Failure to find homology in rat, cat, and monkey for functions of a subcortical structure in avoidance conditioning.

Notes that electrolytic lesions of the centrum-medianum and parafascicularis complex of the thalamus produce, in the rat, large deficits of both acquisition and retention of active-avoidance responses, especially in the 2-way shuttle-box test. The effect of such lesions on 26 male cats and 6 male and 2 female macaques was examined. It was found that lesions in the cat did not produce significant effects, either with acoustical or visual CS, during postoperative relearning. Moreover, rate of extinction was not affected. Negative results were also found in monkeys. These lesions did not modify the threshold of flinch or jump responses to electric shock in either species. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deriving tabular event-based specifications from goal-oriented requirements models

Goal-oriented methods are increasingly popular for elaborating software requirements. They offer systematic support for incrementally building intentional, structural and operational models of the software and its environment. They also provide various techniques for early analysis, notably, to manage conflicting goals or to anticipate abnormal environment behaviours that prevent goals from being achieved. On the other hand, tabular event-based methods are well-established for specifying operational requirements for control software. They provide sophisticated techniques and tools for late analysis of software behaviour models through simulation, model checking or table exhaustiveness checks. The paper proposes to take the best out of these two worlds to engineer requirements for control software. It presents a technique for deriving event-based specifications, written in the SCR tabular language, from operational specifications built according to the KAOS goal-oriented method. The technique consists of a series of transformation steps each of which resolves semantic, structural or syntactic differences between the KAOS source language and the SCR target language. Some of these steps need human intervention and illustrate the kind of semantic subtleties that need to be taken into account when integrating multiple formalisms. As a result of our technique SCR specifiers may use upstream goal-based processes à la KAOS for the incremental elaboration, early analysis, organization and documentation of their tables, while KAOS modelers may use downstream tables à la SCR for later analysis of the behaviour models derived from goal specifications.     

Faecal contamination of greywater and associated microbial risks

The faecal contamination of greywater in a local treatment system at Viby?sen, north of Stockholm, Sweden was quantified using faecal indicator bacteria and chemical biomarkers. Bacterial indicator densities overestimated the faecal load by 100-1000-fold when compared to chemical biomarkers. Based on measured levels of coprostanol, the faecal load was estimated to be 0.04 g person(-1) day(-1). Prevalence of pathogens in the population and the faecal load were used to form the basis of a screening-level quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) that was undertaken for rotavirus, Salmonella typhimurium, Campylobacter jejuni, Giardia lamblia and Cryptosporidium parvum. The different exposure scenarios simulated--direct contact, irrigation of sport fields and groundwater recharge--gave unacceptably high rotavirus risks (0.04 < Pinf < 0.60) despite a low faecal load. The poor reduction of somatic coliphages, which were used as a virus model, in the treatment was one main reason and additional treatment of the greywater is suggested. Somatic coliphages can under extreme circumstances replicate in the wastewater treatment system and thereby underestimate the virus reduction. An alternative QMRA method based on faecal enterococci densities estimated similar risks as for rotavirus. Growth conditions for Salmonella in greywater sediments were also investigated and risk modelling based on replication in the system increased the probability of infection from Salmonella 1000-fold, but it was still lower than the risk of a rotavirus infection.     

Rate of evolution of the specific surface area of surface snow layers

The snowpack can impact atmospheric chemistry by exchanging adsorbed or dissolved gases with the atmosphere. Modeling this impact requires the knowledge of the specific surface area (SSA) of snow and its variations with time. We have therefore measured the evolution of the SSA of eight recent surface snow layers in the Arctic and the French Alps, using CH4 adsorption at liquid nitrogen temperature (77 K). The SSA of fresh snow layers was found to decrease with time, from initial values in the range 613-1540 cm2/g to values as low as 257 cm2/g after 6 days. This is explained by snow metamorphism, which causes modifications in crystal shapes, here essentially crystal rounding and the disappearance of microstructures. A parametrization of the rate of SSA decrease is proposed. We fit the SSA decrease to an exponential law and find that the time constant alpha(exp) (day(-1)) depends on temperature according to alpha(exp) = 76.6 exp (-1708/7), with Tin kelvin. Our parametrization predicts that the SSA of a snow layer evolving at -40 degrees C will decrease by a factor of 2 after 14 days, while a similar decrease at -1 degrees C will only require 5 days. Wind was found to increase the rate of SSA decrease, but insufficient data did not allow a parametrization of this effect.     

CYTOCENTERING: a novel technique enabling automated cell-by-cell patch clamping with the CYTOPATCH chip

Automats for patch clamping suspended cells in whole-cell configuration must (1) bring isolated cells in contact with patch contacts, (2) form gigaseals, and (3) establish stable intracellular access that allows for high quality recording of ionic currents. Single openings in planar substrates seem to be intriguing simple solutions for these problems, but due to the low rate of formation of whole-cell configurations we discarded this approach. Single openings are not suited for both attracting cells to the opening by suction and forming gigaseals with subsequent membrane rupture. To settle the three tasks with a mechanical microstructure we developed the socalled CYTOCENTERING technique to apply to suspended cells the same operation sequence as in conventional patch clamping. With this method we immobilized selected cells from a flowing suspension on the tip of a patch pipette by suction with a success rate of 97% and formed gigaseals with a success rate of 68%. Subsequent whole-cell recordings and intracellular staining with Lucifer yellow proved the stable access to the cytoplasm. Currently, a chip with an embedded suction opening in glass surrounding the microstructured contact pipette is under development. The processing of this CYTOPATCH chip is compatible to large-volume production. The CYTOPATCH automat will allow for fully automated, parallel, and asynchronous whole-cell recordings.     

A data model for managing drug therapy within a patient data management system for intensive care units

The major intent of this article was to describe the design principles of the drug-therapy documentation module of the Patient Data Management System (PDMS) ICUData, in routine use at the intensive care unit (ICU) of the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine at the University Hospital of Giessen, Germany, since February 1999. The new drug management system has been in routine use since March 2000. Until 8 January 2001, 1140 patients have been documented using this approach. It could be demonstrated that it was possible to transform the formerly unstructured text-based documentation into a detailed and structured model. The mediated benefit resulted in the automatic calculation of fluid balance. Further, detailed statistical analyses of therapeutic behavior in drug administration are now possible.