Brochosomes protect leafhoppers (Insecta,Hemiptera, Cicadellidae) from sticky exudates

Leafhoppers (Insecta, Hemiptera, Cicadellidae) actively coat their integuments with buckyball-shaped submicron proteinaceous secretory particles, called brochosomes. Here, we demonstrate that brochosomal coats, recently shown to be superhydrophobic, act as non-stick coatings and protect leafhoppers from contamination with their own sticky exudates—filtered plant sap. We exposed 137 wings of Alnetoidia alneti (Dahlbom), from half of which brochosomes were removed, to the rain of exudates under a colony of live A. alneti. One hundred and fifty-two droplets became stuck to the bared wings and only three to the intact wings. Inspection of the wings with a scanning electron microscope confirmed that the droplets that had hit the intact wings had rolled or bounced off the brochosomal coats. This is the first experimental study that tested a biological function of the brochosomal coats of leafhopper integuments. We argue that the production of brochosomes in leafhoppers and production of epidermal wax blooms in other sap-sucking hemipterans are alternative solutions, both serving to protect these insects from entrapment by their exudates.     

Predicting concentrations of organic chemicals in fish by using toxicokinetic models

Quantification of chemical toxicity continues to be generally based on measured external concentrations. Yet, internal chemical concentrations have been suggested to be a more suitable parameter. To better understand the relationship between the external and internal concentrations of chemicals in fish, and to quantify internal concentrations, we compared three toxicokinetic (TK) models with each other and with literature data of measured concentrations of 39 chemicals. Two one-compartment models, together with the physiologically based toxicokinetic (PBTK) model, in which we improved the treatment of lipids, were used to predict concentrations of organic chemicals in two fish species: rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas). All models predicted the measured internal concentrations in fish within 1 order of magnitude for at least 68% of the chemicals. Furthermore, the PBTK model outperformed the one-compartment models with respect to simulating chemical concentrations in the whole body (at least 88% of internal concentrations were predicted within 1 order of magnitude using the PBTK model). All the models can be used to predict concentrations in different fish species without additional experiments. However, further development of TK models is required for polar, ionizable, and easily biotransformed compounds.     

Molar enthalpy of vaporization of ethanol-gasoline mixtures and their colloid state

Vapour pressure measurements are used to evaluate the enthalpy of vaporization of ethanol-gasoline mixtures. Partial molar values are also derived. The dispersed structure of ethanol-gasoline fuel is studied for the first time using the method of correlation spectroscopy of scattered light. A large range of dispersed particle sizes in different alcohol-gasoline systems is found. The dependence of the mean radius of drops on ethanol content is determined. It is found that coalescence phenomenon occurs in the systems when extra ethanol is added.     

Preparation and characterization of polyacrylamide cryogels produced from a high‐molecular‐weight precursor. I. Influence of the reaction temperature and concentration of the crosslinking agent

A new type of cryogel was prepared through a reaction of high‐molecular‐weight polyacrylamide (viscosity‐average molecular weight ≈ 3 × 10⁶ Da) with glutaraldehyde in a moderately frozen aqueous medium. The influence of the crosslinking agent concentration and temperature of the reaction on the gel fraction yield, swelling characteristics, and morphology of the cryogels was investigated. The dependence of the gel fraction yield on the reaction temperature was bell‐shaped. The recognized regularities of the formation of this new type of polyacrylamide cryogel based on a high‐molecular‐weight precursor were very similar to those observed earlier for polyacrylamide cryogels synthesized through the cryopolymerization of monomeric precursors. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007     

Design of the synthesis of fine HA powder for suspension plasma spraying

Hydroxyapatite (HA, Ca₁₀(PO₄)₆(OH)₂) is a bioactive material being frequently used as a coating onto implants. The typical coating technology is air plasma spraying with the use of coarse powder. The resulting coatings are relatively thick (about 200-400 µm) and porous. Much thinner coatings being 5-40 µm thick, can be obtained by emerging technology of suspension plasma spraying with the use of powder particles having the diameters ranging from a few submicrometers to a few micrometers. The paper describes the way of synthesizing and preparing such fine powder starting from an aqueous solution of ammonium phosphate (H₂(PO₄)NH₄) and calcium nitrate (Ca(NO₃)·4H₂O) using statistical design of experiments (DOE). The design was made using composite matrix including a full factorial plan, star points and 3 experiments in the centre. The crystal phases purity and the mass of powder batch were the optimized responses of the powder synthesis and the concentration of calcium ions and volume of ammonium hydroxide were the experimental variables. The synthesized material was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The powder was calcined and crushed using a milling machine with zirconia balls and resulting morphology and size of fine particles was characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and laser sizer correspondingly. The powder was then formulated into water and alcohol based suspension and the zeta potential was determined to understand its capacity of agglomeration. It was found out that the formulation of the suspension with the use of ethanol slightly favours dispersion of solid particles in the suspension. The initial tests of water based suspension plasma spraying onto titanium substrate were also carried out and the XRD phase analysis of obtained coatings was carried out the presence of HA and its phases of decomposition.     

Track-based self-supervised classification of dynamic obstacles

This work introduces a self-supervised architecture for robust classification of moving obstacles in urban environments. Our approach presents a hierarchical scheme that relies on the stability of a subset of features given by a sensor to perform an initial robust classification based on unsupervised techniques. The obtained results are used as labels to train a set of supervised classifiers. The outcomes obtained with the second sensor can be used for higher level tasks such as segmentation or to refine the within-clusters discrimination. The proposed architecture is evaluated for a particular realization based on range and visual information which produces track-based labeling that is then employed to train supervised modules that perform instantaneous classification. Experiments show that the system is able to achieve 95% classification accuracy and to maintain the performance through on-line retraining when working conditions change.