Persistent acute renal failure with renal artery stenosis: cure following reconstructive arterial operation

A case of acute renal failure is reported in which renal function returned after surgical correction of renal artery stenosis to the sole functioning kidney. Acute renal failure associated with renal vascular lesions is reviewed. Although often clinically apparent vascular obstruction may be asymptomatic and should be considered in cases of prolonged acute renal failure.     

Retrieval of item and category information: Evidence for an interactive model.

When more than one retrieval cue is available, the cues may combine their effects independently or interactively and facilitate the retrieval process. The predictions of 2 versions of an independent model and 1 interactive model were tested in a situation that required the retrieval of item and category information. Ss were 72 undergraduates. In Exp I, the 2 sources of information were redundant in that the retrieval of either item or category information was sufficient to determine the correct response. In Exp II, item and category information were not redundant, and the evaluation of both types of information was necessary. Results favor the interactive model of retrieval. When presented with a test item, Ss attempted to retrieve both semantic category and item information, and partial information about either was used to aid retrieval of the other. (French abstract) (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The decerebrate human: associative learning

Phasic changes in cardiac reactivity to innocuous stimuli, presented in a sensory disparity paradigm, were used to evaluate habituation and learning processes in five decerebrate subjects. Three subjects showed systematic changes over trials in the pattern of cardiac response to simple auditory or visual stimuli, indicative of habituation. In addition, tests for associative learning were given after repeated presentations of two paired stimuli. The appearance of a marked cardiac orienting response, to the unpredictable omission of the second stimulus, documented the development of a conditioned association in these same three subjects. One additional subject failed to show a consistent pattern of response to the stimuli, and another demonstrated a consistent response which was not subject to habituation. Overall, these findings support the view that learning processes are not solely the product of the cerebral hemispheres, but reflect general integrative features of the human neuraxis.     

Significance of adrenal hormones in brain energy metabolism

Intensity of glycolysis was studied under conditions of immobilization stress and adrenalectomy as well as with administration of adrenaline and hydrocortisone. The processes of aerobic glycolysis, activity of enzymes of the tricarboxylic acid cycle and mitochondria respiratory chain, content of total, free and protein-bound glycogen, glucose-I-phosphate, glucose-6-phosphate, pyruvate, alpha-ketoglutarate, cytrate and macroergs in the brain are shown to depend on the level of adrenal hormones producing a multilateral effect on a series of energy metabolism links.     

Multiple Sliding and Rolling Contact Dynamics for a Flexible Rotor/Magnetic Bearing System

Active magnetic bearings (AMBs) offer contact-free and frictionless support of rotating machinery. However, because of their limited force capacity, they have to incorporate retainer bearings to protect the rotor and stator laminations against high-amplitude vibration levels. Efficient modeling of contact dynamics is important for the design of adaptive controllers to prevent contact. If, however, contact does occur, it is necessary to recover the rotor position with minimum damage and without shutting down the system. This paper utilizes constrained Lagrangian equations of motion to develop a computationally efficient method to model contact dynamics. The method does not require a direct physical modeling of contact forces, although the contact forces are automatically evaluated from the constraint conditions, and it can be applied to multicontact cases. Furthermore, the technique is capable of detecting and simulating the destructive backward whirl rolling motion. A model reduction technique is introduced to improve the computational efficiency. This is demonstrated by comparing numerical predictions with experimental results, obtained for a 2-m-long flexible rotor supported by two magnetic bearings     

Determination of the cloud fraction in the SCIAMACHY ground scene using MERIS spectral measurements

SCIAMACHY (SCanning Imaging Absorption spectroMeter for Atmospheric CartograpHY) is a passive remote sensing spectrometer observing backscattered radiation from the atmosphere and the Earth's surface, in the wavelength range between 240 and 2380 nm. The instrument is onboard ENVironmental SATellite (ENVISAT) which was launched on 1 March 2002. The Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) is also one of the 10 instruments onboard the ENVISAT satellite. MERIS is a 68.5° field-of-view nadir-pointing imaging spectrometer which measures the solar radiation reflected by the Earth in 15 spectral bands (visible and near-infrared). It obtains a global coverage of the Earth in three days. Its main objective is to measure sea colour and quantify ocean chlorophyll content and sediment, thus providing information on the ocean carbon cycle and thermal regime. It is also used to derive the cloud top height, aerosol and cloud optical thickness, and water vapour column. The ground spatial resolution of the instrument is 260 m × 290 m. This paper is aimed at determining the cloud fraction in SCIAMACHY pixels (typically, 30 km × 60 km ground scenes) using MERIS observations and number of thresholds for MERIS top-of-atmosphere reflectances and their ratios. Thresholds utilize the fact that clouds are bright white objects having similar reflectances in the blue and red. The MERIS cloud fraction has been derived for a number of SCIAMACHY states with area of 916 km × 400 km. The results are compared with correspondent cloud fractions obtained using SCIAMACHY polarization measurement devices (PMDs). Large differences are found between cloud fractions derived using SCIAMACHY and MERIS measurements. It is recommended to use highly spatially resolved MERIS observations instead of SCIAMACHY PMD measurements to retrieve cloud fractions in SCIAMACHY pixels. The improvements advised will enhance SCIAMACHY trace gas and cloud retrievals in the presence of broken cloud fields.     

Electrical Current Signatures of DNA Base Modifications in Single Molecules Immobilized in the α-Hemolysin Ion Channel

Nanopore technology holds high potential for next-generation DNA sequencing. This method operates by drawing an individual single-stranded DNA molecule through a nanoscale pore, while monitoring the current deflections that occur as the DNA passes through. Individual current levels for the four DNA nucleotides have been established by immobilization of an end biotinylated strand in the pore, in which the nucleotide of interest is suspended at the most sensitive region of the ion channel. Due to the inherent reactivity of DNA bases, many modified nucleotides in the genome exist as a result of oxidative and UV insults, among others. Herein, the current levels for common DNA damage lesions 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine, spiroiminodihydantoin, guanidinohydantoin, uridine, abasic sites, thymine dimers, thymine glycol, and 5-iodocytosine were assessed through immobilization experiments. In some cases, the current difference between the damaged and canonical nucleotides was not well resolved; therefore, we took advantage of the chemical reactivity of the new functional groups present to make amine adducts that shifted the current levels outside the range of the native nucleotides. Among the adducts studied, only the 2-aminomethyl-18-crown-6 adduct was able to give a large current shift in the immobilization experiment, as well as being observed in a translocation experiment. The results show potential in providing current-level modulators for identification of some types of DNA damage. In principle, any DNA base modification that can be converted chemically or enzymatically into an abasic site could be identified in this way.