Cupped Hand Research Articles

The C-terminal priming domain is strongly associated with the main body of bacteriophage ϕ6 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase

Double-stranded RNA viruses encode a single protein species containing RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) motifs. This protein is responsible for RNA transcription and replication. The architecture of viral RdRPs resembles that of a cupped right hand with fingers, palm and thumb domains. Those using de novo initiation have a flexible structural elaboration that constitutes the priming platform. Here we investigate the properties of the C-terminal priming domain of bacteriophage ϕ6 to get insights into the role of an extended loop connecting this domain to the main body of the polymerase. Proteolyzed ϕ6 RdRP that possesses a nick in the hinge region of this loop was better suited for de novo initiation. The clipped C-terminus remained associated with the main body of the polymerase via the anchor helix. The structurally flexible hinge region appeared to be involved in the control of priming platform movement. Moreover, we detected abortive initiation products for a bacteriophage RdRP.

New method for removing mucus from the upper respiratory tract of newborn puppies following caesarean section

SURVIVAL of the neonate is dependent upon the rapid onset of normal, spontaneous breathing. Neonatal respiratory distress syndrome describes a dysfunction of pulmonary gas exchange and is one of the...

A Randomized Trial of Conventional Chest Physical Therapy Versus High Frequency Chest Wall Compressions in Intubated and Non-intubated Adults

Conventional chest physical therapy (CCPT), applied by therapists using cupped hands to perform percussion, is commonly used in hospitalized adults. However, increased work load demands and occupational health concerns (eg, carpal tunnel syndrome) limit the overall utilization of this therapy. Therefore, we conducted a study to compare the overall effectiveness of CCPT to high-frequency chest wall compressions (HFCWC) applied via a vibratory vest. A single-center, randomized trial among hospitalized intubated and non-intubated adult patients requiring chest physical therapy comparing CCPT and HFCWC. The primary outcome measure was hospital stay. A total of 280 per-protocol patients (out of an a priori estimated 320 patients required to demonstrate a 20% relative reduction in hospital stay) were randomly assigned to receive CCPT (no. = 146, 52.1%) or HFCWC (no. = 134, 47.9%). The hospital stay was 12.5 ± 8.8 days for patients randomized to CCPT and 13.0 ± 8.9 days for patients randomized to HFCWC (P = .62). Patient comfort was assessed using a visual analog scale (increasing score reflects greater discomfort) and was statistically greater for patients randomized to CCPT compared to HFCWC (2.2 ± 0.8 vs 1.9 ± 0.8, P = .009). The duration of time until radiographic resolution of lobar atelectasis trended less for CCPT compared to HFCWC (5.2 ± 4.3 d vs 6.5 ± 5.2 d, P = .051). All other secondary outcomes, including hospital mortality and nosocomial pneumonia, were similar for both treatment groups. This study was inadequately powered for the primary outcome of interest and hence we cannot make recommendations on the preferential use of HFCWC or CCPT for intubated and non-intubated adult patients. HFCWC was associated with statistically better comfort scores. (ClinicalTrials.gov registration NCT00717873.).

Hushed, Quadrophonic

136 HUSHED, QUADROPHONIC ANDY NICHOLSON He doesn’t know you anymore. The hillside nursing home took his name. Scattered over the valley’s rooftops, it glitters off asphalt shingles in the heat. You’re here, in the hallway, too singular to grasp this dispersal. It won’t stop lapping over the lip of your cupped hands. You trip over your feet into the summer day. The afternoon is steam and brownouts. Who owns this? It won’t help to reclaim a dribble from the heap, and you’re helpless as a floodplain. By the riverbank, cyclists speed behind the stand of elms on the far shore. Two friends or a couple or a middle-aged mother and her grown son ride single-file—you’re too far from their story to tell their story, too far from the thousandand -one nights they live through for you to sustain the city between towering dunes. It is shifting. Each grain shifts along its path, and the horizon’s mirage is another world calling you— the real world— and reality drops through the valley, plunges as rock down to riverbed. You’re here beside a law you can’t decipher, their mumbled debate, the truth they debate. You hear it from the adjacent room. ...

J.J. Gibson and Marshall McLuhan: A survey of terminology and a proposed extension of the theory of affordances

AbstractPsychologist James J. Gibson coined the word “affordance” in 1979, to describe the relationship between the abilities of a living creature, and features in the environment that afford action for those abilities. An affordance, therefore, is physically real, but is defined as an affordance only in reference to a particular creature. This term has been widely adopted, and is now found in design, education, and cognitive science. Sometimes it is used in Gibson's original meaning, but it has also been applied to broader discussions of social and cognitive activities, resulting in a certain confusion of terminology. A short summary reveals the variety of current uses for the term, and goes further to propose that this range may be simplified by applying Marshall McLuhan's observation that “media are the extensions of mankind.” In that analysis, an object like a cup is an extension of cupped hands, because, like hands, it holds water. Defining some objects as body‐extensions makes it clear that affordances can be modified in two ways: by changing either features that are available in the environment, or the extended abilities of the user. This distinction simplifies the description of different types of affordances, and may help designers in planning effective experiences for users.

Porphyrins Promote the Association of GENOMES UNCOUPLED 4 and a Mg-chelatase Subunit with Chloroplast Membranes

In plants, chlorophylls and other tetrapyrroles are synthesized from a branched pathway that is located within chloroplasts. GUN4 (GENOMES UNCOUPLED 4) stimulates chlorophyll biosynthesis by activating Mg-chelatase, the enzyme that commits porphyrins to the chlorophyll branch. GUN4 stimulates Mg-chelatase by a mechanism that involves binding the ChlH subunit of Mg-chelatase, as well as a substrate (protoporphyrin IX) and product (Mg-protoporphyrin IX) of Mg-chelatase. We chose to test whether GUN4 might also affect interactions between Mg-chelatase and chloroplast membranes, the site of chlorophyll biosynthesis. To test this idea, we induced chlorophyll precursor levels in purified pea chloroplasts by feeding these chloroplasts with 5-aminolevulinic acid, determined the relative levels of GUN4 and Mg-chelatase subunits in soluble and membrane-containing fractions derived from these chloroplasts, and quantitated Mg-chelatase activity in membranes isolated from these chloroplasts. We also monitored GUN4 levels in the soluble and membrane-containing fractions derived from chloroplasts fed with various porphyrins. Our results indicate that 5-aminolevulinic acid feeding stimulates Mg-chelatase activity in chloroplast membranes and that the porphyrin-bound forms of GUN4 and possibly ChlH associate most stably with chloroplast membranes. These findings are consistent with GUN4 stimulating chlorophyll biosynthesis not only by activating Mg-chelatase but also by promoting interactions between ChlH and chloroplast membranes.

Other Monuments to Inhalation Anesthesia

Other Monuments to Inhalation Anesthesia

Evaluating the maximum playback sound levels from portable digital audio players

To assess the maximum sound levels that may be experienced by young people in Canada from modern digital audio players, this study measured nine recent models of players and 20 earphones. Measurement methodology followed European standard BS EN 50332. Playback levels ranged from 101 to 107 dBA at maximum volume level. Estimated listener sound levels could vary from 79 to 125 dBA due to the following factors: (i) earphone seal against the ear, (ii) player output voltage, (iii) earphone sensitivity, and (iv) recorded music levels. There was a greater potential for high sound levels if intra-concha "earbud" earphones were used due to the effect of earphone seal. Simpler measurement techniques were explored as field test methods; the best results were obtained by sealing the microphone of a sound level meter to the earphone using a cupped hand and correcting for the free field response of the ear. Measurement of noise levels 0.25 m from the earphone showed that a bystander is unlikely to accurately judge listener sound levels.

Physical stress primes the immune response of Galleria mellonella larvae to infection by Candida albicans

Larvae of the greater wax moth ( Galleria mellonella) that had been subjected to physical stress by shaking in cupped hands for 2 min showed reduced susceptibility to infection by Candida albicans when infected 24 h after the stress event. Physically stressed larvae demonstrated an increase in haemocyte density and elevated mRNA levels of galiomicin and an inducible metalloproteinase inhibitor ( IMPI) but not transferrin or gallerimycin. In contrast, previous work has demonstrated that microbial priming of larvae resulted in the induction of all four genes. Examination of the expression of proteins in the insect haemolymph using 2D electrophoresis and MALDI TOF analysis revealed an increase in the intensity of a number of peptides showing some similarities with proteins associated with the insect immune response to infection. This study demonstrates that non-lethal physical stress primes the immune response of G. mellonella and this is mediated by elevated haemocyte numbers, increased mRNA levels of genes coding for two antimicrobial peptides and the appearance of novel peptides in the haemolymph. This work demonstrates that physical priming increases the insect immune response but the mechanism of this priming is different to that induced by low level exposure to microbial pathogens.

Like Graceland

Like Graceland Sharon Pomerantz [Begin Page 91] Harrison Miller's wife stood in the shallow end of the pool surrounded by her admirers. From his chaise on the deck, Harrison could see the men's chests and shoulders, their heads bent toward her, faces expectant. Courtney wore a red bikini; her long dark hair was piled on top of her head and held in place with a large silver barrette, and her hands were on her hips. All five men towered over her, and she smiled slightly as she shifted her attention from one to the other, her eyes hidden behind enormous sunglasses. Then the tallest of the group, with the darkest, thickest head of hair, swooped down like a giant bird, picked up Harrison's wife, threw her over his [End Page 91] shoulder and carried her upstream. Shrieking, she pounded on his back, her legs fluttering in protest, but by the time they got to the middle of the pool, she was laughing. The man put her down in water that came up several inches above her waist; slowly he slid the strap of her bathing suit off one shoulder and then the other. Courtney pulled away her top, exposing her breasts—breasts that had nursed her daughter, breasts that for the last two and a half years had belonged only to her husband!—and flung the piece of fabric onto the cement so that it landed just a few feet away from Harrison. By then the pool was like a giant soup of breasts. Saggy ones with dark nipples, small, upturned ones that fit perfectly into a cupped hand and enormous silicone jobs, big and round and shiny as beach balls. Not everyone was young in that pool, some were close to Harrison's mother's age. She had left when he was eight, doubtless to frolic in just such a pool as this. If his father had volunteered to go with her on a few adventures, would she have stayed married to him? Might her fears, her depression, her sexual boredom, have been allayed? Surprising, Harrison thought, how public nudity rendered people oddly sexless, as if returning them to the nursery. He felt none of the excitement of conquest, of the hunt, that he had when he was single, sitting in a room of attractive young women who wore their clothing like camouflage, or weaponry. But the human body, as it pushed toward middle age and beyond—men in various stages of paunchiness, women with stretch marks and cellulite—was not meant for such careless exposure. Hadn't they all suffered enough? Harrison wore his bathing trunks but he did not go in the pool; neither did the woman in the chair next to him, who wore a voluminous yellow shift and big floppy yellow hat. From the bag at her feet emerged a never-ending supply of turquoise and brown yarn; she was knitting furiously and rarely looked up from her project, yet Harrison found her surprisingly aware of everything she did not look at, as if her eyes worked differently than other people's. She was Nancy Dawes, wife of Kevin Dawes, the man in the pool who'd carried off Harrison's wife. They were from Michigan—Battle Creek, she'd told Harrison the night before at dinner. Kevin worked for Kellogg, in product development. "You know, we could move to the clothed beach," Nancy said, still not looking up. "We'd fit in better over there anyway." "I'm getting tired," Harrison said. "Hot sun." Nancy placed her knitting in her lap and moved her chair a bit closer, examining Harrison's shoulder. She was a large woman, with short hair streaked several shades of blond, deep set gray eyes and a wide, prominent nose. "I think you're getting burned," she said. "Your skin's pink. Need any lotion?" [End Page 92] Harrison didn't answer; his attention was once more on Courtney, who was lifting herself out of the pool, both arms rigid...

Today, and: Substitution, and: In the Stairwell

Today Today I wanted to buy shoes, a person must take care of himself: everything depends on that. Although I find it hard to believe, each passerby in the street is hungry and naked under a coat of worry, each one of them a windmill whose blades turn endlessly around itself. See how the beavers build their dams with such small hands, their lips moving voicelessly above the water as if they were counting money or praying. Look at the bees' financial ballet - hot from sun and sap, tiny envelopes in motion in the post office of hunger. [End Page 61] The earth hums and dances like a simmering stew. Tired, I want to sit on the edge of the world, to go on strike. But I continue onward so no one will see the short distance between me and the homeless, between them and the pull of the floor, a divider thinner than skin, and it's only that they have a bigger imagination or sense of the future. Watch out, Nurit, I say to myself, only the dead have less ability to care for themselves, and you can imagine how they look when they're being removed, slowly or quickly, like swept leaves, or eyelashes closing in on a lack of talent for living. Substitution You can't go on living without the art of substitution. Mud replaces water and so the forest grows. To substitute for yourself means to stop living: once again I lose my love, once again I buy a dog. In this way I've had more than one dog and more than one house, not to speak of umbrellas. How can I live; will I find another love? If only each thing could substitute for itself. The new dog's eyes are glued to me as if it weren't possible to part or abandon. I have a friend who waited 24 hours for her lover's train until the world counted its way onward. [End Page 62] Houses are loyal to themselves until they crumble. Now I understand why those who believe in lies die for their religion. Whoever thinks like that will never improve on the art of substitution. I tell myself: put your foot forward into the impossible. In the Stairwell In the stairwell eaten by the sea, walls yellowed by the groping hands of night tenants, she doesn't believe she's made of more than tin or paper, hasn't been born yet, or has belonged to the walking dead for a long time now. The young woman climbs up behind the wall of the man's back and doesn't know what chills her more, guilt or effort; she's a stone that needs to be warmed in cupped hands with puffs of breath to return to life and all this without believing in miracles. On the spotted mattress against the outlines of other people's sleep, opposite the window covered by a lopsided curtain, and afterwards, at the broken marble sink: she examines her image in the mirror uncertainly for what's missing or added. He hurries her, washed clean of the scent that might give him away; he hurries from diversion to the main road. At the edge of the tunnel between the houses, a moment before longing, [End Page 63] she suddenly sees, deeper than blue, a color that turns into air, into water, beyond her imagining, there it is, since the days of the Greeks arriving from the vast continent, forgetting themselves in a cry: Thalassa, Thalassa, Thalassa.

Balancing strategy and accountability: A model for the governance of professional associations

AbstractAn erratum has been published for this article in Nonprofit Management and Leadership 15(4) 2005, 487 [].Professional associations are operating in a context of uncertainty and change, with which their traditional governance structures struggle to manage. After describing this context and presenting a brief overview of relevant governance literature, a project aimed at supporting the redesign of governance structures and procedures among five professional associations in the United Kingdom is outlined. Three specific governance issues are examined: size of councils (council is the term used for a governing body of a U.K. professional association), their composition in relation to electoral processes, and the development of inner councils, or executive boards, within councils. Finally, we present a normative model, the cupped hands model, that has arisen from the research. This model offers a possible means of balancing the representation required by their status as membership associations with the requirement that professional associations become more strategic and proactive.

Crystal structure of the Escherichia coli SbmC protein that protects cells from the DNA replication inhibitor microcin B17.

Crystal structure of the Escherichia coli SbmC protein that protects cells from the DNA replication inhibitor microcin B17.

A Quartic Surface of Integer Hexahedra

We prove that there are infinitely many six sided polyhedra in R, each with four congruent trapezoidal faces and two congruent rectangular faces, so that the faces have integer sides and diagonals, and also the solid has integer length diagonals. The solutions are obtained from the integer points on a particular quartic surface. A long standing unsolved problem asks whether or not there can be a parallelipiped in R whose sides and diagonals have integer length. If one weakens the requirement and just asks for a six-sided polyhedron with quadrilateral faces, then one can find examples with integer length sides and diagonals. Peterson and Jordan [1], described a method for making these ‘perfect’ hexahedra. We review their method. One takes two congruent rectangles and places them in space so that they are parallel, with the bottom rectangle rotated ninety degrees from the position of the top rectangle. Now connect the sides of the two rectangles with four congruent trapezoids. The shape is a piecewise linear version of the placement of two cupped hands together, at ninety degrees in clapping position. The centers of the rectangles lie on a line perpendicular to the top and bottom faces. If the sides of the rectangle have lengths a, b then the diagonal has length c, where a + b = c. The parallel sides of the trapezoids are then also a, b. The slant side of the trapezoid is say e and its diagonal is d. It follows from Ptolemy’s Theorem that d = e + ab. Consider the trapezoid with base on the top rectangle of side a and other base on the bottom rectangle opposite that edge of side b, having the slant sides of length d. Its diagonal is of length f , and also it is the interior diagonal of the hexahedron; thus f 2 = d + ab. We shall refer to these as perfect hexahedra. Proposition 1. The simultaneous positive integer solutions to a + b = c, d = e + ab, f 2 = d + ab give the edge and diagonal lengths of a perfect hexahedron with two rectangular congruent opposite parallel faces, and four congruent trapezoidal faces. Peterson and Jordan asked if there are infinitely many such perfect hexahedra. They also gave several examples, including the small example a = 8, b = 15, c = 17, e = 7, d = 13, f = 17 and asked if it is the

À votre sanity

À votre sanity

Crystal Structure of a GCN5-Related N-acetyltransferase: Serratia marcescens Aminoglycoside 3-N-acetyltransferase

The X-ray structure of a canonical GCN5-related N-acetyltransferase (GNAT), Serratia marcescens aminoglycoside 3-N-acetyltransferase, bound to coenzyme A (CoA) has been determined at 2.3 Å resolution. The single domain α/β protein resembles a cupped right hand wrapped around a cylinder and consists of a highly curved, six-stranded β sheet of mixed polarity that is sandwiched between four α helices. The structure includes all four conserved GNAT motifs (C, D, A, and B) and represents the catalytic core of this large enzyme superfamily. Acetyl CoA recognition is mediated by a βα structure derived from GNAT motif A, which presents an invariant Arg/Gln-X-X-Gly-X-Gly/Ala segment for hydrogen bonding with the cofactor. Motif B contributes acidic residues to the binding site for the positively charged antibiotic substrate.

Cocrystal Structure of the Messenger RNA 5′ Cap-Binding Protein (eIF4E) Bound to 7-methyl-GDP

The X-ray structure of the eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (eIF4E), bound to 7-methyl-GDP, has been determined at 2.2 Å resolution. eIF4E recognizes 5′ 7-methyl-G(5′)ppp(5′)N mRNA caps during the rate-limiting initiation step of translation. The protein resembles a cupped hand and consists of a curved, 8-stranded antiparallel β sheet, backed by three long α helices. 7-methyl-GDP binds in a narrow cap-binding slot on the molecule's concave surface, where 7-methyl-guanine recognition is mediated by base sandwiching between two conserved tryptophans, plus formation of three hydrogen bonds and a van der Waals contact between its N7-methyl group and a third conserved tryptophan. The convex dorsal surface of the molecule displays a phylogenetically conserved hydrophobic/acidic portion, which may interact with other translation initiation factors and regulatory proteins.

The Varied Bats of Barro Colorado Island

tanding in the pitch-dark of a tropical forest at night, Elisabeth K. V. Kalko carefully pulls a small brown bat out of a canvas bag. She tilts her headlamp beam into her cupped hands, which hold the bat's wings between her thumbs and forefingers. Its shiny black face looks like that of a tiny pug-nosed dog, except for a leaflike structure sticking up from its nose. This one likes to play dead, Kalko says, smiling. As she turns the bat over gently, it begins to make a hiccuplike noise. Now it's pretending to choke. What great theater. Kalko, an ecologist with the University of Tiibingen, in Germany, was introducing a group of visitors earlier this past spring to the bats of Barro Colorado Island (BCI), an island biological reserve maintained by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. Behind her, invisible in the darkness, hung a thin black mist net strung between two trees. It stretched chest-

Stoning the Birds, and: The '66 Mets, and: Christ at the Apollo, 1962, and: First Lesson: Winter Trees, and: First Mile

STONING THE BIRDS /Michael Waters How can any bird-hunting boy know the low passages through the thorned and knotted brambles tul he veers off the horse-trail to startle some couple love-making among the pines, her yessing head haloed with gnats as his back sweeps their splintery bed of brown needles, tongues looping their vague script upon sky? I swayed near the thicket, fingering pocketsful of stones, till she stopped oaring the air to glance at me, register my familiar, acned face, then shrug back to her sleepy summer pleasure. What did I matter, one goofy teenager dumb-struck in khaki shorts, as he bucked and she bounced, then unglued herself from his gUstening, slug-sUck stump? I finaUy jolted awake enough to sneaker back the path to Twin Mountains Manor where my bent father swept long-legged spiders off the shuffleboard court and my mother staggered the stiff-backed Adirondock chairs into rows for spectators. I dawdled tul the sinners sidled among us, staring hard for any sign of dark compUcity, tick-ridden consdences, ash streaked on her temple or sulphur sUtting his eyes, as he chalked his name, Benny, onto the scoreboard, then toed the Une. What did I know about the faU of sunhght and shade that slow June afternoon as my skinny buddies cannonbaUed from the low board, as Benny 172 - The Missouri Review skimmed the puck toward the inverted pyramid and aU his proud sisters squealed? I clumped up the knoU to the kiddie-loud pool and dove, wishing I could remain under water tiU summer was over, hold my breath till the planet stopped whirUng long enough for me to grasp it with cupped hands, press it against my cheek to measure the snared pulse—poor stunned jay—then shovel it back into blue air and watch it flicker away. Michael Waters The Missouri Review · 273 THE '66 METS / Michael Waters The el rattled past the Unisphere, skeletal, the gristly webbing of some sea-creature left to bleach in the industrial rain of Queens. The World's Fair was over. The game caUed, we were thrown together hip-to-hip to convey the deep disinterest of commuters in one another's Uves, staring hard into the abandoned thoroughfares of the future, not speaking. But breathing. And one fan sidled up to nestle his mouth in my hair, his beery breath swabbing one ear, stiff prick pressed into the damp hoUow of my back, passengers packed around us, yet distant, a crowd in a photograph, the couplings not clear. Until a small commotion broke out, a man with two boys in basebaU gear clinging to his belt warning, Back off, bud, his palm against the breather's chest, the onlookers tense but making room as the express drummed into Queens Plaza and the amateur molester ghosted off into the gray, steel anonymity of the girders. Fifteen, I was too dumbstruck to murmur thanks, stiU too simple to grasp how desire can buUy the body, any body, that father ashen too, knuclding his boys' bristly scalps beneath their blue caps as the doors hissed shut and the train jerked away from the station into the spattering April drizzle, an outcry of sparks bursting from under blunt wheels, the long, frustrating season just begun. 174 · The Missouri Review CHRIST AT THE APOLLO, 1962 /Michael Waters for Andrew Hudgins "Even in religious fervor there is a touch of animal heat." —Walt Whitman Despite the grisly wounds portrayed in prints, the ropy prongs of blood stapling His eyes or holes Uke burnt haU-doUars in His feet, the purple gash a coked teenybopper's Upsticked mouth in His side, Christ's suffering seemed less divine than the doubling-over pain possessing "the hardest working man." I stiU don't know whose wounds were worse: Christ's brow thumb-tacked with thorns, humped crowns of feet spike-spUt— or James Brown's shattered knees. It's blasphemy to equate such ravers in their lonesome afflictions, but when James collapsed on stage and whispered please please please, I rocked with cold, forsaken Jesus in Gethsemane and, for the first time, grasped His agony. Both rose, Christ in His unbleached...

Effects of ACTH(1–24) and ACTH/MSH(4–10) on isolation-induced distress vocalization in domestic chicks

The effects of centrally administered ACTH(1–24) and ACTH(4–10) on isolation-induced distress vocalizations (DVs) were assessed in the presence or absence of social cues (mirrored and plain environments). A dose-response analysis indicated that ACTH(1–24) at doses of 0.5 nM and above increased DVs relative to controls when the animals were tested in mirrored or social environments which reduce baseline levels of calling. This effect, however, was short-lived (approx. 15 min). When tested again 1 hr after injection, the treated animals did not differ from controls. ACTH/MSH(4–10) had no effect on vocalization when the animals were tested immediately after injection, but marginally increased calling when animals were tested an hour later. In addition to vocalization changes, ACTH(1–24) induced squatting when animals were isolated in the test boxes, and yawning, head shaking, wing flapping and preening when animals were reunited after testing. ACTH(1–24)-treated chicks also exhibited longer latencies to close their eyes when they were held in the cupped hands of the experimenter. Taken together, the results suggest that ACTH(1–24) induces a central state of arousal in chicks that resembles fear/anxiety.