Retrograde Amnesia Induced by Drugs Acting on Different Molecular Systems.

The gamma aminobutyric acid-A (GABAA) agonist, muscimol, the glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, D-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (AP5), and the inhibitor of the extracellularly regulated kinases (ERKs), UO 126, cause retrograde amnesia when administered to the hippocampus. In the present study, the authors found that they all cause retrograde amnesia for 1-trial inhibitory avoidance, not only when infused into the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus, but also when infused into the basolateral amygdala or the entorhinal, parietal, and posterior cingulate cortices. The posttraining time course of the effect of each drug was, however, quite different across brain structures. Thus, in all of them, NMDA receptors and the ERK pathway are indispensable for memory consolidation, and GABAA receptor activation inhibits memory consolidation: but in each case, their influence is interwoven differently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of behavioral tasks on the in vitro phosphorylation of intermediate filament subunits of rat hippocampus are mediated by CaMKII and PKA

In the homodimeric hemoglobin from Scapharca, HbI, functional communication between the two heme groups is based on their direct structural linkage across the subunit interface through the heme propionates. The heme-protein interactions have been altered in deutero- and meso-HbI by substituting the vinyl groups at positions 2 and 4 of protoheme with hydrogen and ethyl groups, respectively. In meso-HbI the introduction of the ethyl groups in the heme pocket induces significant alterations in the conformation of the heme peripheral substituents, including the propionates, and in the structure of bound CO, as revealed by the resonance Raman spectra. The functional counterpart of these structural changes is the loss of cooperativity in carbon monoxide binding and in the rate of oxygen dissociation. Oxygen pulse and flash photolysis experiments indicate that meso-HbI is locked in the liganded conformation. It is postulated that the ethyl groups, which occupy a larger volume than vinyl ones, impair the ligand-linked movement of the heme relative to its pocket and in turn the expression of cooperativity. In deutero-HbI structural alterations have not been monitored. Functionally, cooperativity in the CO binding kinetics is increased as if hydrogen atoms at positions 2 and 4 permitted more marked movements of the heme than in the native protein.     

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ON COKE YIELDS IN VACUUM RESIDS AS A FUNCTION OF COMPOUND CLASSES AND ELEMENTAL ANALYSIS

This paper describes the statistical analysis of data on coke formation (measured by microcarbon residue) in five resids, as a function of compound classes, in order to identify variables wiih a significant effect on the former. In this sense, the SAS VARCLUS and Principal Component Analysis were used. The analysis carried out leads to a lineal combination of the H/C ratio, vanadium and nitrogen content as a model to explain coke yield, under non-catalytic conditions, as determined by MCR. Of all these factors, the H/C ratio has the most important contribution.     

Scheduling component replacement for timely execution in dynamic systems

Timely run‐time software replacement techniques are a corner stone for reconciling real‐time systems development and dynamic behavior. Typical real‐time systems do not consider dynamic behavior because it deeply challenges predictability and timeliness. Current efforts are starting to merge the safe and predictable execution with a controllable level of dynamicity by imposing a set of bounds and limitations to the system dynamic behavior. One of the obstacles for this is how to time‐bound the different operations required to effectively implement component replacement. In this paper, the main challenges for this problem are identified, and a model to ensure that components can be replaced at run time preserving the temporal properties of the system is provided that also avoids failures in replacements. A real example and simulations of our replacement model are provided that validate the presented ideas. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enantiospecific synthesis fromd-fructose of (2S,5R)- and (2R,5R)-2-methyl-1,6-dioxaspiro[4.5]decane [the odor bouquet minor components ofParavespula vulgaris (L.)]

The synthesis of (2S,5R)-(1) and (2R,5R)-2-methyl-1,6-dioxaspiro [4.5]decane (2) from (2RS,5R,8R,9R,10S)-8,9,10-trihydroxy-2-methyl-1, 6-dioxaspiro[4.5]decane (8), obtained in five steps fromd-fructose using Wittig's methodology, reduction, and spiroketalation, has been accomplished by a Corey dideoxygenation at C-8,9, followed by a Barton deoxygenation at C-10, of the appropriately protected derivatives.Enantiospecific synthesis of spirocetals. Part V. For Part IV, see Izquierdo et al. (1992).     

Enantiospecific synthesis of (R)-1,7-dioxaspiro [5.5]undecane [major component of olive fruit fly (Dacus Oleae) sex pheromone] from d-Fructose

The synthesis of the title compound13 has been carried out through the preparation of its precursor, (3R,4R,5S,6R)-3,4,5-trihydroxy-1,7-dioxaspiro[5.5]undecane (6), obtained fromd-fructose using Wittig's methodology, reduction, and spiroketalation. Compound6 was transformed into13 by a Barton deoxygenation at C-5 followed by a Corey dideoxygenation at C-3,4 of the appropriately protected derivatives.Enantiospecific synthesis of spiroacetals. Part II. For Part I, see Izquierdo and Plaza (1990).     

Modèles Hydrodynamiques pour la Séparation des Courants dans un Décanteur Pilote

Despite of its general use in industry, particle sedimentation is still a not well understood unit operation. Hydrodynamics is complex in essence, mainly because the possible volumes are depending on the operating conditions, which in turn has consequences on the stability of the equipment in unsteady state conditions.     

RUSHES—an annotation and retrieval engine for multimedia semantic units

Multimedia analysis and reuse of raw un-edited audio visual content known as rushes is gaining acceptance by a large number of research labs and companies. A set of research projects are considering multimedia indexing, annotation, search and retrieval in the context of European funded research, but only the FP6 project RUSHES is focusing on automatic semantic annotation, indexing and retrieval of raw and un-edited audio-visual content. Even professional content creators and providers as well as home-users are dealing with this type of content and therefore novel technologies for semantic search and retrieval are required. In this paper, we present a summary of the most relevant achievements of the RUSHES project, focusing on specific approaches for automatic annotation as well as the main features of the final RUSHES search engine.     

An open-source library for the numerical modeling of mass-transfer in solid oxide fuel cells

The generation of direct current electricity using solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) involves several interplaying transport phenomena. Their simulation is crucial for the design and optimization of reliable and competitive equipment, and for the eventual market deployment of this technology. An open-source library for the computational modeling of mass-transport phenomena in SOFCs is presented in this article. It includes several multicomponent mass-transport models (i.e. Fickian, Stefan–Maxwell and Dusty Gas Model), which can be applied both within porous media and in porosity-free domains, and several diffusivity models for gases. The library has been developed for its use with OpenFOAM^®, a widespread open-source code for fluid and continuum mechanics. The library can be used to model any fluid flow configuration involving multicomponent transport phenomena and it is validated in this paper against the analytical solution of one-dimensional test cases. In addition, it is applied for the simulation of a real SOFC and further validated using experimental data.Program summaryProgram title: multiSpeciesTransportModelsCatalogue identifier: AEKB_v1_0Program summary URL: http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEKB_v1_0.htmlProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen?s University, Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: GNU General Public LicenseNo. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 18 140No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 64 285Distribution format: tar.gzProgramming language:: C++Computer: Any x86 (the instructions reported in the paper consider only the 64 bit case for the sake of simplicity)Operating system: Generic Linux (the instructions reported in the paper consider only the open-source Ubuntu distribution for the sake of simplicity)Classification: 12External routines: OpenFOAM® (version 1.6-ext) (http://www.extend-project.de)Nature of problem: This software provides a library of models for the simulation of the steady state mass and momentum transport in a multi-species gas mixture, possibly in a porous medium. The software is particularly designed to be used as the mass-transport library for the modeling of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC). When supplemented with other sub-models, such as thermal and charge-transport ones, it allows the prediction of the cell polarization curve and hence the cell performance.Solution method: Standard finite volume method (FVM) is used for solving all the conservation equations. The pressure-velocity coupling is solved using the SIMPLE algorithm (possibly adding a porous drag term if required). The mass transport can be calculated using different alternative models, namely Fick, Maxwell–Stefan or dusty gas model. The code adopts a segregated method to solve the resulting linear system of equations. The different regions of the SOFC, namely gas channels, electrodes and electrolyte, are solved independently, and coupled through boundary conditions.Restrictions: When extremely large species fluxes are considered, current implementation of the Neumann and Robin boundary conditions do not avoid negative values of molar and/or mass fractions, which finally end up with numerical instability. However this never happened in the documented runs. Eventually these boundary conditions could be reformulated to become more robust.Running time: From seconds to hours depending on the mesh size and number of species. For example, on a 64 bit machine with Intel Core Duo T8300 and 3 GBytes of RAM, the provided test run requires less than 1 second.     

Efficient and accurate image based camera registration

A technique for efficient and accurate camera registration based on stereo image analysis is presented. Initially, few correspondences are estimated with high accuracy using a probabilistic relaxation technique. Accuracy is achieved by considering the continuous approximations of selected image areas using second order polynomials and a relaxation rule defined according to the likelihood that estimates obey stereoscopic constraints. The extrinsic camera parameters are then obtained using a novel efficient and robust approach derived from the classic eight point algorithm. Efficiency is achieved by solving a parametric linear optimization problem rather than a nonlinear one as more conventional methods attempt to do. Robustness is obtained by applying two novel strategies: normalization of the initial data via a simple but efficient diagonal scaling approach, and regularization of the underlying linear parametric optimization problem using meaningful constraints. The performance of the presented methods is assessed in several computer experiments using natural video data.