Illmensee inquiry: fraud charge unproven, researcher resumes duties

A summary is provided of the report of an international commission set up by the University of Geneva to investigate allegations of fraud against a leading embryologist, Professor Karl Illmensee. Illmensee is being allowed to resume his faculty duties because the report, while highly critical of the researcher's experimental records, found no compelling evidence that he fabricated his data.     

Reciprocal changes in serum free thyroxine fraction and thyrotropin level after administration of thiocyanate to rats

Summary The administration of thiocyanate to rats caused a significant increase of serum free thyroxine fraction, which coincided with the significant decrease of TSH level. The other components (AFT₄, T₄, T₃) in serum at this time were decreased or unchanged. The finding suggests the role of free thyroxine fraction in feed-back regulation of TSH secretion.Acknowledgment. We thank Dr A. Parlow and the NIAMDD, Rat Pituitary Hormone Distribution Program, for material for rat TSH immunoassay; Dr J. Nauman (Inst. Postgrad. Med., Warsaw, Poland) for T₃ antibody, and to Ing. J. Sadlo, Mrs M. t'astná and Miss R Fajkoová for technical assistance.     

Inhibition of noradrenaline release from sympathetic nerves by pentobarbital

Summary Pentobarbital concentrations of 10–100 M selectively inhibited the noradrenaline release evoked by activation of the nicotinic receptors on the terminals sympathetic nerves of the rabbit heart. Higher concentrations also decreased the noradrenaline release induced by KCl or by electrical stimulation of the nerve axons.This paper is dedicated to Professor Dr. G. Malorny on the occasion of his 65th birthday.Acknowledgment: We thank Mrs G. Thielecke for technical assistance.     

Seasonal variations in fat body metabolism of the green frog Rana esculenta (L.).

Rana esculenta (L.), kept under natural conditions, show almost constant body weights in the annual cycle. Fat body weight, however, has a distinct maximum in October decreasing continuously to a May minimum which is also evident in the fat body index. The triglyceride and protein contents show the same course. Suprisingly high amounts of glycogen are found, which reach a maximum in August.     

Failure of somatostatin to influence experimental tumor cell growth in vivo and in vitro

Summary The influence of somatostatin on tumor cell growth was studied in vivo in mice (sarcoma 180 ascites tumor and Lewis lung tumor) and in vitro on nontransformed and polyoma-transformed cell lines. 4 or 20 g/100 g of cyclic somatostatin and 4 g/100 g of linear protamin Zn-bound somatostatin were injected s.c. twice daily in the in vivo study. Cyclic somatostatin (1, 4 or 10 g/ml) was added twice daily to the cell cultures. Somatostatin administration influenced neither the survival of animals nor the growth rate of cultured cell lines. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** A2025117 00011     

U.S. agrigenetics: suit filed against NIH

Three environmental groups have filed suit against the National Institutes of Health in an attempt to block an experiment approved in April by the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. The experiment, designed by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, to enhance the frost resistance of crops, would release genetically engineered organisms into the general environment for the first time. The suit, filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia, claims that releasing frost-resistant bacteria into the environment could have damaging ecological consequences, that NIH should have issued an environmental impact assessment before approving any experiment involving the release of genetically engineered organisms, and that the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee lacks the expertise to assess environmental risks.     

铰接式自卸车橡胶弹簧悬架系统动力学仿真分析与实验研究

以AD250铰接式自卸车橡胶弹簧悬架系统为研究对象，运用虚拟样机技术，在不同载荷和车速下对其进行了动力学仿真分析，仿真结果与实验结果具有很好的一致性，表明所建模型是准确的；分析表明，前悬架橡胶弹簧刚度的非线性特性能满足前悬架在不同载荷下具有等支承频率，从而保持稳定的行使平顺性要求；而后悬架系统在轻载荷下较之重载荷时具有较高的支承频率。分析的结果为橡胶弹簧悬架系统进一步优化设计提供了理论支持。     

Butterflies and ants: The communicative domain

Associations with ants, termed myrmecophily, are widespread in the butterfly family Lycaenidae and range from mere co-existence to more or less specific mutualistic or even parasitic interactions. Secretions of specialized epidermal glands are crucial for mediating the interactions. Transfer of nutrients (carbohydrates, amino acids) from butterfly larvae to ants plays a major role, but manipulative communication with the help of odour signals is also involved. By means of myrmecophily, lycaenid butterflies largely escape ant predation, and certain species gain protection through attendant ants or achieve developmental benefits from ant-attendance. Benefits to the ants range from minimal to substantial food rewards. While most lycaenid species maintain facultative relationships with a variety of ant genera, highly specific and obligatory associations have convergently evolved in a number of butterfly lineages. As a corollary, communication systems are largely unspecific in the former, but may be highly specialized in the latter. The sophisticated communication between obligate myrmecophiles and their host ants is tightly connected with the evolutionary rise of specialized life-cycles and thus is a source of augmenting diversity within the butterflies.     

New testing methodology for the quantification of rock crushability: Compressive crushing value (CCV)

Crushing is a size reduction process that plays a key role in both mineral processing and crushing-screening plant design. Investigations on rock crushability have become an important issue in mining operations and the manufacture of industrial crusher equipment. The main objective of this research is to quantify the crushability of hard rocks based on their mineralogical and mechanical properties. For this purpose, the mineralogical, physical, and mechanical properties of various hard rocks were determined. A new compressive crushing value (CCV) testing methodology was proposed. The results obtained from CCV tests were compared with those from mineralogical inspections, rock strength as well as mechanical aggregate tests. Strong correlations were found between CCV and several rock and aggregate properties such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), the brittleness index (S₂₀), and aggregate impact value (AIV). Furthermore, the relationship between the mineralogical properties of the rocks and their CCVs were established. It is concluded that the proposed testing methodology is simple and highly repeatable and could be utilized as a pre-design tool in the design stage of the crushing process for rock quarries.     

A Proof of the Duality of the DINA Model and the DINO Model

The Deterministic Input Noisy Output “AND” gate (DINA) model and the Deterministic Input Noisy Output “OR” gate (DINO) model are two popular cognitive diagnosis models (CDMs) for educational assessment. They represent different views on how the mastery of cognitive skills and the probability of a correct item response are related. Recently, however, Liu, Xu, and Ying demonstrated that the DINO model and the DINA model share a “dual” relation. This means that one model can be expressed in terms of the other, and which of the two models is fitted to a given data set is essentially irrelevant because the results are identical. In this article, a proof of the duality of the DINA model and the DINO model is presented that is tailored to the form and parameterization of general CDMs that have become the new theoretical standard in cognitively diagnostic modeling.