effect of land use on NO sub(3) super(-) removal.
The ability of various in vitro methods of antibiotic susceptibility testing to predict therapeutic outcome in patients infected with Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) was evaluated. Pretreatment ...bloodstream MAC isolates from 38 patients with AIDS, previously treated in a randomized fashion with either ethambutol, rifampin, or clofazimine, were tested by three conventional methods using broth or agar, as well as by cocultivation with macrophages. The results obtained with each method were compared with the quantitatively determined bacteriologic response to the administration of the single agent in humans. None of the conventional in vitro susceptibility methods was predictive of therapeutic outcome, while the results of cocultivation with macrophages were of moderate predictive value. The positive predictive value of a response in humans based on a response in macrophages (defined by ⩾1.0 log reduction in baseline colony counts after 5 days of treatment) was 74%. The negative predictive value was 82%.
This study assessed the effects of streptozotocin diabetes in swine on the heart rate response to β-adrenergic stimulation the adenylyl cyclase signal transduction pathway. Diabetic animals (n = 9) ...were hyperglycemic compared to the control group (n = 10) (12.6 ± 1.0 vs. 3.53 ± 0.29 mM). There were no significant differences between the diabetic and nondiabetic groups in the heart rate response to isoproterenol, however, there was a significant reduction (14%) in β-adrenergic receptor density in the right atrium in the diabetic (61 ± 3 fmol/mg protein) versus the nondiabetic group (71 ± 3) (P < 0.05). The content of guanosine triphosphate binding regulatory proteins (Gs and Gi) in the right atrium was not affected by diabetes, nor was adenylyl cyclase activity under unstimulated conditions or with receptor-dependent stimulation with isoproterenol. On the other hand, adenylyl cyclase activity was 34% lower when directly stimulated with forskolin, and it was reduced by 23% when stimulated through Gs with Gpp(NH)p. In conclusion, beta-adrenergic stimulation of heart rate with isoproteronol and the receptor-dependent signal transduction pathway remained intact in the right atrium of diabetic swine despite reduced beta-adrenergic receptor density, G-protein content, and direct stimulation of adenylyl cyclase activity.Key words: diabetes, G-proteins, heart rate, receptors, signal transduction.
Anaphoric epithets of the type the idiot are argued in the spirit of an early proposal by Ray Jackendoff (1972) to be pronouns, & an antilogophoricity constraint is proposed to account for their ...apparently anomalous distribution. Attempts by Howard Lasnik (eg, 1989) to analyze anaphoric epithets as pronominal R-expressions are refuted by adducing English examples showing that they are not subject to condition C of binding theory, as claimed by Lasnik based on Thai data. It is contended that anaphoric epithets are subject only to condition B & have purely pronominal distribution except that a person from whose perspective the epithet is evaluated is excluded from the set of its possible antecedent referents. 11 References. J. Hitchcock
Modern fiscal issues Head, John, G; Bird, Richard, M
Modern fiscal issues,
1972, 20150529, 1972, 2014, 1972-01-01, 1972-12-15
eBook
The contributors to this work, all leading economists in their own right, are a few of the many colleagues, former students, and friends of Carl Shoup who have benefitted from his many years as a ...leading teacher and scholar of public finance. They dedicate this book to their mentor on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, in recognition of his intellectual probity and wide influence on thinking about public finance throughout the last forty years.
Matching the breadth of interest of Professor Shoup's life-long work in the field, this collection of essays covers the range of modern thinking on public finance from theoretical concepts such as public goods to eminently practical fiscal issues like value added tax. The traditional but still relevant fiscal issues-government accounting, international taxation, taxation in developing countries, metropolitan fiscal problems, income taxation, and tax structure-are discussed along with new concerns such as modern public expenditure theory and environmental theory.
The book will be a useful addition to university and college libraries and will prove invaluable to public finance scholars and others interested in modern thinking on vital fiscal issues.
To evaluate the inguinal nodal failure rate in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer with anal canal involvement (ACI) treated with pelvic chemoradiation without elective inguinal irradiation.
...From 1990 and 1998, 536 patients received preoperative or postoperative chemoradiation for rectal cancer with curative intent; 186 patients had ACI (<4 cm from the anal verge on rigid proctoscopy). Two patients had positive inguinal nodes at presentation. Chemoradiation was delivered preoperatively (45 Gy in 25 fraction) or postoperatively (53 Gy in 29 fractions) with concurrent continuous infusion of 5-fluorouracil (300 mg/m2/d). The inguinal region was specifically irradiated in only 2 patients who had documented inguinal nodal disease.
The median follow-up was 50 months. Only 6 of 184 ACI patients who had clinically negative inguinal nodes at presentation developed inguinal nodal recurrence (5-year actuarial rate 4%); 4 of the 6 cases were isolated. Two patients underwent successful salvage. Only 1 died of uncontrolled groin disease. Local control was achieved in both patients with inguinal nodal disease at presentation, but both died of metastatic disease. Only 3 patients with tumors >4 cm from the verge developed inguinal recurrence (5-year actuarial rate <1%).
Inguinal nodal failure in rectal cancer patients with ACI treated with neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemoradiation is not high enough to justify routine elective groin irradiation.
Dobutamine stimulates the beta-receptors in the heart and increases myocardial blood flow and oxygen consumption 2-3-fold, similar to effects seen with exercise. The purpose of this study was to ...assess temporal changes in myocardial interstitial purine metabolites, adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and lactate during and following 30 min of dobutamine infusion.
Dobutamine (15 micrograms/kg/min) was infused via the jugular vein into 9 anesthetized, open-chest, domestic swine. Interstitial fluid was sampled with microdialysis probes placed in the midmyocardium. The effluent from the probes, referred to as the dialysate, was used to estimate myocardial interstitial purine metabolites, AMP, and lactate levels before, during, and following a dobutamine-induced increased work state.
Dobutamine infusion resulted in a 77% increase in heart rate, a 258% increase in left ventricular dP/dt, a 208% increase in myocardial oxygen consumption, and a 155% increase in rate x pressure product. Myocardial blood flow was increased in the subepicardium, midmyocardium, and subendocardium by 207, 268, and 268%, respectively, compared to the control period. Neither coronary venous nor dialysate lactate concentrations changed throughout the protocol. Dialysate adenosine and AMP levels were both significantly elevated (P < 0.05) during the dobutamine period and fell back to control values during the recovery period.
The dobutamine-induced increases in myocardial oxygen consumption, rate x pressure product, and blood flow, without an increase in coronary venous or interstitial lactate suggest that energy balance is maintained during dobutamine infusion. Thus an increase in myocardial work, in the absence of demand-induced ischemia, resulted in accumulation of adenosine and AMP in the interstitium.
To analyze differences in intensive care unit (ICU) utilization between a Canadian province and a U.S. area.
Retrospective data analysis of hospital discharge data and existing data from an ...international study of severity of illness in ICU patients.
Administrative data for the province of Alberta and the four counties of western Massachusetts for the years 1990 to 1991 were used. Detailed data on consecutive ICU admissions from two Alberta hospitals, one western Massachusetts hospital, and 24 other U.S. hospitals for 3 months in 1991 were used.
ICU use and hospital mortality rates were compared for 50,030 hospital admissions divided into 11 patient groups. ICU days per million population were two to three times as great in western Massachusetts as in Alberta. The primary reason was higher ICU incidence (percent of hospitalized patients treated in the ICU) rather than a difference in hospital admission rate or length of ICU stay. ICU incidence in western Massachusetts was significantly higher in ten of 11 patient groups--for the coronary bypass surgery group, there was no difference. The hospital mortality rate in western Massachusetts was similar to, or higher than, the mortality rate in Alberta. In Alberta, a much higher proportion of ICU patients received mechanical ventilation. For elective surgery patients, the ICU severity of illness was lower in western Massachusetts and in other U.S. hospitals than in Alberta.
Western Massachusetts hospitalized patients are more likely to be treated in an ICU than are similar patients in Alberta. There is no evidence that the greater ICU utilization in western Massachusetts led to a lower hospital mortality rate.
PDF
