Orienting and schizophrenia: Stimulus significance, attention, and distraction in a signaled reaction time task.

Tested the hypothesis that poor performance among schizophrenics (SCZs) is associated with less orienting to task-relevant stimuli and more orienting to task-irrelevant stimuli, interpreting the orienting response as a call for controlled processing resources. 32 SCZs (aged 20–65 yrs) and 32 age- and sex-matched controls were exposed to a signaled reaction time (RT) task in which one tone was followed by an imperative noise stimulus and a different tone signaled nothing. During one phase of the experiment, distracting visual stimuli were presented both between and during RT trials. Controls differentiated between the signal and nonsignal tones in all measures and showed rapid habituation to the distracting visual stimuli. The SCZs showed slow RTs, less overall responding than controls, and limited differential responses to signal and nonsignal stimuli. For the responses to visual distractors, however, the SCZs showed significantly slower habituation than the controls, confirming their inefficient orienting style. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variability in captan residues in apples from a Canadian orchard

Apple trees in an orchard in Quebec, Canada were treated, following label directions, with the fungicide captan (1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-N-(trichloromethylthio)phthalimide) during the 2003 agricultural season. A total of 142 apples from three rows of trees were selected for determination of captan by GC/MS. Individual apples were found to contain captan levels ranging from 16.9 to 6350 ng g^-1. Only two individual apple samples exceeded the Canadian maximum residue limit (5000 ng g^-1) for captan in apples. Six composite samples, comprising half portions of eight individual apples, were analysed from each of the three experimental rows. Composite samples ranged in concentration from 166 to 2620 ng g^-1. The greatest uncertainty associated with the measured concentrations was due to variability among apples rather than the measurement of residue levels.     

Junction leakage current degradation under high temperature reverse-bias stress induced by band-defect-band tunnelling in power VDMOS

A deep analysis of the intrinsic junction and surface currents in power vertically diffused MOS devices with sub-micrometer channel length and thin gate oxide has been carried on after a typical reliability high temperature reverse bias (HTRB) stress. A reference set of gated diodes has also been examined in order to better understand the onset and evolution of post-stress leakage degradation. A comparison among complete MOSs, single body diodes and enriched diodes allows to highlight the role played by the point defectivity both at gate interface and in the bulk silicon close to the junction surface. We found that the typical interface defects involved in the leakage degradation are shallow traps and can be de-populated simply by a thermally activated mechanism. More specifically, the main degradation mechanism relies to band-defect-band tunneling localized at the surface drain/body junction where an intrinsic n-i-p region evolves due to a bird’s beak lateral profile of the body diffusion. We have demonstrated that the most important contribution to the activation of the precursor defect sites is given by the transverse electrical field that develops just below the SiO₂/Si interface within the n-i-p region during the stress.     

Yeast vectors for the integration/expression of any sequence at the TYR1 locus

We have constructed new yeast vectors for targeted integration and conditional expression of any sequence at the Saccharomyces cerevisiae TYR1 locus which becomes disrupted. We show that vector integration is not neutral, causing prototrophy for tyrosine and auxotrophy for the vector's selectable marker (uracil or leucine, depending on the vector used). This feature allows a double screening of transformed yeast cells, improving the identification of colonies with the desired chromosomal structure. The GAL10 gene promoter has been added to drive conditional expression of cloned sequences. Using these vectors, chromosomal structure verification of recombinant clones is no longer necessary, since the noise of non-homologous recombination, as well as spontaneous reversion of the selected phenotype, can easily be identified. The ability of the vector to conditionally control gene expression has been confirmed using the gene for the green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a reporter.     

Composition of meat and offal from weaned and fattened rabbits and results of stereospecific analysis of triacylglycerols and phosphatidylcholines

BACKGROUND: Rabbit meat has excellent nutritive properties. The purpose of this study was to characterize rabbit meat and offal; in particular, the lipid fraction was studied in order to evaluate total and positional fatty acid (FA) compositions of triacylglycerol (TAG) and phosphatidylcholine (PC) fractions. Eight samples of weaned and eight of fattened rabbits were considered. RESULTS: Fattened rabbit meat contained slightly higher protein percentage content (P < 0.05) in comparison to weaned (20.1% versus 18.0%). Calcium content was higher in meat than in offal, unlike sodium, iron, zinc, manganese and copper. The cholesterol content in offal was much higher than in meat. FA profiles of total lipid showed a high percentage of unsaturated fatty acids and an n‐6/n‐3 ratio of 10.3 for fattened rabbit meat. Stereospecific analysis of TAG and PC was carried out on an eight‐sample pool of each meat and offal from weaned and fattened rabbits. In all samples the sn‐2‐position was prevalently esterified with oleic and linoleic acids in TAG, with polyunsaturated fatty acids in PC. CONCLUSION: Lipids from rabbit meat presented higher content of monounsaturated FA and lower n‐6/n‐3 ratio in comparison to offal, which was characterized by higher cholesterol and mineral levels. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

Electroactive Ionic Soft Actuators with Monolithically Integrated Gold Nanocomposite Electrodes

Electroactive ionic gel/metal nanocomposites are produced by implanting supersonically accelerated neutral gold nanoparticles into a novel chemically crosslinked ion conductive soft polymer. The ionic gel consists of chemically crosslinked poly(acrylic acid) and polyacrylonitrile networks, blended with halloysite nanoclays and imidazolium‐based ionic liquid. The material exhibits mechanical properties similar to that of elastomers (Young's modulus ≈ 0.35 MPa) together with high ionic conductivity. The fabrication of thin (≈100 nm thick) nanostructured compliant electrodes by means of supersonic cluster beam implantation (SCBI) does not significantly alter the mechanical properties of the soft polymer and provides controlled electrical properties and large surface area for ions storage. SCBI is cost effective and suitable for the scaleup manufacturing of electroactive soft actuators. This study reports the high‐strain electromechanical actuation performance of the novel ionic gel/metal nanocomposites in a low‐voltage regime (from 0.1 to 5 V), with long‐term stability up to 76 000 cycles with no electrode delamination or deterioration. The observed behavior is due to both the intrinsic features of the ionic gel (elasticity and ionic transport capability) and the electrical and morphological features of the electrodes, providing low specific resistance (<100 Ω cm^?2), high electrochemical capacitance (≈mF g^?1), and minimal mechanical stress at the polymer/metal composite interface upon deformation.     

Patterned radial GaAs nanopillar solar cells

Photovoltaic devices using GaAs nanopillar radial p-n junctions are demonstrated by means of catalyst-free selective-area metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. Dense, large-area, lithographically defined vertical arrays of nanowires with uniform spacing and dimensions allow for power conversion efficiencies for this material system of 2.54% (AM 1.5 G) and high rectification ratio of 213 (at ±1 V). The absence of metal catalyst contamination results in leakage currents of ～236 nA at -1 V. High-resolution scanning photocurrent microscopy measurements reveal the independent functioning of each nanowire in the array with an individual peak photocurrent of ～1 nA at 544 nm. External quantum efficiency shows that the photocarrier extraction highly depends on the degenerately doped transparent contact oxide. Two different top electrode schemes are adopted and characterized in terms of Hall, sheet resistance, and optical transmittance measurements.     

Zirconium and hafnium oxide interface with silicon: Computational study of stress and strain effects

Computations of the periodic double-interface MO₂/Si (M = Zr and Hf) systems using density functional theory (DFT) demonstrate that very thin epitaxial MO₂ layers at silicon (1 0 0) surface adopt anatase-like structure with six-coordinate M atoms, while tetragonal-like MO₂ structure with seven-coordinated M atoms has a lower stability (metastable). This results from a closer match between Si(1 0 0) surface unit cell and anatase-like ZrO₂ and HfO₂ leading to the overall stress reduction if MO₂ adopts the anatase-like structure on silicon. In agreement with the previous study of Gavartin et al. [Gavartin, Fonseca, Bersuker, Shluger, Microelectron. Eng. 80 (2005) 412–415] formation of oxygen vacancy at the interface is demonstrated to be lower than in bulk film. This result appears to be independent from the film or interface structure but originates from the energy balance between M–O, M–M, Si–O and M–Si bonds, as revealed by a simple molecular model.