Optimizing floating treatment wetland and retention pond design through random forest: A meta-analysis of influential variables.

Floating treatment wetlands (FTWs), artificial systems constructed from buoyant mats and planted with emergent macrophytes, represent a potential retrofit to enhance the dissolved nutrient removal performance of existing retention ponds. Treatment occurs as water flows through the dense network of roots suspended in the water column, providing opportunities for pollutants to be removed via filtration, sedimentation, plant uptake, and adsorption to biofilms in the root zone. Despite several recent review articles summarizing the growing body of research on FTWs, FTW design guidance and strategies to optimize their contributions to pollutant removal from stormwater are lacking, due in part to a lack of statistical analysis on FTW performance at the field scale.

Evaluation of six methods for external attachment of electronic tags to fish: assessment of tag retention, growth and fish welfare.

External attachment of electronic tags has been increasingly used in fish studies. Many researchers have used ad hoc attachment methods and provided little or no validation for the assumption that tagging itself does not bias animal behaviour or survival. The authors compared six previously published methods for externally attaching acoustic transmitters to fish in a tank holding experiment with black sea bass Centropristis striata (L.

Integrating cultural community psychology: activity settings and the shared meanings of intersubjectivity.

Cultural and community psychology share a common emphasis on context, yet their leading journals rarely cite each other's articles. Greater integration of the concepts of culture and community within and across their disciplines would enrich and facilitate the viability of cultural community psychology. The contextual theory of activity settings is proposed as one means to integrate the concepts of culture and community in cultural community psychology.

Evaluation of intraosseous delivery of factor VIIa during hemorraghic shock in the pig.

The purpose of this investigation is to determine if intraosseous infusion (IO) is a suitable method for the delivery of recombinant human factor VIIa (rFVIIa) during hemorrhagic shock. The measures that were used to evaluate IO delivery suitability included: (1) determination of clinically significant local or systemic toxicity and (2) demonstration that systemic blood levels of rFVIIa increased rapidly following administration. Our results indicate that there was no evidence of significant local or systemic toxicity following infusion and that the systemic blood concentration of rFVIIa peaks immediately after the end of infusion.

Pten regulates neuronal soma size: a mouse model of Lhermitte-Duclos disease.

Somatic inactivation of PTEN occurs in different human tumors including glioblastoma, endometrial carcinoma and prostate carcinoma. Germline mutations in PTEN result in a range of phenotypic abnormalities that occur with variable penetrance, including neurological features such as macrocephaly, seizures, ataxia and Lhermitte-Duclos disease (also described as dysplastic gangliocytoma of the cerebellum). Homozygous deletion of Pten causes embryonic lethality in mice.

Differential strain susceptibility following 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) administration acts in an autosomal dominant fashion: quantitative analysis in seven strains of Mus musculus.

1-Methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) has been used as a potent neurotoxin to approximate, in animals, the pathology that is observed in human Parkinson's disease. In this study, we examine the toxicity of MPTP in seven strains of mice, spanning a genetic continuum of Mus musculus as a prelude to uncovering complex traits associated with MPTP toxicity. Seven days following injection of 80 mg/kg MPTP (4x20 mg/kg every 2 h), we find that the individual mouse strains exhibit dramatic differences in SNpc neuron survival, ranging from 63% cell loss in C57BL/6J mice to 14% cell loss in Swiss-Webster (SW) mice.

Cultural diversity and treatment of children.

The increasing cultural diversity of child clients has produced a cascade of new issues and concerns for psychological practice, theory, and research. Available evidence and pertinent theory are reviewed on such topics as the predictive utility and treatment consequences of ethnic membership, whether treatments should be generic or specific to cultural groups, the degree of privilege that should be accorded to same-culture therapists, and the relative desirability of different modalities of treatment for children of different cultural groups. The concept of cultural compatibility of treatment is explored and evaluated.

Creatinine, lactam and cyclic peptide formation by the action of C2N2 on creatine, omega-amino acids and peptides.

Cyanogen, C2N2, affords a means to drive intramolecular conversion of ammonium salts to amides. Unlike other carboxyl activating agents, such as carbodiimides, used in peptide syntheses expressly to drive intermolecular condensations to form amide (peptide) bonds, C2N2 appears restricted to driving only intramolecular condensations. Rates decreased as a function of solvent composition as follows: organic much greater than 70%-80% aqueous organic much greater than 50% aqueous organic greater than H2O.

Evaluation of 3-(p-fluorophenyl)-L-alanyl-3-[m-bis-(2-chloroethyl) aminophenyl]-L-alanyl-L-methionine ethyl ester HCl (PTT.119) against xenografts of human rhabdomyosarcoma.

PTT.119 [p-F-phe-m-bis(2-chloroethyl)amino-L-phe-met ethoxy HCl], a synthetic tripeptide mustard, was evaluated for therapeutic efficacy against a spectrum of childhood rhabdomyosarcomas (RMS) maintained as xenografts in immune-deprived mice. These xenografts were established from previously untreated tumors, and sublines were selected in mice for resistance to L-phenylalanine mustard (L-PAM).

The logical status of metacognitive training.

It is argued that knowing-how (to perform) is not dependent on knowing-that (knowing propositions about performance). Existing evidence allows any benefits from "metacognitive" training to be attributed to generalization training, not to the announcement of rules. Rules may encourage the subject to learn new tasks, but these tasks must be learned in the contexts of eventual application.

Kinetics of DNA methylation by the tobacco-specific carcinogen 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone in F344 rats.

The carcinogen 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK) was injected intravenously (0.41 mmol/kg) into F344 rats. DNA from target organs (lung, liver) and a non-target organ (kidney) was extracted hydrolysed and analysed for methylated guanines by cation-exchange high-performance liquid chromotography-fluorimetry.

A verbal behavior analysis of auditory hallucinations.

A review of recent research on the non-medical control of auditory hallucinations is presented. It is suggested that the decreases in hallucinatory behavior obtained in studies using aversive contingencies may be attributable to the disruption of the chains of behavior involved. The results of several additional studies are interpreted as indicating that methods of stimulus control and the use of incompatible behaviors may be effective in reducing the rate of auditory hallucinations.

Use of active patient follow-up in cancer registries for designing epidemiologic studies.

The two primary functions of a population-based cancer registry are to collect incidence data and survival data, often obtained by active contact methods. Because of the expense and complexities of epidemiological research in determining carcinogenic risk, existing aggregate data collection systems need to be utilized for generating hypotheses. Direct follow-up contact with a patient by mail provides a mechanism for identifying potential risk factors at low cost.

Observation procedure, observer gender, and behavior valence as determinants of sampling error in a behavior assessment analogue.

Several factors thought to influence the representativeness of behavioral assessment data were examined in an analogue study using a multifactorial design. Systematic and unsystematic methods of observing group behavior were investigated using 18 male and 18 female observers. Additionally, valence properties of the observed behaviors were inspected.

Effects of Von Langenbeck palatoplasty on facial growth.

The conclusion derived from this study is that the Von Langenbeck palastoplasty as performed on the cleft individuals evaluated here did not produce gross discrepancies in the dento-facial structures or relations examined. On the average, the skeletal and profile relations of the maxilla to the mandible can be considered within the acceptable range. With this in mind, speech becomes a more crucial parameter in evaluating the over-all results of this procedure.

Cephalometric comparisons of the results of the Wardill-Kilner and Von Langenbeck palatoplasties.

Two groups of individuals with isolated clefts of the palate were compared. One group had had the Von Langenbeck procedure performed at the University of Iowa and the other the V/W-Y (Wardill-Kilner) procedure performed in Denmark. All individuals in both groups were Caucasians.

A comparative study of results of the von Langenbeck and the V-Y pushback palatoplasties.

The incidence of velopharyngeal competence noted in 267 cleft palate patients following palatoplsty has been reviewed. Comparisons have been drawn with regard to the cleft type and the surgical technique performed. Since there were relatively small numbers of subjects in some categories, differences in age at last examination between the von Langenbeck and V-Y palatoplasty groups, some patients were very young at time of evaluation, and a number of different surgeons at different levels of training and experience performed the surgery, the differences in velopharyngeal competence found should be viewed as trends and this report as preliminary.

Palatoplasty: a comparative study.

A comparative analysis of 275 patients who underwent palatoplasty between 1961 and 9171 is presented. Of these, 149 patients had a Langenbeck palatoplasty and 188 a V-Y pushback palatoplasty. Speech results in these patients were carefully assessed by experience speech pathologists using conversational and structured (word articulation tests) speech, manometric ratios, and radiographic evidence of palatal movement.

Prediction of velopharyngeal competency.

The question posed in this study was, are there measures which are predictive of the need for further palatal management? Articulation scores, lateral x-rays and clinical judgments of velopharyngeal competency were examined for 75 subjects in retrospect to determine their predictive value. Each of the measures resulted in at least 90% appropriate predictions. The combination of articulation score and lateral x-ray rating appeared to be the best predictor for this particular sample in that subsequent treatment was correctly predicted for 96% of the subjects.