United States, Status of Media in

Water tables in aquifer regions of the southwest United States are dropping off at a rate which is greater than can be replaced by natural means. It is estimated that by 1985 wells will run dry in this region unless adequate artificial recharging can be accomplished. Recharging with surface water is limited by the plugging of permeable rock formations underground by clay particles and organic debris.A controlled study was initiated in which sand grains were used as the rock formation and water with known clay concentrations as the recharge media. The plugging mechanism was investigated by direct observation in the SEM of frozen hydrated sand samples from selected depths.

Download Full-text

Correlative microscopy in distrubuted (client/server) computing environments: tools for catalyzing the rapid dissemination of information about the cell biology of the human prostate

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100139780 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 53 ◽

pp. 682-683

Author(s):

A. Hakam ◽

J.T. Gau ◽

M.L. Grove ◽

B.A. Evans ◽

M. Shuman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Cell Biology ◽

Tissue Bank ◽

The United States ◽

Prostate Adenocarcinoma ◽

Correlative Microscopy ◽

Client Server ◽

Critical Elements ◽

Transplant Organ

Prostate adenocarcinoma is the most common malignant tumor of men in the United States and is the third leading cause of death in men. Despite attempts at early detection, there will be 244,000 new cases and 44,000 deaths from the disease in the United States in 1995. Therapeutic progress against this disease is hindered by an incomplete understanding of prostate epithelial cell biology, the availability of human tissues for in vitro experimentation, slow dissemination of information between prostate cancer research teams and the increasing pressure to “ stretch” research dollars at the same time staff reductions are occurring.To meet these challenges, we have used the correlative microscopy (CM) and client/server (C/S) computing to increase productivity while decreasing costs. Critical elements of our program are as follows:1) Establishing the Western Pennsylvania Genitourinary (GU) Tissue Bank which includes >100 prostates from patients with prostate adenocarcinoma as well as >20 normal prostates from transplant organ donors.

Download Full-text

Identification of the pulmonary syndrome hantavirus by direct and colloidal gold immune Electron Microscopy

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100169109 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 52 ◽

pp. 274-275

Author(s):

C. D. Humphrey ◽

C.S. Goldsmith ◽

L. Elliott ◽

S.R. Zaki

Keyword(s):

Electron Microscopy ◽

United States ◽

Monoclonal Antibody ◽

Colloidal Gold ◽

Phosphotungstic Acid ◽

Uranyl Acetate ◽

Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome ◽

Deer Mice ◽

Immune Electron Microscopy ◽

Negative Stain

An outbreak of unexplained acute pulmonary syndrome with high fatality was recognized in the spring of 1993 in the southwestern United States. The cause of the illness was quickly identified serologically and genetically as a hantavirus and the disease was named hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). Recently, the virus was isolated from deer mice which had been trapped near the homes of HPS patients, and cultivated in Vero E6 cells. We identified the cultivated virus by negative-stain direct and colloidal gold immune electron microscopy (EM).Virus was extracted, clarified, and concentrated from unfixed and 0.25% glutaraldehyde fixed supernatant fluids of infected Vero E6 cells by a procedure described previously. Concentrated virus suspensions tested by direct EM were applied to glow-discharge treated formvar-carbon filmed grids, blotted, and stained with 0.5% uranyl acetate (UA) or with 2% phosphotungstic acid (PTA) pH 6.5. Virus suspensions for immune colloidal gold identification were adsorbed similarly to filmed grids but incubated for 1 hr on drops of 1:50 diluted monoclonal antibody to Prospect Hill virus nucleoprotein or with 1:50 diluted sera from HPS virus infected deer mice.

Download Full-text

Digital image acquisition, processing, and analysis in a polymer microscopy laboratory

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100170001 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 52 ◽

pp. 454-455

Author(s):

Vinod K. Berry ◽

Xiao Zhang

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Image Analysis ◽

Digital Image ◽

Image Acquisition ◽

Image Transmission ◽

The United States ◽

Quantitative Image Analysis ◽

Quantitative Image

In recent years it became apparent that we needed to improve productivity and efficiency in the Microscopy Laboratories in GE Plastics. It was realized that digital image acquisition, archiving, processing, analysis, and transmission over a network would be the best way to achieve this goal. Also, the capabilities of quantitative image analysis, image transmission etc. available with this approach would help us to increase our efficiency. Although the advantages of digital image acquisition, processing, archiving, etc. have been described and are being practiced in many SEM, laboratories, they have not been generally applied in microscopy laboratories (TEM, Optical, SEM and others) and impact on increased productivity has not been yet exploited as well.In order to attain our objective we have acquired a SEMICAPS imaging workstation for each of the GE Plastic sites in the United States. We have integrated the workstation with the microscopes and their peripherals as shown in Figure 1.

Download Full-text

Silence of the Land: On the Historical Irrelevance of Territory to Congressional Districting and Political Representation in the United States

Studies in American Political Development ◽

10.1017/s0898588x01010045 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 15 (01) ◽

pp. 53-87 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Andrew Rehfeld

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

House Of Representatives ◽

Political Representation ◽

The United States ◽

Representative Government ◽

Congressional District ◽

Congressional Districts ◽

Communities Of Interest

Every ten years, the United States “constructs” itself politically. On a decennial basis, U.S. Congressional districts are quite literally drawn, physically constructing political representation in the House of Representatives on the basis of where one lives. Why does the United States do it this way? What justifies domicile as the sole criteria of constituency construction? These are the questions raised in this article. Contrary to many contemporary understandings of representation at the founding, I argue that there were no principled reasons for using domicile as the method of organizing for political representation. Even in 1787, the Congressional district was expected to be far too large to map onto existing communities of interest. Instead, territory should be understood as forming a habit of mind for the founders, even while it was necessary to achieve other democratic aims of representative government.

Download Full-text