Performance comparison of an active matrix flat panel imager, computed radiography system, and a screen-film system at four standard radiation qualities.

Four standard radiation qualities (from RQA 3 to RQA 9) were used to compare the imaging performance of a computed radiography (CR) system (general purpose and high resolution phosphor plates of a Kodak CR 9000 system), a selenium-based direct flat panel detector (Kodak Direct View DR 9000), and a conventional screen-film system (Kodak T-MAT L/RA film with a 3M Trimax Regular screen of speed 400) in conventional radiography. Reference exposure levels were chosen according to the manufacturer's recommendations to be representative of clinical practice (exposure index of 1700 for digital systems and a film optical density of 1.4). With the exception of the RQA 3 beam quality, the exposure levels needed to produce a mean digital signal of 1700 were higher than those needed to obtain a mean film optical density of 1.4. In spite of intense developments in the field of digital detectors, screen-film systems are still very efficient detectors for most of the beam qualities used in radiology. An important outcome of this study is the behavior of the detective quantum efficiency of the digital radiography (DR) system as a function of beam energy. The practice of users to increase beam energy when switching from a screen-film system to a CR system, in order to improve the compromise between patient dose and image quality, might not be appropriate when switching from screen-film to selenium-based DR systems.

Department of Transportation Performance Plan, Iowa Department of Transportation, 2007

Performance plan for Iowa Department of Transportation.

Lane Closure Policy Development, Enforcement, and Exceptions: A Survey of Seven State Transportation Agencies, February 2007

Traffic volume increases and an aging infrastructure create the need for reconstruction, rehabilitation, and maintenance of existing facilities. As more motorists feel that delays should be minimal during highway renewal projects, lane closures that reduce capacity through the work zone should not create unreasonable delays. In order to facilitate the determination of when a lane closure is permitted during the day, some state transportation agencies (STAs) have developed lane closure policies, or strategies, that they use as guidance in determining daily permitted lane closure times. Permitted lane closure times define what times of the day, week, or season a lane closure is allowed on a facility and at a specific location or segment. This research addresses the lane closure policies of several STAs that were reputed to have good lane closures policies or strategies and that were selected by the project advisory committee for further research.

Secondary Accident Data Fusion for Assessing Long-Term Performance of Transportation Systems, 2007

Secondary accident statistics can be useful for studying the impact of traffic incident management strategies. An easy-to-implement methodology is presented for classifying secondary accidents using data fusion of a police accident database with intranet incident reports. A current method for classifying secondary accidents uses a static threshold that represents the spatial and temporal region of influence of the primary accident, such as two miles and one hour. An accident is considered secondary if it occurs upstream from the primary accident and is within the duration and queue of the primary accident. However, using the static threshold may result in both false positives and negatives because accident queues are constantly varying. The methodology presented in this report seeks to improve upon this existing method by making the threshold dynamic. An incident progression curve is used to mark the end of the queue throughout the entire incident. Four steps in the development of incident progression curves are described. Step one is the processing of intranet incident reports. Step two is the filling in of incomplete incident reports. Step three is the nonlinear regression of incident progression curves. Step four is the merging of individual incident progression curves into one master curve. To illustrate this methodology, 5,514 accidents from Missouri freeways were analyzed. The results show that secondary accidents identified by dynamic versus static thresholds can differ by more than 30%.

Up-regulation of the levels of expression and function of a constitutively active mutant of the hamster alpha1B-adrenoceptor by ligands that act as inverse agonists.

The alpha1-adrenergic agonist phenylephrine stimulated phospholipase D (PLD) activity in Rat 1 fibroblasts transfected to express either the wild-type hamster alpha1B-adrenoceptor or a constitutively active mutant (CAM) form of this receptor. The EC50 for agonist stimulation of PLD activity was substantially lower at the CAM receptor than at the wild-type receptor as previously noted for phenylephrine stimulation of phosphoinositidase C activity. Sustained treatment of cells expressing the CAM alpha1B-adrenoceptor with phentolamine resulted in a marked up-regulation in levels of this receptor with half-maximal effects produced within 24 h and with an EC50 of approx. 40 nM. Such an up-regulation could be produced with a range of other ligands generally viewed as alpha1-adrenoceptor antagonists but equivalent treatment of cells expressing the wild-type alpha1B-adrenoceptor was unable to mimic these effects. After sustained treatment of the CAM alpha1B-adrenoceptor expressing cells with phentolamine, basal PLD activity was increased and phenylephrine was now able to stimulate PLD activity to greater levels than in vehicle-treated CAM alpha1B-adrenoceptor-expressing cells. The EC50 for phenylephrine stimulation of PLD activity was not altered, however, by phentolamine pretreatment and the associated up-regulation of the receptor. After phentolamine-induced up-regulation of basal PLD activity, a range of alpha1-antagonists were shown to possess the characteristics of inverse agonists of the CAM alpha1B-adrenoceptor as they were able to substantially decrease the elevated basal PLD activity.

Fiscal Year 2008-2012 Iowa Transportation Improvement Program

This document was prepared by the Iowa Department of Transportation to inform Iowans of planned investments in the state's transportation system over the next five years.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific CD8+ T cells are functionally and phenotypically different between latent infection and active disease.

Protective immunity to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) remains poorly understood and the role of Mtb-specific CD8(+) T cells is controversial. Here we performed a broad phenotypic and functional characterization of Mtb-specific CD8(+) T cells in 326 subjects with latent Mtb infection (LTBI) or active TB disease (TB). Mtb-specific CD8(+) T cells were detected in most (60%) TB patients and few (15%) LTBI subjects but were of similar magnitude. Mtb-specific CD8(+) T cells in LTBI subjects were mostly T EMRA cells (CD45RA(+) CCR7(-)), coexpressing 2B4 and CD160, and in TB patients were mostly TEM cells (CD45RA(-) CCR7(-)), expressing 2B4 but lacking PD-1 and CD160. The cytokine profile was not significantly different in both groups. Furthermore, Mtb-specific CD8(+) T cells expressed low levels of perforin and granulysin but contained granzymes A and B. However, in vitro-expanded Mtb-specific CD8(+) T cells expressed perforin and granulysin. Finally, Mtb-specific CD8(+) T-cell responses were less frequently detected in extrapulmonary TB compared with pulmonary TB patients. Mtb-specific CD8(+) T-cell proliferation was also greater in patients with extrapulmonary compared with pulmonary TB. Thus, the activity of Mtb infection and clinical presentation are associated with distinct profiles of Mtb-specific CD8(+) T-cell responses. These results provide new insights in the interaction between Mtb and the host immune response.

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Transportation for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Transportation for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Transportation for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa Department of Transportation for the year ended June 30, 2006

Iowa Department of Transportation; Equipment and Vehicle Purchase Report for Fiscal Year 2007

This is the Iowa Department of Transportation's Equipment and Vehicle Purchase Report for Fiscal Year 2007 as required by Iowa Code section 307.47. The report is sorted by our accounting object codes.

Iowa Department of Transportation Office of Contracts Letting Summary July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007

Twelve regularly scheduled lettings and seven emergency/special lettings were held by the Iowa Department of Transportation for construction and maintenance work during the period covered by this report. At these lettings, projects totaling $492,299,871 were approved.

A quantitative analysis of antagonism and inverse agonism at wild-type and constitutively active hamster alpha1B-adrenoceptors.

In order to characterize inverse agonism at alpha1B-adrenoceptors, we have compared the concentration-response relationships of several quinazoline and non-quinazoline alpha1-adrenoceptor antagonists at cloned hamster wild-type (WT) alpha1B-adrenoceptors and a constitutively active mutant (CAM) thereof upon stable expression in Rat-1 fibroblasts. Receptor activation or inhibition thereof was assessed as [3H]inositol phosphate (IP) accumulation. Quinazoline (alfuzosin, doxazosin, prazosin, terazosin) and non-quinazoline alpha1-adrenoceptor antagonists (BE 2254, SB 216,469, tamsulosin) concentration-dependently inhibited phenylephrine-stimulated IP formation at both WT and CAM with Ki values similar to those previously found in radioligand binding studies. At CAM in the absence of phenylephrine, the quinazolines produced concentration-dependent inhibition of basal IP formation; the maximum inhibition was approximately 55%, and the corresponding EC50 values were slightly smaller than the Ki values. In contrast, BE 2254 produced much less inhibition of basal IP formation, SB 216,469 was close to being a neutral antagonist, and tamsulosin even weakly stimulated IP formation. The inhibitory effects of the quinazolines and BE 2254 as well as the stimulatory effect of tamsulosin were equally blocked by SB 216,469 at CAM. At WT in the absence of phenylephrine, tamsulosin did not cause significant stimulation and none of the other compounds caused significant inhibition of basal IP formation. We conclude that alpha1-adrenoceptor antagonsits with a quinazoline structure exhibit greater efficacy as inverse agonists than those without.

Iowa Department of Transportation report on funds received from the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund, the State Recreational Trails Fund, the Health Restricted Capitals and the Rail Revolving Loan and Grant Program in fiscal year 2007

House file 2782 (2007 Infrastructure Appropriations Act) requires state agencies that receive appropriations from specific funds to report that information. The Iowa Department of Transportation received funds from the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund, the State Recreational Trails Fund, the Health Restricted Capitals, and the Rail Revolving Loan and Grant Program in FY 2007. These are the status reports for those funds and the status of the FY2006 funds received from the State Recreational Trails Fund, the Rebuild Iowa Infrastructure Fund and the Tobacco Settlement Trust Fund.

Identification of active oxalotrophic bacteria by Bromodeoxyuridine DNA labeling in a microcosm soil experiments

The oxalate-carbonate pathway (OCP) leads to a potential carbon sink in terrestrial environments. This process is linked to the activity of oxalotrophic bacteria. Although isolation and molecular characterizations are used to study oxalotrophic bacteria, these approaches do not give information on the active oxalotrophs present in soil undergoing the OCP. The aim of this study was to assess the diversity of active oxalotrophic bacteria in soil microcosms using the Bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) DNA labeling technique. Soil was collected near an oxalogenic tree (Milicia excelsa). Different concentrations of calcium oxalate (0.5%, 1%, and 4% w/w) were added to the soil microcosms and compared with an untreated control. After 12days of incubation, a maximal pH of 7.7 was measured for microcosms with oxalate (initial pH 6.4). At this time point, a DGGE profile of the frc gene was performed from BrdU-labeled soil DNA and unlabeled soil DNA. Actinobacteria (Streptomyces- and Kribbella-like sequences), Gammaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria were found as the main active oxalotrophic bacterial groups. This study highlights the relevance of Actinobacteria as members of the active bacterial community and the identification of novel uncultured oxalotrophic groups (i.e. Kribbella) active in soils.