MINIATURIZATION IN MASS SPECTROMETRY

Expectations for continuous miniaturization in mass spectrometry are not declining for years. Portable instruments are highly welcome by the industry, science, space agencies, forensic laboratories, and many other units. All are striving for the small, cheap, and as good as possible instruments. This review describes the recent developments of miniature mass spectrometers and also provides selected applications where these devices are used. Upcoming perspectives of further development are also discussed. @ 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Mass Spec Rev     

Waste energy recovery improves price competitiveness of artificial forage from rapeseed straw

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Increasingly frequent droughts are causing repeated shortages of forage and are creating imbalances in the livestock economy in many parts of the...     

Induced Pluripotency: A Powerful Tool for In Vitro Modeling

One of the greatest breakthroughs of regenerative medicine in this century was the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology in 2006 by Shinya Yamanaka. iPSCs originate from terminally differentiated somatic cells that have newly acquired the developmental capacity of self-renewal and differentiation into any cells of three germ layers. Before iPSCs can be used routinely in clinical practice, their efficacy and safety need to be rigorously tested; however, iPSCs have already become effective and fully-fledged tools for application under in vitro conditions. They are currently routinely used for disease modeling, preparation of difficult-to-access cell lines, monitoring of cellular mechanisms in micro- or macroscopic scales, drug testing and screening, genetic engineering, and many other applications. This review is a brief summary of the reprogramming process and subsequent differentiation and culture of reprogrammed cells into neural precursor cells (NPCs) in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) conditions. NPCs can be used as biomedical models for neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), which are currently considered to be one of the major health problems in the human population.     

Rosarium Philosophorum on Organic Synthesis

Many prominent colleagues have discussed over the years the past and future of our field and it is clear that organic chemistry had, and will continue to have, an extremely important impact on the development of our modern society and on the quality of life. 1 In this essay, I am not planning to repeat the importance of the field, the major breakthroughs that shape our discipline, as several authors of this Rosarium will certainly do it much better than me. I am rather going to express my personal opinion on a general problem that our field has to confront in our modern time and will then discuss the origin, importance and impact of organic chemistry in Israel. Finally, I will finish this Rosario by giving the words to the youngest generation of chemists that will continue to expand organic synthesis to different directions by sharing a “brainstorming” session we had in one of our weekly group meetings.     

Evaluation of Random Physical Cell Id Assignment to Femtocells Under Dense Cell Deployment

Wireless Personal Communications - The paper discusses femtocell identification aspects in mobile networks such as long-term evolution (LTE) and LTE-advanced. Femtocells, or femto access points...     

Cannabinoid-Induced Conditioned Place Preference,Intravenous Self-Administration,and Behavioral Stimulation Influenced by Ghrelin Receptor Antagonism in Rats

Cannabis/cannabinoids are widely used for recreational and therapy purposes, but their risks are largely disregarded. However, cannabinoid-associated use disorders and dependence are alarmingly increasing and an effective treatment is lacking. Recently, the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR1A) antagonism was proposed as a promising mechanism for drug addiction therapy. However, the role of GHS-R1A and its endogenous ligand ghrelin in cannabinoid abuse remains unclear. Therefore, the aim of our study was to investigate whether the GHS-R1A antagonist JMV2959 could reduce the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-induced conditioned place preference (CPP) and behavioral stimulation, the WIN55,212-2 intravenous self-administration (IVSA), and the tendency to relapse. Following an ongoing WIN55,212-2 self-administration, JMV2959 3 mg/kg was administered intraperitoneally 20 min before three consequent daily 120-min IVSA sessions under a fixed ratio FR1, which significantly reduced the number of the active lever-pressing, the number of infusions, and the cannabinoid intake. Pretreatment with JMV2959 suggested reduction of the WIN55,212-2-seeking/relapse-like behavior tested in rats on the twelfth day of the forced abstinence period. On the contrary, pretreatment with ghrelin significantly increased the cannabinoid IVSA as well as enhanced the relapse-like behavior. Co-administration of ghrelin with JMV2959 abolished/reduced the significant efficacy of the GHS-R1A antagonist in the cannabinoid IVSA. Pretreatment with JMV2959 significantly and dose-dependently reduced the manifestation of THC-induced CPP. The THC-CPP development was reduced after the simultaneous administration of JMV2959 with THC during conditioning. JMV2959 also significantly reduced the THC-induced behavioral stimulation in the LABORAS cage. Our findings suggest that GHS-R1A importantly participates in the rewarding/reinforcing effects of cannabinoids.     

Toward optimal probabilistic active learning using a Bayesian approach

Machine Learning - Gathering labeled data to train well-performing machine learning models is one of the critical challenges in many applications. Active learning aims at reducing the labeling...     

Unprecedented selectivity to the direct desulfurization (DDS) pathway in a highly active FeNi bimetallic phosphide catalyst

The hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of the refractory compound 4,6-dimethyldibenzothiophene (DMDBT) normally proceeds through a hydrogenation pathway that removes the planarity of the ring system and makes the hindered sulfur atom more accessible to the desulfurization centers. In this study, a highly active dispersed bimetallic NiFeP catalyst is found to have high selectivity for a direct desulfurization pathway, which does not require prior hydrogenation. The compound has equal numbers of Ni and Fe atoms which extended X-ray absorption fine structure analysis indicates are distributed randomly in the hexagonal Fe₂P structure, with just a slight enrichment of Fe on the surface. This is supported by density functional theory calculations. The remarkable properties of the catalyst are ascribed to a ligand effect of Fe on the active Ni atoms.     

Are you in top 1% (1‰)?

A new simple bibliometric indicator is based on the number of highly cited papers (as defined by WoS^®). It can be used to assess individuals, journals and universities. Unlike most other citation-based-indicators it equalizes the chances of young scientists (vs. their more experienced colleagues) and of scientists working in less-popular disciplines. The ranking of scientists based on the new indicator is not correlated with the rankings based upon the number of citations or on the Hirsch-index.