Bossier Parish is a parish located in the northwestern part of the U. S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2010 census, the population was 116,979; the parish seat is Benton. The principal city is Bossier City, located east of the Red River and across from the larger city of Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish; the parish was formed in 1843 from the western portion of Claiborne Parish. Bossier Parish is part of the Shreveport–Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area. Lake Bistineau and Lake Bistineau State Park are included in parts of Bossier and neighboring Webster and Bienville parishes. Loggy Bayou flows south from Lake Bistineau in southern Bossier Parish, traverses western Bienville Parish, in Red River Parish joins the Red River. Bossier Parish is named for Pierre Bossier, an ethnic French, 19th-century Louisiana state senator and U. S. representative from Natchitoches Parish. Bossier Parish was spared fighting on its soil during the American Civil War. In July 1861, at the start of the war, the Bossier Parish Police Jury appropriated $35,000 for the benefit of Confederate volunteers and their family members left behind, an amount considered generous.

After the war, whites used violence and intimidation to maintain dominance over the newly emancipated freedmen. From the end of Reconstruction into the 20th century, violence increased as conservative white Democrats struggled to maintain power over the state. In this period, Bossier Parish had 26 lynchings of African Americans by whites, part of racial terrorism; this was the fifth-highest total of any parish in Louisiana, tied with the total in Iberia Parish in the South of the state. Overall, parishes in northwest Louisiana had the highest rates of lynchings. Bossier Parish is governed by the Bossier Parish Police Jury. Members are elected from single-member districts. Eddy Shell, a prominent Bossier City educator, was re-elected, serving on the police jury from 1992 until his death in 2008; the current members of the police jury are: District 1 - Hank Meachum District 2 - Glenn Benton District 3 - Wanda Bennett District 4 - Douglas Cook District 5 - Barry Butler District 6 - Rick Avery District 7 - Jimmy Cochran District 8 - J. Brad Cummings District 9 - William R. Altimus District 10 - Jerome Darby District 11 - Wayne Hammack District 12 - Paul M. "Mac" PlummerSince the late 20th century, the white majority of the parish has shifted from the Democratic to the Republican Party, as have most conservative whites in Louisiana and other Southern states.

Before this, the state was a one-party state dominated by the Democratic Party, in the period after the turn of the century when most blacks were disenfranchised in Louisiana. Bossier Parish has since reliably supported Republican candidatese in most contested US presidential elections. Since 1952, George Wallace, the former governor of Alabama who ran in 1968 on the American Independent Party ticket, is the only non-Republican to have carried Bossier Parish. In 2008, U. S. Senator John McCain of Arizona won in Bossier Parish with 32,713 votes over the Democrat Barack H. Obama of Illinois, who polled 12,703 votes. In 2012, Mitt Romney polled 34,988 votes in Bossier Parish, or 2,275 more ballots than McCain drew in 2008. President Obama trailed in Bossier Parish with 12,956 votes, or 253 more votes than he had received in 2008. In 2011, Bossier Parish elected a Republican, Julian C. Whittington, as sheriff to succeed the long-term Larry Deen, he was a Democrat and changed his registration to the Republican Party.

According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the parish has a total area of 867 square miles, of which 840 square miles is land and 27 square miles is water. Four miles east of Bossier City is Barksdale Air Force Base. Interstate 20 Interstate 220 Future Interstate 69 U. S. Highway 71 U. S. Highway 79 U. S. Highway 80 Louisiana Highway 2 Louisiana Highway 3 Miller County, Arkansas Lafayette County, Arkansas Webster Parish Bienville Parish Red River Parish Caddo Parish Red River National Wildlife Refuge As of the census of 2010, there were 116,979 people, 62,000 households, 37,500 families residing in the parish; the population density was 142 people per square mile. There were 49,000 housing units at an average density of 48 per square mile; the racial makeup of the parish was 70.66% White, 18.52% Black or African American, 0.82% Native American, 2.18% Asian, 0.18% Pacific Islander, 1.00% from other races, 1.65% from two or more races. 8.15% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 46,020 households out of which 36.90% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.60% were married couples living together, 14.10% had a female householder with no husband present, 27.30% were non-families.

22.90% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.80% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.63 and the average family size was 3.09. In the parish the population was spread out with 28.00% under the age of 18, 9.70% from 18 to 24, 30.50% from 25 to 44, 21.30% from 45 to 64, 10.40% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 96.10 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.80 males. The median income for a household in the parish was $39,203, the median income for a family was $45,542. Males had a median income of $32,305 versus $23,287 for females; the per capita income for the parish was $18,119. About 10.60% of families and 13.70% of the population were below the poverty line

In vitro models for calcification may refer to systems that have been developed in order to reproduce, in the best possible way, the calcification process that tissues or biomaterials undergo inside the body. The aim of these systems is to mimic the high levels of calcium and phosphate present in the blood and measure the extent of the crystal's deposition. Different variations can include other parameters to increase the veracity of these models, such as flow, pressure and resistance. All the systems have different limitations that have to be acknowledged regarding the operating conditions and the degree of representation; the rational of using such is to replace in vivo animal testing, whilst rendering much more controllable and independent parameters compared to an animal model. The main use of these models is to study the calcification potential of prostheses that are in direct contact with the blood. In this category we find examples such as animal tissue prostheses. Xenogeneic heart valves are of special importance for this area of study as they demonstrate a limited durability due to the fatigue of the tissue and the calcific deposits.

In vitro calcification models have been used in medical implant development to evaluate the calcification potential of the medical device or tissue. They can be considered a subfamily of the bioreactors that have been used in the field of tissue engineering for tissue culture and growth; these calcification bioreactors are designed to mimic and maintain the mechano-chemical environment that the tissue encounters in vivo with a view to generating the pathological environment that would favor calcium deposition. Parameters including medium flow, pH, temperature and supersaturation of the calcifying solution used in the bioreactor are maintained and monitored; the monitoring of these parameters allows to obtain information about the calcification potential of the medical device or tissue. In vitro calcification models can be categorized according to the level of representation of the physiological conditions, as static culture, constant supersaturation, dynamic models; the simplest in vitro model for calcification is the static culture method.

This method uses cell culture media enriched with different ions found in the blood plasma, such as calcium and phosphate, to produce a calcification effect on the cells. This model, which simulates physiological temperature and pH, has been used to study living tissues. However, a major drawback is the lack of regulation regarding the levels of calcium and phosphate as it occurs in the human body; the "constant supersaturation method" known as "constant composition", is based in the consumption and successive replacement of the ions that are deposited to form apatitic structures onto the tissue under evaluation. The strategy of this model is to reproduce the chemical environment present in the body with solutions high in calcium and phosphate concentrations; the model incorporates a bioreactor vessel, a controlling mechanism and a set of burettes that replace the ions deposited during the calcific process. The kinetics of the reaction is monitored by the measurement of pH, proportional to the deprotonation of the acid phosphate via hydrolysis.

The pH change drives the addition of titrants in the system that replaces the amount of calcium and phosphate deposited onto the tissue and at the same time maintains the ionic strength of the solution constant kept close to the physiological level at 0.15M. The volume of titrants added to maintain the pH is proportional to the quantity of crystallization sites and the supersaturation degree of the solution; the titrant addition rate will determine the mass deposition of crystals onto the tissue. This model does not provide the mechanical stimuli to the tissue. Both flow and mechanical stimuli affect the course and sites of calcium deposition. Dynamic calcification models employ a mock circulation to provide the chemical conditions for calcification, whilst at the same time subject the construct to a mechanical stimulation; this stimulation tries to mimic the mechanical environment encountered in vivo. These models can combine the constant supersaturation principle together with pulsatile flow, characteristic of the human cardiovascular system.

The calcification solution used in such models is similar to the one used in the constant supersaturation reactor. The concept of dynamic calcification models was first introduced after it was realized that the mechanical stresses affected the tissue calcification in the case of heart valves; the dynamic calcification systems aim at recreating the stresses and strains that tissues experience in vivo and combining them with an environment that enhances calcification. These systems incorporate flowmeters, pressure transducers and temperature sensors to monitor the simulated conditions. In these models, the kinetics of calcification remains the same as in the case of the static systems but the introduction of mechanical stimulation may affect the sites and extent of the deposition. Dynamic models can vary in terms of the means of providing the flow in the system, as well as in terms of the dynamic stimulation rate. Accelerated frequencies are employed with a view to simulating longer equivalent in vivo durations.

Accelerated models can provide long term calcification predictions but bearing in mind that the mechanical and flow stresses might be extra-physiological. The gold standard for calcification experiments is the in vivo model. However, it is morally debatable and it is difficult to control and monitor the parameters under evaluation. Furthermore, the cost of an in vivo experience is much more elevated than the in vitro models. Sev

Brithopus is an extinct genus of dinocephalian therapsids. It contains a single species, Brithopus priscus, known from fragmentary remains found in the Copper Sandstones near Isheevo, Russia. Brithopus was large, reaching a length of 2.5–3 m. The skull was similar to Titanophoneus, but more massive and built. B. priscus was first named in 1838 and was traditionally classified in the Anteosauria, a group of carnivorous dinocephalians. Brithopus served as the basis for the family Brithopodidae, which once included many anteosaurian species; because it is based on fragmentary material, Brithopus is regarded as a nomen dubium by some researchers. Brithopus was considered a possible estemmenosuchid, a type of herbivorous tapinocephalian therapsid. Dinosaurus and Eurosaurus have both been considered synonyms of Brithopus. Rhopalodon murchisoni, a junior synonym of Brithopus priscus, was described in 1845 by Johann Fischer von Waldheim, first as a species of Rhopalodon, but assigned to its own genus, Dinosaurus, by Fischer in 1847.

In 1894, Harry Govier Seeley referred a femur to the genus "Dinosaurus", though this has since been found to belong to Phreatosuchus qualeni. The name "Dinosaurus" was used by Ludwig Rütimeyer for a new specimen of a prosauropod dinosaur, which he named "Dinosaurus gresslyi". However, the name was not attached to any formal description and so was an invalid nomen nudum; the prosauropod was formally named Gresslyosaurus ingens, is now considered a junior synonym of Plateosaurus. Message to the Dinosaur Mailing List detailing the history of the name List of therapsids