Upscaling and automation of electrophysiology: toward high throughput screening in ion channel drug discovery

Effective screening of large compound libraries in ion channel drug discovery requires the development of new electrophysiological techniques with substantially increased throughputs compared to the conventional patch clamp technique. Sophion Bioscience is aiming to meet this challenge by developing two lines of automated patch clamp products, a traditional pipette-based system called Apatchi-1, and a silicon chip-based system QPatch. The degree of automation spans from semi-automation (Apatchi-1) where a trained technician interacts with the system in a limited way, to a complete automation (QPatch 96) where the system works continuously and unattended until screening of a full compound library is completed. The performance of the systems range from medium to high throughputs.     

On the effect of peroxisomal β-oxidation and carnitine palmitoyltransferase activity by eicosapentaenoic acid in liver and heart from rats

Repeated administration of highly purified eicosapentaenoic acid (as ethyl ester) resulted in a decrease in plasma triglycerides and high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. This was accompanied by a stimulation in the activities of carnitine palmitoyltransferase, fatty acyl-CoA oxidase and peroxisomal β-oxidation in the liver. The results suggest that the triglyceride-lowering effect observed with eicosapentaenoic acid may be due to a reduced supply of fatty acids for hepatic triglyceride synthesis because of increased fatty acid oxidation. Eicosapentaenoic acid feeding marginally affected the triglyceride content of heart and mitochondrial and peroxisomal enzyme activities.     

扩声系统语言清晰度的测量

用户都希望自己的扩声系统能满足多种使用需求、声音均匀覆盖全部区域、便于操作并且维护简单,其中最重要的评价标准有以下几点：（1）扩声系统有正确的高频、中频、低频比例,即“音色平衡”;（2）扩声系统播放声音的响度要合适;（3）扩声系统的声音来自正确的方向;（4）扩声系统播放清晰透彻的音乐和语言声音;（5）扩声系统要足够稳定可靠。     

A Chip for an Implantable Neural Stimulator

This paper describes a chip for a multichannel neural stimulator for functional electrical stimulation (FES). The purpose of FES is to restore muscular control in disabled patients. The chip performs all the signal processing required in an implanted neural stimulator. The power and digital data transmission to the stimulator passes through a 5 MHz inductive link. From the signals transmitted to the stimulator, the chip is able to generate charge-balanced current pulses with a controllable length up to 256 s and an amplitude up to 2 mA, for stimulation of nerve fibers. The quiescent current consumption of the chip is approx. 650 A at supply voltages of 6–12 V, and its size is 3.9×3.5 mm². It has 4 output channels for use in a multipolar cuff electrode.     

利用现代智能电池技术延长电池寿命

锂离子电池因其能量密度高而在便携应用中倍受青睐。但其电池管理系统并不尽如人意。结果不是电池比预期提前结束寿命就是造成剩余电量的浪费。针对对这种情况,智能电源管理系统应运而生,能够准确地对电池剩余电量进行估计,令电池的使用达到最佳化。     

Deployment of Mobile Switching Centers in a Telecommunications Network: A Stochastic Programming Approach

We consider a network design problem arising in mobile communications. At the core of the network is a number of mobile switching centers (MSCs), each serving a number of base station controllers (BSCs). The network design problem involves three major groups of decisions – deployment of a number of new MSCs, allocation of BSCs to new and existing MSCs, and capacity expansion of transmission links interconnecting the MSCs. These decisions must be made so as to minimize the incurred costs while meeting customer demand and observing the capacity restrictions. We formulate the problem as a two-stage stochastic program with mixed-integer recourse. To solve the problem we apply a dual decomposition procedure, solving scenario subproblems by means of branch and cut. The solution procedure has been tested on a real life problem instance provided by SONOFON, a Danish mobile communication network operator, and we report results of our computational experiments.     

Changes in rumen bacterial and archaeal communities over the transition period in primiparous Holstein dairy cows

In the present study, we hypothesized that the rumen bacterial and archaeal communities would change significantly over the transition period of dairy cows, mainly as an adaptation to the classical use of low-grain prepartum and high-grain postpartum diets. Bacterial 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing of rumen samples from 10 primiparous Holstein dairy cows revealed no changes over the transition period in relative abundance of genera such as Ruminococcus, Butyrivibrio, Clostridium, Coprococcus, and Pseudobutyrivibrio. However, other dominant genus-level taxa, such as Prevotella, unclassified Ruminococcaceae, and unclassified Succinivibrionaceae, showed distinct changes in relative abundance from the prepartum to the postpartum period. Overall, we observed individual fluctuation patterns over the transition period for a range of bacterial taxa that, in some cases, were correlated with observed changes in the rumen short-chain fatty acids profile. Combined results from clone library and terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analyses, targeting the methyl-coenzyme M reductase α-subunit (mcrA) gene, revealed a methanogenic archaeal community dominated by the Methanobacteriales and Methanomassiliicoccales orders, particularly the genera Methanobrevibacter, Methanosphaera, and Methanomassiliicoccus. As observed for the bacterial community, the T-RFLP patterns showed significant shifts in methanogenic community composition over the transition period. Together, the composition of the rumen bacterial and archaeal communities exhibited changes in response to particularly the dietary changes of dairy cows over the transition period.     

Solubility and absorption rate of carbon dioxide into non-respiring foods. Part 3: Cooked meat products

The solubility and diffusion of carbon dioxide into cooked meat products (cooked ham and meat sausage with different pH-levels) was determined at different starting pressures and gas to product volume ratios by monitoring pressure changes over time in a closed chamber at constant temperatures (0, 4, and 8 °C). Good correlation of the CO₂ solubility between the packaging parameters (gas to product volume ratio and initial partial pressure) and the meat products water content was found. The solubility of CO₂ followed Henry’s law and the initial partial pressure of CO₂ influenced the solubility mostly. Only small variations in the diffusion constants and absorption rates were found within the experimental design. A pH difference of 0.5 in the two meat sausage types did not influence either solubility or diffusion significantly.     

Indentation deformation and cracking behavior of hydrated aluminoborate glasses

Aluminoborate glasses have recently been found to feature high resistance to crack initiation during indentation due to a highly flexible network structure. In cesium aluminoborate glasses, it has been found that the use of a simple post-treatment, namely aging in a humid atmosphere, can further improve this resistance. To better understand the mechanical properties of this glass family upon humid aging, we here study the effect of aging conditions on the structure and mechanical properties of Li,K,Cs-aluminoborate glasses. As expected, we find that higher humidity and longer aging time cause more pronounced permeation of atmospheric water into the glasses. Due to their denser structure and stronger modifier-oxygen bonds, the humid aging has a relatively smaller effect on the mechanical properties of Li- and K-containing glasses relative to Cs-containing glasses, with the latter achieving an ultrahigh crack resistance. We find that the humid aging leads to the formation of a hydration layer in the Cs-aluminoborate glass surface, with a thickness of around 26 μm upon aging at 23 °C with 40% relative humidity for 7 days. Moreover, a remarkable indentation behavior, that is, the observation of μm-sized shear bands inside the imprint of the Cs-glass upon aging at 60% relative humidity is reported. Taken as a whole, the work provides guidelines for how to control the humid aging rate as a function of relative humidity and temperature to form a hydration layer and thus achieve improved crack resistance in such glasses.