Water consumption in Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval Croatia.

Patterns of water consumption by past human populations are rarely considered, yet drinking behavior is socially mediated and access to water sources is often socially controlled. Oxygen isotope analysis of archeological human remains is commonly used to identify migrants in the archeological record, but it can also be used to consider water itself, as this technique documents water consumption rather than migration directly. Here, we report an oxygen isotope study of humans and animals from coastal regions of Croatia in the Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval periods. The results show that while faunal values have little diachronic variation, the human data vary through time, and there are wide ranges of values within each period. Our interpretation is that this is not solely a result of mobility, but that human behavior can and did lead to human oxygen isotope ratios that are different from that expected from consumption of local precipitation.

Animal movement on the hoof and on the cart and its implications for understanding exchange within the Indus Civilisation.

Movement of resources was essential to the survival and success of early complex societies. The sources and destinations of goods and the means of transportation - be it by boats, carts and/or foot - can often be inferred, but the logistics of these movements are inherently more difficult to ascertain. Here, we use strontium isotopic analysis to test hypotheses about the role of animal and animal-powered transport in medium and long-distance movement and exchange, using the Indus Civilization as a case study. Across the wide geographical spread of the Indus Civilisation, there is strong evidence for long-distance exchange of raw materials and finished objects and this process is presumed to involve boats and animal-driven transport, although there is little evidence as to the relative importance of each mode of movement. Strontium isotopic analysis of animal remains from four sites analysed for this study combined with results from nine other sites indicates limited long-distance animal movement between different geological zones within the Indus Civilisation. These findings suggest that individual animals primarily moved short- or medium-distances, though there are several significant exceptions seen in some pigs and cattle found at two large urban sites. We infer that long-distance transport of goods, be it raw materials, finished objects, other goods, or the animals themselves, could have occurred through the use of boats and waterways, by traction animals moving over long distances that did not end up in the archaeological record, and/or by different animals participating in many short to medium-distance movements.

Changing cultures, changing cuisines: Cultural transitions and dietary change in Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval Croatia.

Food is well-known to encode social and cultural values, for example different social groups use different consumption patterns to act as social boundaries. When societies and cultures change, whether through drift, through population replacement or other factors, diet may also alter despite unchanging resource availability within a region. This study investigates the extent to which dietary change coincides with cultural change, to understand the effects of large-scale migrations on the populations' diets. Through stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of Iron Age, Roman, and Early Medieval human bone collagen, we show that in Croatia large-scale cultural change led to significant changes in diet. The isotopic evidence indicates that Iron Age diet consisted of C(3) foodstuffs with no isotopic evidence for the consumption of C(4) or marine resources. With the Roman conquest, marine resources were added to the diet, although C(3) foodstuffs continued to play an important role. In the Early Medieval period, this marine component was lost and varying amounts of C(4) foodstuffs, probably millet, were added to the otherwise C(3) diet. In both of these transitions it is likely that the changes in diet are related to the arrival of a new people into the area.

Recurrent mandibular fractures: a retrospective study over 17 years on aetiology, demographics, fracture patterns, and management.

Recurrent fractures of the mandible are rare, however in Darwin, Australia, their occurrence is relatively frequent. This retrospective study identified 127 patients with 148 recurrent mandibular fractures treated at Royal Darwin Hospital between 2000 and 2017. Age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, aetiology, risk factors, anatomical location of the fractures, fracture patterns, and management of the fractures were analysed. The majority of patients were male (85.8%) (P < 0.001); 62.8% were unmarried (P < 0.001) and 72.4% were indigenous (P < 0.001). Alcohol was involved in 79.1% of cases (P < 0.001) and assault was the most common mechanism of injury (84.5%) (P < 0.001). The angle of the mandible was the most common site (P < 0.001), and recurrent fractures were more likely to occur at sites different to a previous fracture fixation site (P < 0.001). Smoking, alcohol abuse, and diabetes were strongly associated with recurrent fractures (all P < 0.001). Most patients were managed with open reduction internal fixation. In conclusion, recurrent fractures of the mandible frequently involved the angle of the mandible and occurred at different sites. Their incidence was more common among the unmarried, male, and indigenous population, and smoking, alcohol abuse, and diabetes were found to be significant risk factors.

Asparaginase entrapped in red blood cells: action and survival.

As a strategy to avoid serious allergic reactions to the antitumor agent asparaginase, this enzyme was entrapped in autologous red blood cells before intravenous injection into monkeys. Additional advantages of this approach are prolonged enzyme half-life and targeting of this agent into the reticuloendothelial system.

Biomass as a source of chemical feedstocks: an economic evaluation.

It is suggested that the raw materials and technology exist for basing a major fraction of the U.S. chemical industry on four fermentation products, used in the proper portions: ethanol, isopropanol, n-butanol, and 2,3-butanediol. The primary route for introduction of these materials is dehydration of the alcohols and diols to olefins, which would cause little disruption of the existing industry downstream from the olefins. The proposed substitution has the advantages that it would provide a smooth transition toward renewable feedstocks, while decreasing dependence on fossil sources of organic material and use of toxic materials. However, to make these materials attractive as feedstocks or intermediates in chemical production, their current prices must be substantially reduced. Even with the optimum mix, their largeseale utilization will only occur at about 20 to 40 percent of their estimated chemical prices.

Biopulping process design and kinetics.

Biopulping is the solid-state fermentation of wood chips as a pretreatment for mechanical pulping processes. The two organisms that are currently of the greatest interest for biopulping are the white-rot fungi, Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Ceriporiopsis subvermispora. P. chrysosporium has been shown to successfully biopulp wood (33% energy savings; 39% improvement in tear index) without the need for sterilization of the wood or nutrient supplementation. Demonstrating the practical and economical feasibility of the biopulping process requires process modeling based on accurate kinetic data. Techniques to monitor dry weight loss and growth rate as functions of time using carbon dioxide production data have been developed. Growth was shown to be linear with time on unsupplemented chips and exponential with time on supplemented chips.

Major burn trauma in rats promotes cardiac and gastrointestinal apoptosis.

The hypothesis that cardiac functional abnormalities that occur after major burn trauma are paralleled by an increased incidence of apoptosis in cardiac myocytes was examined. Adult Sprague-Dawley rats were given a full thickness scald burn comprising 43+/-1% of the total body surface area or were manipulated identically but not exposed to burn injury (sham burn); burned rats were fluid resuscitated with lactated Ringer's solution. Tissues from burn and sham burn animals were then examined by the TUNEL (TdT-mediated dUTP nick end labeling) assay and light microscopy to determine the presence of apoptosis 24 and 48 h after burn trauma. In parallel, the mechanical function of the heart was assayed in separate groups of rats. Tissues harvested from the hearts of sham-treated animals showed essentially no apoptosis, whereas a small number of apoptotic cells were noted in the intestinal villi and liver of sham-treated animals. Twenty-four hours after burn trauma, there was a marked increase in apoptotic cells in the left ventricle (+916%), and the number of apoptotic cells remained increased by eightfold 48 h postburn. Apoptosis was noted predominately in the subendocardial tissue of the left ventricle. The appearance of apoptotic cells was paralleled by a decrease in cardiac mechanical function with significant decreases in left ventricular pressure and +/-dP/dt(max). Burn injury also increased apoptosis in the small intestine significantly, whereas apoptosis in the liver did not increase with burn trauma. These data suggest that the apoptosis of the cardiac myocytes that occurs after burn trauma may contribute, in part, to postburn cardiac mechanical dysfunction.

Willow: a uniform search interface.

The objective of the Willow Project is to develop a uniform search interface that allows a diverse community of users to retrieve information from heterogeneous network-based information resources. Willow separates the user interface from the database management or information retrieval system. It provides a graphic user interface to a variety of information resources residing on diverse hosts, and using different search engines and idiomatic query languages through networked-based client-server and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) protocols. It is based on a "database driver'' model, which allows new database hosts to be added without altering Willow itself. Willow employs a multimedia extension mechanism to launch external viewers to handle data in almost any form. Drivers are currently available for a local BRS/SEARCH system and the Z39.50 protocol. Students, faculty, clinicians, and researchers at the University of Washington are currently offered 30 local and remote databases via Willow. They conduct more than 250,000 sessions a month in libraries, medical centers and clinics, laboratories, and offices, and from home. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is implementing Willow as its uniform search interface to Z39.50 hosts.

Comparing steady counterflow separation with differential chromatography.

Separation of closely related solutes by steady solid-fluid counterflow is compared with differential separation in a fixed chromatographic bed. Analogous expressions for exit concentration and mean residence time in the two systems are presented. A counterpart to chromatographic resolution is derived for binary steady counterflow separations. Estimated counterflow savings in product-concentration dilution, solvent volume requirement and solid-phase volume requirement obtained with these expressions relative to comparable chromatographic operations are compared with experimental results from adsorptive, simulated moving beds. Analysis of a size-exclusion protein separation suggests counterflow substantially decreases solvent and resin usage relative to conventional, batch operation.

Refining the scale-up of chromatographic separations.

The use of heavily loaded columns and complex processing conditions makes scale-up of chromatographic separations a non-trivial process. The wide ranges of process conditions that must be investigated demands that a large number of preliminary experiments must usually be made in small columns and laboratory-scale work stations. These preliminary data can be biased by improper column packing, poor distributors and dispersion in auxiliary apparatus, and it is important to understand these disturbing factors in detail. Moreover, it is precisely at this macroscopic level that our understanding of the chromatographic process is weakest, for large columns as well as small. This paper addresses three of these factors: Efficient elimination of peripheral effects and characterization of both header flow distribution and packing non-uniformity. This will be done using a variety of experimental and analytical approaches including nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, computational fluid dynamics and mass transfer, and careful experimentation.

Adsorptive membrane chromatography for purification of plasmid DNA.

Adsorptive membranes were investigated for the downstream processing of plasmid DNA by quantifying both separation efficiencies and adsorption uptake with the anion-exchange membranes. Separation efficiencies of the 10-ml Mustang-Q were measured using pulses of 6.1-kilo base pair plasmid DNA and lysozyme tracers, and comparing the responses for both conventional and reverse-flow operation. The plasmid exhibited nearly 200 plates/cm, almost as high efficiency as the protein despite the large difference in size. This behavior contrasts strongly with typical behavior for spherical porous particle packings, which predicted large decreases in efficiency with increases in tracer size. Batch adsorption isotherms for the 6.1-kilo base pair plasmid on small sheets of anion-exchange membranes at various ionic strengths showed high capacities for very large biomolecules. The maximum binding capacity for the membrane unit was calculated as 10 mg plasmid/ml, an order of magnitude greater than typical values reported for porous beads.

An anionic galactomannan polysaccharide gum from a newly-isolated lactose-utilizing bacterium. I. Strain description and gum characterization.

As part of an effort to obtain microorganisms able to produce polysaccharide gums from whey and whey permeate, soil samples from farm fields regularly treated with whey were screened for bacteria able to produce gums from lactose. The most promising organism isolated (ATCC 55046) is a facultative anaerobe, tentatively identified as a new Erwinia species on the basis of biochemical and morphological tests. The organism produces a polysaccharide gum from lactose and other sugars (herein named lactan gum) composed of mannose, galactose, and galacturonic acid with an approximate molar ratio of 5:3:2 and containing no organic acid modifying groups. The weight average molecular weight of the gum is approximately 7 x 10(6). Aqueous solutions of lactan gum exhibit shear-thinning and elastic flow behavior with an estimated power law model flow index of 0.26 at 1% (w/w) gum. The viscosity of aqueous 1% (w/w) lactan gum solutions is stable over a pH range of 2-11, being particularly stable in alkaline environments. Aqueous 1% (w/w) gum solutions at pH 5-11 show excellent thermostability, retaining at least 80% of the original viscosity after being heated to 121 degrees C for 15 min. These flow properties indicate potential industrial applications in food and nonfood products requiring a moderate degree of thickening, wet-end additives and coating agents for paper products, ceramics, detergents, and binders for building materials.

Analysis of models for determining intestinal wall permeabilities.

In determining intestinal wall permeabilities, several mass transport models may be applied to analyze the results from external perfusion experiments. The appropriateness of any given model depends on the applicability of the model assumptions to the experimental system. This report compares several mass transport models with respect to their assumptions and applicability to a particular experimental design. The models are shown to differ in their assumptions regarding convection and diffusion in the perfusing fluid. However, since the wall permeability is an unknown parameter in each model and is estimated from the data, all of the models fit the mass transfer results reasonably well, despite fundamentally different assumptions. However, the determined permeabilities differ. Residence time distribution analysis of the experimental system is more sensitive to the model assumptions. It is shown that, in a particular experimental system, laminar flow in a cylindrical tube is the most appropriate model. The model also has the advantage of implicitly accounting for the convection-diffusion problem in the perfusing fluid. Hence, the diffusion layer thickness is not estimated from the data. With the hydrodynamics defined, the relative permeabilities resulting from the application of the several models to the data can be interpreted. The wall permeability determined in the suggested manner provides an estimate of the limiting assistance under perfect mixing conditions.

Neurophysiological effects of prolonged cooling of the calf in patients with complete spinal transection.

The neurophysiological effects of prolonged cooling were examined in seven patients with complete spinal lesions. The twitch tension of the soleus muscle, the direct (M-wave) and relfex (H-wave) response to electrical stimulation of the popliteal nerve, the Achilles tendon reflex (ATR) and the degree of inhibition of the H-wave by muscle vibration were recorded before and after a minimum of forty-five minutes cooling of the calf. Changes in the configuration of the M-wave occurred, suggesting that cooling results in slowing of conduction in muscle or motor nerve fibers. Prolongation of the twitch contraction and half relaxation time was observed, implying that the contractile mechanism of the muscle is affected. A significant decrease in the ATR/M ratio was observed, indicating that cooling, in addition, affects the muscle spindle or its connections. No significant alterations in the H/M ratio or in the degree of suppression of the H-wave by vibration were observed.

Effect of a bradykinin antagonist on the local inflammatory response following thermal injury.

Partial and full thickness burns with intervening zones of stasis were created on the backs on New Zealand White rabbits (n = 23). Either saline or the bradykinin receptor antagonist, NPC 17731, was administered. Skin blood flow was measured hourly using a laser Doppler blood flowmeter. After 4 h skin samples were harvested for assessment of tissue oedema (wet/dry weights) and leucocyte accumulation (immunohistochemistry). Statistical analysis was performed using Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Mann-Whitney U test with a level of significance at P < 0.05. It was found that blood flow was decreased postburn in all groups. Bradykinin antagonist resulted in increased blood flow in partial thickness burns and zones of stasis compared to saline-treated animals (P < 0.05). Pretreatment with bradykinin antagonist showed reduced tissue oedema in full thickness burns (P < 0.05). No significant difference was observed in leucocyte accumulation between both groups. These data suggest a role for bradykinin in the pathogenesis of postburn microvascular changes which is independent of leucocyte-mediated injury.

Microcirculatory mass transfer.

The dynamics of Krogh tissue cylinders and related structures are critically reviewed to determine the roles of underlying transport and reaction processes, and the interactions between them. Emphasis is put on the gaining of insight through efficient scaling procedures, and discussion is organized about the time constants characteristic of these structures and the processes occurring in them. The basis of discussion is a new analytic solution technique which provides a formal description of indefinitely large arrays of parallel interacting elements and which includes both axial diffusion and uniform convection as well as first or zero order reaction within each element. The solution has the form of an expansion in the eigenfunctions of a non-self-adjoint differential operator. Comparison of model predictions with previously available results identifies the useful parameter ranges of analytic approximations and determines the accuracy of existing numerical procedures.

Inhibition of leukocyte adherence in a rabbit model of major thermal injury.

Leukocytes and the process of leukocyte adherence have been implicated in the pathogenesis of organ dysfunction after ischemic injury and inflammation. We asked the question: Will inhibition of leukocyte adherence by administration of a monoclonal antibody to intercellular adhesion molecule alter the systemic response to major thermal injury? New Zealand white rabbits instrumented to measure mean arterial pressure, cardiac output, urine output, and arterial oxygenation were deeply anesthetized, and 30% total body surface area full-thickness burn was created by applying brass probes heated to 100 degrees C to the animals' backs for 15 seconds. The animals were continuously monitored, resuscitated, and given analgesic for 24 hours. There were three experimental groups: I-controls (n = 7), anesthetized and monitored; II-30% burn (n = 7) given 30% total body surface area + vehicle (saline solution 1.0 ml/kg every 8 hours); III-30% burn + R6.5 (n = 6) animals given a monoclonal antibody (R6.5, 2.0 mg/kg every 8 hours) directed against the intercellular adhesion molecule beginning 30 minutes after burn. This model of a 30% total body surface area burn injury resulted in hypotension and hypoxemia in the burn group. The animals given the antibody R6.5 maintained higher mean arterial pressure and arterial oxygenation at several points. These results suggest that leukocytes and leukocyte adherence may be involved in the pathogenesis of the systemic sequellae of major thermal injury.