Oil yield and compressibility modeling during microscale expression: Criteria for linseed breeding

Seven linseed varieties were harvested at seven times before complete maturity. Microscale oilseed expressions were subsequently carried out on it. A pressure of 10 MPa was applied for 1 h under uniaxial stress. The results were characterized in terms of oil, water and mucilage content, harvest date and oil yield. The piston displacement versus time (creep curves) was described by a four‐Kelvin‐Voigt elements viscoelastic model. Parameters were derived from the model, such as the mechanical properties of seeds (compressibility moduli), showing that the viscoelastic model fits well the experimental data (R² ≈ 0.999). The modeling parameters were combined with some biochemical data in order to predict the kinetics of oil extraction.     

Child negative emotionality and parenting from infancy to preschool: A meta-analytic review.

This meta-analytic review (k = 62 studies; N = 7,613 mother-child dyads) shows that effect sizes for the association between child negative emotionality and parenting were generally small and were moderated by sample and measurement characteristics. The association between more child negative emotionality and less supportive parenting was relatively strong in lower socioeconomic status families, reversed in higher socioeconomic status families, and limited to studies with relatively high percentages of participants from ethnic minorities and studies using parent report to assess negative emotionality. Higher levels of child negative emotionality were associated with more restrictive control in samples with less than 75% 1st-born children, as well as in infants and preschoolers, and in studies using parent report or composite measures to assess both negative emotionality and restrictive parenting. Finally, more child negative emotionality was associated with less inductive control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of combined nimodipine and metrifonate on rat cognition and cortical EEG

The present study investigated if short-term treatment with an L-type Ca2+-channel inhibitor, nimodipine, can stimulate cognitive functioning and cortical electroencephalograph (EEG) arousal, and potentiate the effect of a cholinesterase inhibitor, metrifonate. Pretraining administration of nimodipine (3, 10 and 30 mg/kg, p.o.) had no effect on water maze and passive avoidance behavior of young neurologically intact controls, or water maze and passive avoidance performance failure induced by scopolamine pretreatment (i.p.; 0.4 mg/kg during the water maze and 2.0 mg/kg during the passive avoidance study), medial septal lesioning, or aging. Furthermore, nimodipine (3, 10 and 30 mg/kg, p.o.) had no effect on the improvement by metrifonate (10 mg/kg, p.o.) of the water maze and passive avoidance failure induced by scopolamine pretreatment or medial septal lesioning, nor did it affect the potential of metrifonate (30 mg/kg. p.o.) to improve the water maze or passive avoidance behavior of aged rats. Finally, nimodipine (3, 10 and 30 mg/kg, p.o.) had no effect on spontaneously occurring thalamically generated neocortical high-voltage spindles or spectral EEG activity of young controls, nor did it alleviate the spectral EEG abnormality induced by scopolamine (0.2 mg/kg, i.p.) administration. Also, the combination of nimodipine 3 or 10 mg/kg and a subthreshold dose of metrifonate 10 mg/kg could not suppress high-voltage spindles or scopolamine treatment-induced spectral EEG activity abnormalities. According to the present results, short-term treatment with nimodipine does not stimulate cognitive functions or increase cortical EEG arousal, and does not block or potentiate the propensity of metrifonate to improve cognitive performance of rats.     

Nitrogen dioxide effect in the reduction of nitric oxide by propane in oxidizing atmosphere

The role of nitrogen dioxide in the selective reduction of NO by propane over a Cu-MFI zeolite is investigated. NO₂ and NO reductions were carried out under similar conditions of reaction. In the presence of oxygen, the reduction of NO by C₃H₈ does not differ significantly from that of NO₂. In the absence of oxygen, the reduction of NO₂ by propane occurs with a partial decomposition of the nitric dioxide molecule. Such a decomposition leads to the formation of oxygen, which is responsible for the increase in catalytic activity by comparison with the same reaction performed with NO. NO₂ formed and released in the gas phase during the reduction of NO by propane in the presence of oxygen does not play a predominant role in the catalytic process.     

On the crystal structure and magnetic properties of the ternary rare earth compounds RETSb2 with RE rare earth and T Ni, Pd, Cu and Au

Novel compounds RETSb₂ have been prepared and characterized for T Cu (RE rare earth from La to Lu), Ni (RE La to Ho), Pd (RE La to Tb) and Au (RE La to Sm). From X-ray powder diffraction analyses all compounds were found to crystallize as the ZrCuSi₂ type. Magnetic susceptibilities were generally measured in the temperature range from 4 to 100 K. YCuSb₂ and LaTSb_z are temperature-independent paramagnets. RETSb₂ compounds are found to order antiferromagnetically below T = 20 K. PrPdSb₂ and TbPdSb₂ undergo metamagnetic transitions, whereas PrCuSb₂ and ErCuSb₂ are simple ferromagnets. The Sm-containing compounds are typical Van Vleck paramagnets owing to the closely spaced multiplets.     

Agent-oriented techniques for network supervision

This paper presents the results of the Réseau futé (smart net) project, the goal of which is to use distributed AI and multi-agent techniques for network management and supervision. More precisely, these techniques have been applied to the partial automation of the dynamic processing (what is known about a network is always incomplete and can change at any time) of alarms and of various event notifications received by network management platforms. The system that we propose is able for example to automatically handle some alarms or to filter events of no-interest for a given operator. To achieve this goal, an assistant, or interface agent according to the model proposed by Patti Maes [MK93], has been realized. The goal of the assistant is first to learn, by observation, the behavior of the network supervision operator and second to reproduce such a behavior when the conditions in which the behavior has been learned are detected again. The learned information are stored using chronicles [Gha94]. A chronicle is a data-structure allowing programmers to represent sequences of events while taking temporal knowledge into account. Our assistant has been implemented and tested within Magenta which is a program, written in Smalltalk, that simulates (in a simplified way) a network management platform. This program respects roughly the gdmo and cmis standards.     

Correlation relations for estimating the content of plutonium isotopes in fallout due to the Chernobyl accident

The possibility of determining the total α activity A(^239,240Pu) of ²³⁹Pu + ²⁴⁰Pu according to the γ radiation of ¹⁰³Ru and ¹⁰⁶Ru is examined. The statistical properties of the experimental ratios of the activities ρ = A(¹⁰⁶Ru)/A(¹⁰³Ru) are investigated. The distribution of the experimental ratios is similar to the theoretical ratios for fuel and close to a Gaussian distribution with average value 〈p〉 = 0.22 and standard deviation Δ ∼ 0.06. This ratio is used to obtain a relation for estimating A(^239,240Pu) from the γ activity A(¹⁰³Ru). A theoretical analysis is made of the experimental data for the southern raions of Gomel oblast. It is shown that given a good statistical sample of measurements of the γ activity of ¹⁰³Ru it is possible to estimate the average value of the γ activity A(^239,240Pu) and with probability 0.95 the interval of the possible values of this activity. __________ Translated from Atomnaya énergiya, Vol. 103, No. 4, pp. 255–259, October, 2007.