Physicochemical properties and silicon content in wheat flour treated with diatomaceous earth and conventionally stored

This study was done to evaluate the physicochemical properties and to quantify the residual silicon in flour from wheat grains treated with different dosages of DE and stored in a conventional system for 180 days. Samples containing 10.0 kg of wheat grain were treated with 0.00, 2.00 and 4.00 g kg⁻¹ of DE and then homogenized and stored in cotton bags at 22 °C and 70 ± 5 g 100 g⁻¹ relative humidity. Physicochemical analyses were carried out at 0, 60, 120 and 180 days of storage. The experiment was conducted in a randomized design with a factorial 3 × 4 arrangement (three doses of DE × four storage periods), totaling 12 treatments, with three replicates for each treatment. The wheat flour samples were digested and the silicon residue quantification was conducted through colorimetry. The wheat treated with DE presented a lower test weight compared with control, +b^∗ chromaticity coordinate for color and increased ash content and L^∗. The physicochemical changes in the grain and wheat flour were proportional to the amount of DE applied.     

Culture and ideology in Ian Suttie's theory of mind.

The author discusses the comprehensive outlook that shaped Ian Suttie's psychology. Suttie is seen as a background influence behind the British school of psychoanalysis, and his ideas pervade that school and therefore late-modern notions of the mind. The author describes the formation of Suttie's independent theory, and argues that his project was expressly ideological, as he tried to counter what he saw as the reactionary and disruptive influence of Freud's classical theory. Suttie offered an optimistic perception of the mind, which could serve as the basis for a progressive social policy. This perception was rooted in the outlook of early 20th-century reforming liberalism, whose preferences and prejudices it shares. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Connectionist Inductive Learning and Logic Programming System

This paper presents the Connectionist Inductive Learning and Logic Programming System (C-IL²P). C-IL²P is a new massively parallel computational model based on a feedforward Artificial Neural Network that integrates inductive learning from examples and background knowledge, with deductive learning from Logic Programming. Starting with the background knowledge represented by a propositional logic program, a translation algorithm is applied generating a neural network that can be trained with examples. The results obtained with this refined network can be explained by extracting a revised logic program from it. Moreover, the neural network computes the stable model of the logic program inserted in it as background knowledge, or learned with the examples, thus functioning as a parallel system for Logic Programming. We have successfully applied C-IL²P to two real-world problems of computational biology, specifically DNA sequence analyses. Comparisons with the results obtained by some of the main neural, symbolic, and hybrid inductive learning systems, using the same domain knowledge, show the effectiveness of C-IL²P.     

Piperidine Alkaloids in Nitrogen Fertilized Pinus ponderosa

We fertilized individual, pole-size ponderosa pine trees at two low-quality sites and pine saplings at a relatively high-quality site, with ammonium nitrate. Six to 12 months later, we measured total %N and 2,6-disubstituted piperidine alkaloids in the foliage. The N additions raised foliar %N above deficiency levels (i.e., from 1.0–1.1% to 1.4–1.6%) at the low-quality sites, but did not elevate foliar %N in saplings at the higher quality site, where it was already (1.9%) well above critical levels. In control trees with foliar N below a threshold of 1.1%, we detected no more than trace levels of alkaloids, indicating that alkaloid production is highly constrained by N deficiency. The N additions increased mean concentrations of the predominant alkaloid, pinidine, at all three sites. Mean total alkaloid concentrations for fertilized trees at the two low-quality sites were 12 and 155 g/g dry wt higher than controls (relative increases of 12× and 4.5×, respectively). For saplings at the high-quality site, the mean total increased by 584 g/g dry wt (1.6×) with the N additions. Allocation of foliar N to alkaloids was highest in fertilized saplings (0.81%) compared to control saplings (0.53%). These findings demonstrate that foliar alkaloid concentrations can be increased by nitrogen fertilization of forest trees growing on both low- and high-quality sites. Fertilizing for the purpose of inhibiting potential herbivores may be more successful at higher quality sites where alkaloid levels are enhanced relative to food quality (foliar %N).     

The isolation and identification of 11-cyclohexylundecanoic acid from sheep perinephric fat

Sheep perinephric fat has been found to contain 11-cyclohexylundecanoic acid to the extent of approximately 0.05% of the total weight of fatty acids.     

Immediate adaptation of the dog kidney to acute hypercapnia

Studies were performed to determine whether ammoniagenesis could adapt instantaneously to acidosis in the dog kidney. Following acute respiratory acidosis, renal glutamine extraction rose acutely in dogs with stable renal blood flow but did not change when the renal blood flow fell by more than 25%. Acute hypercapnia immediately increased renal ammonia production in both groups of dogs. The rate of both glutamine extraction and ammonia production in acutely hypercapnic dogs without hemodynamic changes was comparable to the rates observed in dogs with chronic metabolic acidosis. Furthermore, the renal metabolite profile observed in acute hypercapnia was similar to the pattern described in chronic metabolic acidosis, i.e., a marked fall in renal glutamate and alpha-ketoglutarate concentrations and a fivefold increase in malate and oxaloacetate concentrations. In the liver and muscle, acute hypercapnia induced no significant change in glutamine concentration but glutamate and alpha-ketoglutarate concentrations decreased. Our findings demonstrate that the dog kidney can adapt immediately to acidosis but that hemodynamic change may mask this adaptation.     

The Semantic Web Vision: Where Are We?

Semantic Web developers have adopted OWL to represent knowledge. OWL, or a language with similar theoretical foundations, will lead the way in the semantic exploration of the Web. Currently, Web-based standards are the preferred way to represent knowledge. Furthermore, respondents mainly use ontologies to allow both humans and computers to understand knowledge and domain models. Web 3.0 can bring a new breed of spectacular applications compared to Web 2.0. with the same magnitude that separates Web 2.0 from Web 1.0.