Comparative evolutionary psychology of sperm competition.

A comparative evolutionary psychological perspective predicts that species that recurrently faced similar adaptive problems may have evolved similar psychological mechanisms to solve these problems. Sperm competition provides an arena in which to assess the heuristic value of such a comparative evolutionary perspective. The sperm competition that results from female infidelity and polyandry presents a similar class of adaptive problems for individuals across many species. The authors first describe mechanisms of sperm competition in insects and in birds. They suggest that the adaptive problems and evolved solutions in these species provide insight into human anatomy, physiology, psychology, and behavior. The authors then review recent theoretical and empirical arguments for the existence of sperm competition in humans and discuss proposed adaptations in humans that have analogs in insects or birds. The authors conclude by highlighting the heuristic value of a comparative evolutionary psychological approach in this field. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automation for High-throughput Identification and Picking of GFP Expressing Colonies

Green fluorescent protein (GFP) has many applications as a marker in living cells, and has become widely used as a reporter gene in microbial, plant and animal cells. Screening microbial colonies for GFP expression enables various types of assays (e.g. for secretory mutations). However, this is laborious, non-quantitative and potentially hazardous to the operator (due to UV illumination) when performed manually. In order to address this the GloPix robot was developed. The imaging system discriminates between colonies based on the level of fluorescence activity and the picking function automatically transfers cells to microplate wells. Measuring fluorescent activity allows quantitation of fluorescent tag concentration/expression.     

Statistical Learning for Humanoid Robots

The complexity of the kinematic and dynamic structure of humanoid robots make conventional analytical approaches to control increasingly unsuitable for such systems. Learning techniques offer a possible way to aid controller design if insufficient analytical knowledge is available, and learning approaches seem mandatory when humanoid systems are supposed to become completely autonomous. While recent research in neural networks and statistical learning has focused mostly on learning from finite data sets without stringent constraints on computational efficiency, learning for humanoid robots requires a different setting, characterized by the need for real-time learning performance from an essentially infinite stream of incrementally arriving data. This paper demonstrates how even high-dimensional learning problems of this kind can successfully be dealt with by techniques from nonparametric regression and locally weighted learning. As an example, we describe the application of one of the most advanced of such algorithms, Locally Weighted Projection Regression (LWPR), to the on-line learning of three problems in humanoid motor control: the learning of inverse dynamics models for model-based control, the learning of inverse kinematics of redundant manipulators, and the learning of oculomotor reflexes. All these examples demonstrate fast, i.e., within seconds or minutes, learning convergence with highly accurate final peformance. We conclude that real-time learning for complex motor system like humanoid robots is possible with appropriately tailored algorithms, such that increasingly autonomous robots with massive learning abilities should be achievable in the near future.     

高折射率镜头推动浸没式光刻跨越32纳米

在今年的SPIE Microlithography年会上,与会的专家们一如既往地针对如何延伸光学光刻技术使用寿命的问题进行了大量的研讨。而与往年会议不同的是,尽管有人心存疑虑,但今年的会议仍然对双重曝光技术打开了友善之门。关于这项技术,普遍的问题是如何妥善地解决图形套     

Hormonal control of programmed cell death/apoptosis

Apoptosis or programmed cell death is a physiological form of cell death that occurs in embryonic development and during involution of organs. It is characterized by distinct biochemical and morphological changes such as DNA fragmentation, plasma membrane blebbing and cell volume shrinkage. Many hormones, cytokines and growth factors are known to act as general and/or tissue-specific survival factors preventing the onset of apoptosis. In addition, many hormones and growth factors are also capable of inducing or facilitating programmed cell death under physiological or pathological conditions, or both. Steroid hormones are potent regulators of apoptosis in steroid-dependent cell types and tissues such as the mammary gland, the prostate, the ovary and the testis. Growth factors such as epidermal growth factor, nerve growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) and insulin-like growth factor-I act as survival factors and inhibit apoptosis in a number of cell types such as haematopoietic cells, preovulatory follicles, the mammary gland, phaeochromocytoma cells and neurones. Conversely, apoptosis modulates the functioning and the functional integrity of many endocrine glands and of many cells that are capable of synthesizing and secreting hormones. In addition, exaggeration of the primarily natural process of apoptosis has a key role in the pathogenesis of diseases involving endocrine tissues. Most importantly, in autoimmune diseases such as autoimmune thyroid disease and type 1 diabetes mellitus, new data suggest that the immune system itself may not carry the final act of organ injury: rather, the target cells (i.e. thyrocytes and beta cells of the islets) commit suicide through apoptosis. The understanding of how hormones influence programmed cell death and, conversely, of how apoptosis affects endocrine glands, is central to further design strategies to prevent and treat diseases that affect endocrine tissues. This short review summarizes the available evidence showing where and how hormones control apoptosis and where and how programmed cell death exerts modulating effects upon hormonally active tissues.     

TiB2-coated cathodes for aluminum smelting cells

Pipes consisting of coatings 700 μm thick of chemically vapor-deposited TiB₂ on carbon were produced and tested for corrosion and/or erosion resistance in a laboratory aluminum smelting cell for 100 h. The projected lifetime of the coating was approximately 30 days, a factor of 50 shorter than that projected by assuming uniform saturation dissolution of TiB₂ in molten aluminum. The corrosion and/or erosion as measured from scanning electron micrographs pointed to grain boundary attack with subsequent crystalline pull-out as the mechanism for the shorter than expected lifetimes.     

Haloperidol does not affect motivational processes in an operant runway model of food-seeking behavior.

The present experiment examined the effects of dopamine receptor antagonism on subjects' motivation to seek food. Rats were trained to discriminate between 2 olfactory cues predicting either the presence (S+) or absence (S–) of food reinforcement in the goal box of a straight-arm runway. Rats learned to traverse the alley quickly when presented with the S+ and much more slowly when presented with the S–. Haloperidol pretreatment was unable to alter this pattern of behavior (i.e., rats still ran quickly when presented with the scent that predicted food availability). Thus, it seems that the same dopamine antagonist treatments that have been shown to disrupt food reinforcement do not prevent the food-seeking behavior produced by presentation of food-predictive cues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

First- and second-order information in natural images: a filter-based approach to image statistics

Previous analyses of natural image statistics have dealt mainly with their Fourier power spectra. Here we explore image statistics by examining responses to biologically motivated filters that are spatially localized and respond to first-order (luminance-defined) and second-order (contrast- or texture-defined) characteristics. We compare the distribution of natural image responses across filter parameters for first- and second-order information. We find that second-order information in natural scenes shows the same self-similarity previously described for first-order information but has substantially less orientational anisotropy. The magnitudes of the two kinds of information, as well as their mutual unsigned correlation, are much stronger for particular combinations of filter parameters in natural images but not in unstructured fractal images having the same power spectra.