The SBASE domain library: a collection of annotated protein segments

SBASE is a database of annotated protein domain sequences representingvarious structural, functional, ligand binding and topogenicsegments of proteins. The current release of SBASE contains27 211 entries which are provided with standardized names inorder to facilitate retrieval. SBASE is cross-referenced tothe major protein and nucleic acid databanks as well as to thePROSITE catalog of protein sequence patterns [Bairoch, A. (1992)Nucleic Acids Res., 20, Suppl., 2013–2118]. SBASE canbe used to establish domain homologies through database searchusing programs such as FASTA [Lipman and Pearson (1985) Science,227, 1436–1441], FASTDB [Brutlag et al. (1990) Comp. Appl.Biosci., 6, 237–245] or BLAST3 [Altschul and Lipman (1990)Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 87, 5509–5513], which is especiallyuseful in the case of loosely defined domain types for whichefficient consensus patterns cannot be established. The useof SBASE is illustrated on the DNA binding protein Brain-4.The database and a set of search and retrieval tools are freelyavailable on request to the authors or by anonymous ‘ftp’file transfer from <ftp.icgeb.trieste.it>.     

Improving γ-radiation stability of pvc—a review

PVC has a significant tendency to degrade under γ irradiation. Therefore, considerable efforts have been made to improve its γ-radiation stability. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent results in this area, with a special emphasis on the improvement of color stability of PVC-based materials used in medical applications.     

Diversity space of multicarrier continuous‐variable quantum key distribution

The diversity space of multicarrier continuous‐variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) is defined. The diversity space utilizes the resources that are injected into the transmission by the additional degrees of freedom of the multicarrier modulation. We prove that the exploitable extra degree of freedom in a multicarrier CVQKD scenario significantly extends the possibilities of single‐carrier CVQKD. The manifold extraction allows for the parties to reach decreased error probabilities by utilizing those extra resources of a multicarrier transmission that are not available in a single‐carrier CVQKD setting. We define the multidimensional manifold space of multicarrier CVQKD and the optimal tradeoff between the available degrees of freedom of the multicarrier transmission. We extend the manifold extraction for the multiple‐access AMQD‐MQA (multiuser quadrature allocation) multicarrier protocol. The additional resources of multicarrier CVQKD allow the achievement of significant performance improvements that are particularly crucial in an experimental scenario.     

Cellular toxicity of carbon-based nanomaterials

The cellular toxicity of carbon-based nanomaterials was studied as a function of their aspect ratio and surface chemistry. These structures were multiwalled carbon nanotubes, carbon nanofibers, and carbon nanoparticles. Their toxicity was tested in vitro on lung tumor cells. Our work clearly indicated that these materials are toxic while the hazardous effect is size-dependent. Moreover, cytotoxicity is enhanced when the surface of the particles is functionalized after an acid treatment.     

Non-destructive Visible/NIR Spectroscopy for Differentiation of Fresh and Frozen-thawed Fish

Nondestructive visible/near‐infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was evaluated to investigate whether fish has been frozen‐thawed. Fresh or frozen‐thawed red sea bream Pagrus major (n= 108) were scanned using a NIRSystems 6500 spectrophotometer equipped with a surface interactance fiber‐optic accessory then discriminated by soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) based on principal component analysis (PCA) scores. The major effect of freeze‐thawing treatment involves a gross change in total reflectance after freezing and thawing; this arises from changes in light scatter presumably arising from alterations in the physical structure of at least the surface layer of fish. Untreated original absorbance spectra achieved much better (100%) classification accuracy for the prediction samples while the same figures for multiplicative scatter correction (MSC) treated spectra are considerably worse, indicating that scattering is the major information that makes classification work. No incorrect type of classification at all and also there are no samples classified to both groups either. This faster technique has the potential to differentiate fresh and frozen‐thawed fish and could be applied for online or at‐line processing control.     

A retrospective analysis of 1570 appendiceal carcinoids

The design, synthesis and evaluation of transition metal containing combinatorial libraries has received much attention in the past few years. As a result, a variety of synthetic techniques have been developed, and rapid assays for metal ion binding have yielded new ligand classes displaying high affinity and selectivity. Research in catalysis has centered around lead optimization using much smaller parallel libraries because of the lack of a truly efficient reaction screening method. Materials science applications have also focused on spatially addressed libraries and have employed a variety of techniques to identify compounds with desired physical properties. Nonetheless, high-throughput characterization and reaction product detection methods must still be developed in order to realize the full potential of combinatorial chemistry for the discovery of novel metal-containing compounds.     

Kinetics of the heterogeneous catalytic decomposition of methane

Experiments have clearly demonstrated that dissociation of CH₄ on (supported) metal catalyst (e.g. Pt, Ru, Rh, Ir, Pd) occurs to give hydrogen, a small amount of ethane and surface carbonaceous species. For this catalytic decomposition of methane and its conversion into higher hydrocarbons (especially to ethane and surface carbon) model has been developed to investigate the kinetics. Rate constants of the elementary steps have been estimated. The problem with experimental data (especially for the surface species CH_m-s) is also treated for the sake of future improvement in the kinetics studies. A comparison with catalytic hydrogenolysis of ethane kinetics is also outlined.     

Neuropsychological effects of closed head injury in older adults: A comparison with Alzheimer's disease.

In this study, neuropsychological profiles of 14 older adult patients with mild or moderate closed head injury (CHI). 14 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), and 14 community residing elderly controls were compared. The groups were similar in demographic features, and the CHI and AD patients had comparable Mini-Mental State Examination scores. Tests of verbal learning and memory, letter and category fluency, and naming were administered. Relative to the CHI group, AD patients exhibited more devastated memory and did not show a normal facilitation on the category retrieval task. The patient groups exhibited similar levels of categorical clustering and naming accuracy for both high- and low-frequency words. These results suggest that neuropsychological markers of memory and semantic processing may be useful in differentiating the cognitive effects from AD versus early recovery from CHI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparative investigation into the corrosion of different bronze alloys suitable for outdoor sculptures

Several bronze alloys, suitable for production of outdoor sculptures, were developed in the frame of the European project “Eurocare-Bronzart”. The elemental composition of the alloys was searched to fulfil specific criteria such as: reduction of lead content, good resistance toward corrosion and aesthetic characteristics conformable to artistic purposes. After metallurgical characterization, the resistance toward corrosion was evaluated in artificial environments. Ageing experiments were performed in a salt spray cabinet and in a climatic chamber in the presence of a controlled concentration of SO₂. The Thin Layer Activation (TLA) method was applied to calculate the thickness loss of activated specimens exposed to artificial corrosive atmospheres. After artificial ageing experiments the surface of the materials was investigated by SEM-EDS techniques.The bronze alloys containing different percentage of nickel showed the best properties of resistance toward corrosion.