The activation of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) by glycosaminoglycans: influence of the sulfation pattern on the biological activity of FGF-1

Six synthetic heparin-like oligosaccharides have been used to investigate the effect of the oligosaccharide sulfation pattern on the stimulation of acidic fibroblast growth factor (FGF-1) induced mitogenesis signaling and the biological significance of FGF-1 trans dimerization in the FGF-1 activation process. It has been found that some molecules with a sulfation pattern that does not contain the internal trisaccharide motif, which has been proposed for high affinity for FGF-1, stimulate FGF-1 more efficiently than those with the structure of the regular region of heparin. In contrast to regular region oligosaccharides, in which the sulfate groups are distributed on both sides of their helical three-dimensional structures, the molecules containing this particular sulfation pattern display the sulfate groups only on one side of the helix. These results and the fact that these oligosaccharides do not promote FGF-1 dimerization according to sedimentation-equilibrium analysis, confirm the importance of negative-charge distribution in the activation process and strongly suggest that FGF dimerization is not a general and absolute requirement for biological activity.     

Les niobates CaUNb2O8 et MThNb2O8 (M = Ca,Sr, Cd). Etude des transformations monoclinique - quadratique

New compounds M^IIThNb₂O₈ with M^II = Ca, Sr, Cd, and CaUNb₂O₈ have been prepared by solid state reaction. These compounds isotypic with the rare-earth niobates LnNbO₄ cristallize in a monoclinic system with space group I2/c. Like the niobates LnNbO₄, they present a displacive and non quenchable transition (monoclinic to tetragonal) which is probably of second order.     

The development of small specimen mechanical test techniques

The current program plan for the development of materials for fusion reactors requires testing candidate materials in both fission reactors and high energy neutron sources. Because of the volume limitations of available facilities, both current and near term, and because of the relatively large number of materials and test conditions that will need to be explored, it is essential that test techniques be developed to extract mechanical property information from small volume specimens. A variety of such test techniques are under development at the University of California, Santa Barbara. These include instrumented microhardness, bulge, shear punch, indentation creep and load relaxation and miniaturized fracture tests for obtaining strength, ductility, time-dependent flow, and fracture behavior information on specimens as small as TEM discs.     

Techno-economic evaluation of membrane filtration for the recovery and re-use of tanning chemicals

The majority of pollution generated from leather manufacturing can be contributed to the inefficiency of chemical use in leather processing and to organic substances derived from the hides during processing. In particular, the overall tanning processes performed in drums can be characterized by a high consumption of water and chemicals, most of which are found in the final wastewater. To ensure full penetration and reaction of chemicals with collagen, chemicals are added in excess and are only partly up-taken by the leather. Significant savings of chemicals can be achieved by recovery and recycling of chemicals and water from part streams, thus reducing environmental impacts.This research formed an integrated approach to investigate and exploit the potential of a closed loop operation for various part streams of tanneries. Each of the process streams was separately collected, treated and purified by membrane technologies to obtain a recyclable liquor which can be re-used operationally. In this way a complete recovery of process liquors can be achieved for immediate operational re-use.Membrane technology has been applied to recover chemicals from un-hairing, vegetable tanning, chrome liquors and to polish saline part streams for re-use. By applying membrane filtration up to 90% of the treated liquors can be recovered giving a remaining concentrate volume of only 10%. The permeate obtained from several process areas contained to a high extent chemicals, which were re-used for leather processing.     

Morphological stability of copper-silver multilayer thin films at elevated temperatures

The kinetics of breakdown of Cu-Ag polycrystalline multilayers during aging at elevated temperatures was investigated. Microlaminates with Cu:Ag layer thicknesses of 2:2, 1:4, 4:1, and 4:0.1 μm were aged for 10 minutes to 192 hours (t), at temperatures ranging from 700 to 900 K. The asdeposited microlaminates had a fine-grained columnar microstructure with well-defined interfaces. Upon annealing, the morphology evolved over three time regimes. In the first regime, the grains in each phase grew quickly to an apparent terminal size, which depended on both the layer thickness and annealing temperature. Next, grooves formed at the intersections of grain boundaries and layer interfaces and grew with a t ^0.25 dependence. The groove growth appeared to be independent of layer thickness and was approximately equal in Cu and Ag. The microlaminates started to break down in the third regime, as grain-boundary grooves on opposite sides of a layer bridged its thickness. Models for grain growth and grooving in thin films were modified for multilayer microlaminates and were shown to fit the experimental data reasonably well. This suggests that the terminal grain size is reached when groove drag overcomes the capillary forces driving grain growth, and that grooving kinetics are dominated by interfacial diffusion.     

Successful non-surgical deep intrauterine insemination with small numbers of spermatozoa in sows

A 100-fold reduction of the standard dose for artificial insemination in pigs (3 x 10(9) spermatozoa in 80-100 ml fluid) can be used when spermatozoa are deposited surgically next to the uterotubal junction. The present study was performed to develop a technique for non-surgical deep intrauterine insemination in pigs without sedation of the animal. In Expt 1, sows were weaned, treated to induce oestrus and used to evaluate the difficulties involved in the insertion of a flexible fibre optic endoscope through the cervix and along the uterine horn. Deep uterine catheterizations were performed on each sow at 30-40 h after hCG treatment in the crate in which the animal was housed. The endoscope was inserted through an artificial insemination spirette, moved through the cervical canal and propelled forward along one uterine horn until the entire endoscope was inserted. In 30 sows (90.9%) no or minor difficulties were observed during insertion and in these animals the procedure was completed in 4.1 +/- 0.26 min. Insertion of the endoscope through the cervical canal was not possible in only one sow (3.03%). In Expt 2, endoscopic deep intrauterine insemination at 36 h after hCG treatment was performed in 15, 18 and 13 sows with 100, 20 or 5 x 10(7) spermatozoa, respectively, resulting in farrowing rates of 86.6%, 88.9% and 92.3%, respectively; there were no significant differences among groups. Farrowing rates after deep intrauterine inseminations were also not different from those achieved after standard intracervical insemination with 3 x 10(9) spermatozoa (control group: n = 48; 87.5%). Mean litter size (9.41 +/- 0.38 to 10.02 +/- 0.25) was also similar among the different experimental and control groups. In conclusion, endoscopic non-surgical deep intrauterine inseminations can be performed quickly in sows, and normal farrowing rates and litter sizes can be obtained after insemination with a small number of spermatozoa.     

Sequence analysis of two cosmids from Schizosaccharomyces pombe chromosome III

We report the complete sequence of two cosmids, SPCC895 (38457 bp insert, EMBL Accession No. AL035247) and SPCC1322 (42068 bp insert, EMBL Accession No. AL035259), localized on chromosome III of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe genome. Fourteen Coding DNA sequences (CDSs) were identified in SPCC895 and 17 in SPCC1322. Two known genes were found in each cosmid: map2 and gms1 on SPCC895, encoding the mating type P-factor precursor and an UDP-galactose transporter, respectively, and bub1 and ade6 in SPCC1322, encoding a protein kinase and a phosphoribosylaminoimidazole carboxylase, respectively. The fission yeast K RNA gene has been localized to SPCC895. Three ribosomal proteins have been predicted among these two cosmids. Nine CDSs similar to known proteins were found on SPCC895, and seven on SPCC1322. They include putative genes for an uridylate kinase, a proteasome catalytic component, an ion transporter, a checkpoint protein, a translation initiation protein, a SNARE complex protein, a protein involved in cytoskeletal organization, a spindle pole body-associating protein, pre-mRNA splicing factor RNA helicase, a 3'-5' exonuclease for RNA 3' ss-tail, an UTP-glucose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase, a leukotriene A(4) hydrolase, a member of the RanBP7-importin beta-Cse1p superfamily, a Ca(++)-calmodulin-dependent serine/threonine protein kinase and a prohibitin antiproliferative protein. One CDS is predicted to be an integral membrane protein. One CDS from SPCC895 is similar to a CDS of unknown function from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and three from SPCC1322 are similar to CDSs of unknown function from Candida albicans, S. cerevisiae and Sz. pombe, respectively. Finally, one CDS of SPCC895 and three of SPCC1322 correspond to orphan genes.     

Steam bubble condensation in sub-cooled water in case of co-current vertical pipe flow

The structure of a steam-water flow in a vertical pipe of 195.3 mm inner diameter was studied using novel wire-mesh sensors for high-pressure/high-temperature operation (max 7 MPa/286 °C). Tests were carried out at pressures of 1 and 2 MPa under nearly adiabatic conditions as well as with slightly sub-cooled water (6 K at max). Steam was injected into sub-cooled water and condensed during the upwards flow. The evolution of radial gas fraction profiles and bubble size distributions along the pipe in a high-pressure steam-water flow was measured for the first time. The experimental data allow correlating the intensity of steam condensation in contact with sub-cooled water with the structure of the interfacial area and the bubble size distribution, which is very important for the model development. The data were used to test the complex interaction of local bubble distributions, bubble size distributions and local heat and mass transfer. The model considers a large number of bubble classes (50). This allows the investigation of the influence of the bubble size distribution. The results of the simulations show a good agreement with the experimental data. The condensation process is clearly slower, if the injection nozzle diameter is increased (from 1 to 4 mm orifices). Also bubble break-up has a strong influence on the condensation process because of the change of the interfacial area. Some modelling errors arise from the uncertainty of the interfacial area for large bubbles and the heat transfer coefficient.