Electron identification and reconstruction with the OPERA ECC bricks and search for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations

The procedure for event location in OPERA ECC has been optimazed for penetrating particles while is less efficient for electrons. For this reason new procedure has been defined in order to recover event with an electromagnetic shower in its final state not located with the standard one. The new procedure include the standard procedure during which several electromagnetic shower hint has been defined by means of the available data. In case the event is not located, the presence of an electromagnetic shower hint trigger a dedicated procedure. The old and new location procedure has been then simulated in order to obtain the standard location efficiency and the possible gain due to the new one for the events with electromagnetic shower. Finally a Data-MC comparison has been performed for the 2008 and 2009 runs for what concern the NC in order to validate the Monte Carlo. Then the expected electron neutrino interactions for the 2008 and 2009 runs has been evaluated and compared with the available data.

Teacher resistance to school-based consultation with the school psychologist: An analysis according to school level and model of identification for special education services

Consultation is promoted throughout school psychology literature as a best practice in service delivery. This method has numerous benefits including being able to work with more students at one time, providing practitioners with preventative rather than strictly reactive strategies, and helping school professionals meet state and federal education mandates and initiatives. Despite the benefits of consultation, teachers are sometimes resistant to this process.This research studies variables hypothesized to lead to resistance (Gonzalez, Nelson, Gutkin, & Shwery, 2004) and attempts to distinguish differences between school level (elementary, middle and high school) with respect to the role played by these variables and to determine if the model used to identify students for special education services has an influence on resistance factors. Twenty-sixteachers in elementary and middle schools responded to a demographicquestionnaire and a survey developed by Gonzalez, et al. (2004). This survey measures eight variables related to resistance to consultation. No high school teachers responded to the request to participate. Results of analysis of variance indicated a significant difference in the teaching efficacy subscale with elementary teachers reporting more efficacy in teaching than middle school teachers. Results also indicate a significant difference in classroom managementefficacy with teachers who work in schools that identify students according to a Response to Intervention model reporting higher classroom management efficacy than teachers who work in schools that identify students according to a combined method of refer-test-place/RtI combination model. Implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Identification of the signal pathways modulated by expression of p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ and the inhibition of p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ transforming activity by polypeptides interacting with p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ in murine myeloid 32D cells

The Bcr-Abl fusion oncogene which resulted from a balanced reciprocal translocation between chromosome 9 and 22, t(9;22)(q11, q34), encodes a 210 KD elevated tyrosine specific protein kinase that is found in more than 95 percent of chronic myelogenous leukemia patients (CML). Increase of level of phosphorylation of tyrosine is observed on cell cycle regulatory proteins in cells overexpressing the Bcr-Abl oncogene, which activates multiple signaling pathways. In addition, distinct signals are required for transforming susceptible fibroblast and hematopoietic cells, and the minimal signals essential for transforming hematopoietic cells are yet to be defined. In the present study, we first established a tetracycline repressible p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ expression system in a murine myeloid cell line 32D c13, which depends on IL3 to grow in the presence of tetracycline and proliferate independent of IL3 in the absence of tetracycline. Interestingly, one of these sublines does not form tumors in athymic nude mice suggesting that these cells may not be completely transformed. These cells also exhibit a dose-dependent growth and expression of p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ at varying concentrations of tetracycline in the culture. However, p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ rescues IL3 deprivation induced apoptosis in a non-dose dependent fashion. DNA genotoxic damage induced by gamma-irradiation activates c-Abl tyrosine kinase, the cellular homologue of p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl},$ and leads to activation of p38 MAP kinase in the cells. However, in the presence of p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ the irradiation failed to activate the p38 MAP kinase as examined by an antibody against phosphorylated p38 MAP kinase. Similarly, an altered tyrosine phosphorylation of the JAK1-STAT1 pathways was identified in cells constitutively overexpressing p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}.$ This may provided a molecular mechanism for altered therapeutic response of CML patients to IFN-$\alpha.$^ Bcr-Abl oncoprotein has multiple functional domains which have been identified by the work of others. The Bcr tetramerization domain, which may function to stabilize the association of the Bcr-Abl with actin filaments in p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ susceptible cells, are essential for transforming both fibroblast and hematopoietic cells. We designed a transcription unit encoding first 160 amino acids polypeptide of Bcr protein to test if this polypeptide can inhibit the transforming activity of the p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ oncoprotein in the 32D c13 cells. When this vector was transfected transiently along with the p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ expression vector, it can block the transforming activity of p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}.$ On the other hand, the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (Rb), a naturally occurring negative regulator of the c-Abl kinase, the cellular homologue of Bcr-Abl oncoprotein, binds to and inhibits the c-Abl kinase in a cell cycle dependent manner. A polypeptide obtained from the carboxyl terminal end of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein, in which the nuclear localization signal was mutated, was used to inhibit the kinase activity of the p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ in the cytoplasm. This polypeptide, called Rb MC-box, and its wild type form, Rb C-box, when overexpressed in the 32D cells are mainly localized in the cytoplasm. Cotransfection of a plasmid transcription unit coding for this polypeptide and the gene for the p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ resulted in reduced plating efficiency of p210$\rm\sp{bcr-abl}$ transfected IL3 independent 32D cells. Together, these results may lead to a molecular approach to therapy of CML and an in vitro assay system to identify new targets to which an inhibitory polypeptide transcription unit may be directed. ^

Electron reconstruction and identification efficiency measurements with the ATLAS detector using the 2011 LHC proton-proton collision data

Many of the interesting physics processes to be measured at the LHC have a signature involving one or more isolated electrons. The electron reconstruction and identification efficiencies of the ATLAS detector at the LHC have been evaluated using proton–proton collision data collected in 2011 at √s = 7 TeV and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb−1. Tag-and-probe methods using events with leptonic decays of W and Z bosons and J/ψ mesons are employed to benchmark these performance parameters. The combination of all measurements results in identification efficiencies determined with an accuracy at the few per mil level for electron transverse energy greater than 30 GeV.

Combining a Similar Coefficient Identification Algorithm with the Boundary Element Method

The boundary element method (BEM) has been applied successfully to many engineering problems during the last decades. Compared with domain type methods like the finite element method (FEM) or the finite difference method (FDM) the BEM can handle problems where the medium extends to infinity much easier than domain type methods as there is no need to develop special boundary conditions (quiet or absorbing boundaries) or infinite elements at the boundaries introduced to limit the domain studied. The determination of the dynamic stiffness of arbitrarily shaped footings is just one of these fields where the BEM has been the method of choice, especially in the 1980s. With the continuous development of computer technology and the available hardware equipment the size of the problems under study grew and, as the flop count for solving the resulting linear system of equations grows with the third power of the number of equations, there was a need for the development of iterative methods with better performance. In [1] the GMRES algorithm was presented which is now widely used for implementations of the collocation BEM. While the FEM results in sparsely populated coefficient matrices, the BEM leads, in general, to fully or densely populated ones, depending on the number of subregions, posing a serious memory problem even for todays computers. If the geometry of the problem permits the surface of the domain to be meshed with equally shaped elements a lot of the resulting coefficients will be calculated and stored repeatedly. The present paper shows how these unnecessary operations can be avoided reducing the calculation time as well as the storage requirement. To this end a similar coefficient identification algorithm (SCIA), has been developed and implemented in a program written in Fortran 90. The vertical dynamic stiffness of a single pile in layered soil has been chosen to test the performance of the implementation. The results obtained with the 3-d model may be compared with those obtained with an axisymmetric formulation which are considered to be the reference values as the mesh quality is much better. The entire 3D model comprises more than 35000 dofs being a soil region with 21168 dofs the biggest single region. Note that the memory necessary to store all coefficients of this single region is about 6.8 GB, an amount which is usually not available with personal computers. In the problem under study the interface zone between the two adjacent soil regions as well as the surface of the top layer may be meshed with equally sized elements. In this case the application of the SCIA leads to an important reduction in memory requirements. The maximum memory used during the calculation has been reduced to 1.2 GB. The application of the SCIA thus permits problems to be solved on personal computers which otherwise would require much more powerful hardware.

Identification of the proton pathway in bacterial reaction centers: Replacement of Asp-M17 and Asp-L210 with Asn reduces the proton transfer rate in the presence of Cd2+

The reaction center (RC) from Rhodobacter sphaeroides converts light into chemical energy through the reduction and protonation of a bound quinone molecule QB (the secondary quinone electron acceptor). We investigated the proton transfer pathway by measuring the proton-coupled electron transfer, kAB(2) [QA⨪QB⨪ + H+ → QA(QBH)−] in native and mutant RCs in the absence and presence of Cd2+. Previous work has shown that the binding of Cd2+ decreases kAB(2) in native RCs ≈100-fold. The preceding paper shows that bound Cd2+ binds to Asp-H124, His-H126, and His-H128. This region represents the entry point for protons. In this work we investigated the proton transfer pathway connecting the entry point with QB⨪ by searching for mutations that greatly affect kAB(2) (≳10-fold) in the presence of Cd2+, where kAB(2) is limited by the proton transfer rate (kH). Upon mutation of Asp-L210 or Asp-M17 to Asn, kH decreased from ≈60 s−1 to ≈7 s−1, which shows the important role that Asp-L210 and Asp-M17 play in the proton transfer chain. By comparing the rate of proton transfer in the mutants (kH ≈ 7 s−1) with that in native RCs in the absence of Cd2+ (kH ≥ 104 s−1), we conclude that alternate proton transfer pathways, which have been postulated, are at least 103-fold less effective.

Identification of the proton pathway in bacterial reaction centers: Both protons associated with reduction of QB to QBH2 share a common entry point

The reaction center from Rhodobacter sphaeroides uses light energy for the reduction and protonation of a quinone molecule, QB. This process involves the transfer of two protons from the aqueous solution to the protein-bound QB molecule. The second proton, H+(2), is supplied to QB by Glu-L212, an internal residue protonated in response to formation of QA− and QB−. In this work, the pathway for H+(2) to Glu-L212 was studied by measuring the effects of divalent metal ion binding on the protonation of Glu-L212, which was assayed by two types of processes. One was proton uptake from solution after the one-electron reduction of QA (DQA→D+QA−) and QB (DQB→D+QB−), studied by using pH-sensitive dyes. The other was the electron transfer kAB(1) (QA−QB→QAQB−). At pH 8.5, binding of Zn2+, Cd2+, or Ni2+ reduced the rates of proton uptake upon QA− and QB− formation as well as kAB(1) by ≈an order of magnitude, resulting in similar final values, indicating that there is a common rate-limiting step. Because D+QA− is formed 105-fold faster than the induced proton uptake, the observed rate decrease must be caused by an inhibition of the proton transfer. The Glu-L212→Gln mutant reaction centers displayed greatly reduced amplitudes of proton uptake and exhibited no changes in rates of proton uptake or electron transfer upon Zn2+ binding. Therefore, metal binding specifically decreased the rate of proton transfer to Glu-L212, because the observed rates were decreased only when proton uptake by Glu-L212 was required. The entry point for the second proton H+(2) was thus identified to be the same as for the first proton H+(1), close to the metal binding region Asp-H124, His-H126, and His-H128.

Identification of human DNA helicase V with the far upstream element-binding protein

The properties of human DNA helicase V (HDH V) were studied in greater detail following an improved purification procedure. From 450 g of cultured cells, <0.1 mg of pure protein was isolated. HDH V unwinds DNA unidirectionally by moving in the 3′ to 5′ direction along the bound strand in an ATP- and Mg2+-dependent fashion. The enzyme is not processive and can also unwind partial RNA–RNA duplexes such as HDH IV and HDH VIII. The Mr determined by SDS–PAGE (66 kDa) corresponds to that measured under native conditions, suggesting that HDH V exists as a monomer in the nucleus. Microsequencing of the purified HDH V shows that this enzyme is identical to the far upstream element-binding protein (FBP), a protein that stimulates the activity of the c-myc gene by binding specifically to the ‘FUSE’ DNA region localized upstream of its promoter. The sequence of HDH V/FBP contains RGG motifs like HDH IV/nucleolin, HDH VIII/G3BP as well as other human RNA and DNA helicases identified by other laboratories.

Identification of the zinc-dependent endothelial cell binding protein for high molecular weight kininogen and factor XII: identity with the receptor that binds to the globular "heads" of C1q (gC1q-R).

High molecular weight kininogen (HK) and factor XII are known to bind to human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) in a zinc-dependent and saturable manner indicating that HUVEC express specific binding site(s) for those proteins. However, identification and immunochemical characterization of the putative receptor site(s) has not been previously accomplished. In this report, we have identified a cell surface glycoprotein that is a likely candidate for the HK binding site on HUVECs. When solubilized HUVEC membranes were subjected to an HK-affinity column in the presence or absence of 50 microM ZnCl2 and the bound membrane proteins eluted, a single major protein peak was obtained only in the presence of zinc. SDS/PAGE analysis and silver staining of the protein peak revealed this protein to be 33 kDa and partial sequence analysis matched the NH2 terminus of gC1q-R, a membrane glycoprotein that binds to the globular "heads" of C1q. Two other minor proteins of approximately 70 kDa and 45 kDa were also obtained. Upon analysis by Western blotting, the 33-kDa band was found to react with several monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) recognizing different epitopes on gC1q-R. Ligand and dot blot analyses revealed zinc-dependent binding of biotinylated HK as well as biotinylated factor XII to the isolated 33-kDa HUVEC molecule as well as recombinant gC1q-R. In addition, binding of 125I-HK to HUVEC cells was inhibited by selected monoclonal anti-gC1q-R antibodies. C1q, however, did not inhibit 125I-HK binding to HUVEC nor did those monoclonals known to inhibit C1q binding to gC1q-R. Taken together, the data suggest that HK (and factor XII) bind to HUVECs via a 33-kDa cell surface glycoprotein that appears to be identical to gC1q-R but interact with a site on gC1q-R distinct from that which binds C1q.

Identification and characterization of a Drosophila nuclear receptor with the ability to inhibit the ecdysone response.

In a search for retinoid X receptor-like molecules in Drosophila, we have identified an additional member of the nuclear receptor superfamily, XR78E/F. In the DNA-binding domain, XR78E/F is closely related to the mammalian receptor TR2, as well as to the nuclear receptors Coup-TF and Seven-up. We demonstrate that XR78E/F binds as a homodimer to direct repeats of the sequence AGGTCA. In transient transfection assays, XR78E/F represses ecdysone signaling in a DNA-binding-dependent fashion. XR78E/F has its highest expression in third-instar larvae and prepupae. These experiments suggest that XR78E/F may play a regulatory role in the transcriptional cascade triggered by the hormone ecdysone in Drosophila.

"Every bird" a guide to the identification of the birds of woodland, beach and ocean. With one hundred and twenty-four line illustrations

Mode of access: Internet.

The history of Jimmy Lee : an ambassador of Christ : of small stature, with a large heart, which kept his tongue in constant exercise with the King's message for fifty-two years /

Cover title: Jimmy Lee.

Esther and Ahasuerus : an identification of the persons so named, followed by a history of the thirty-five years that ended at their marriage, with notes and an index ... /

Mode of access: Internet.

Annual message of the mayor of the city of Philadelphia with the annual reports of directors of departments.

Title varies slightly.