First suckling: A crucial event for mother-young attachment? An experimental study in horses (Equus caballus).

This study investigates the consequences of interference during first suckling for subsequent mare-young attachment in horses (Equus caballus). Foals brought to their dams' teats appeared, at later ages (1-3 months), to remain closer to their dams and to play less than control foals that had been allowed to suckle spontaneously. Higher levels of play and distance initiatives from the mother are considered criteria for secure attachment in horses, humans, and other species. As this unique handling was the only event that distinguished experimental from control groups, the authors concluded that first suckling is a crucial event in the development of secure dam-young attachment. These results could have important implications for all mammal species, including humans. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In situ dynamic tests and seismic records on the RHR system building enel IV nuclear plant/caorso (Italy)

The tests on the RHR Building of the Caorso Nuclear Plant are part of a program of dynamic tests on large structures sponsored by ENEL, which ISMES is presently carrying out.The main purposes of this program are:

• - to collect information on the effectiveness of different excitation methods;

• - to set up the most suitable recording and processing technique;

• - to compare the experimental results with the computed ones, in view of the validation of the adopted computing schemes.

The structure has been excited by a mechanical vibrator delivering sinusoidal forces in a frequency range 2 to 20 cps, in conditions of empty, , and completely full pools. The response, recorded by 36 velocity transducers was digitally processed by means of a Fourier Analyzer. Moreover, a number of Friuli earthquake aftershocks could be picked up, and the building response recorded in many points.More than ten natural frequencies could be detected, and the related damping and mode shapes determined, in a frequency range from 3 to 16 cps.The structure frequencies determined by tests are lower than the computed ones.The energy content of the seismic excitation, due to the large distance from the epicentral area, is confined within very low frequencies. Some data on the behaviour of the RHR and Reactor buildings could however be obtained.The testing technique adopted, which does not require long testing time and high costs, supplies a large amount of reliable data in case of excitation within the linear range. To account for non-linearities, different testing methods should be used, such as blasting or strong forced vibrations of the foundation. Moreover, the adopted method can fully describe the higher vibration modes, which are of noticeable importance as to the behaviour of mechanical and electric equipment installed in the structure.     

Photocatalytic oxidation of substituted toluenes with irradiated TiO2 semiconductor. Effect of zeolite

Photocatalytic oxidation of substituted toluenes was investigated on irradiated TiO₂ and TiO₂ combined with HY₁₅ and HY₂₀ zeolites. In all cases the oxidation occurred in the first step exclusively on either one substituent or the other, but never on both simultaneously. In the presence of a zeolite, photooxidation conversion was higher than that obtained without zeolite.     

User acceptance studies to evaluate discomfort glare in daylit rooms

As for now, it seems to be infeasible to predict or measure the perceived degree of discomfort glare from windows. Within an international research project between Delft University of Technology and Berlin University of Technology, user acceptance studies are carried out in full-scale rooms under real sky conditions to study discomfort glare in daylit situations. The aim of the studies was to draw up a relation between glare assessments and measured quantities. For this purpose two test rooms are used: one room was occupied by the subject, in the other one the required measuring equipment was placed. An electronic questionnaire was developed for these studies and installed on the computer of the subject. Continuous measurements were necessary to link subjective assessments to measured quantities that are obtained concurrently. The obtained relation can be used to predict the average visual comfort evaluation under specific lighting conditions and to propose visual comfort criteria to maintain visual comfort. The study showed that the vertical illuminance measured near the facade and the average sky luminance measured from the back of the room are good measures to monitor visual comfort under intermediate and overcast sky conditions. The visual comfort criteria should nonetheless be used with care, since the diversity of individual preferences is large. The user preferably has an user interface to overrule the glare protection when it is controlled on these visual comfort criteria.     

Cyclic AMP increases incorporation of exogenous fatty acids into triacylglycerols in hamster fibroblasts

Incorporation of various exogenous saturated or unsaturated [¹⁴C]labeled fatty acids (palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic and arachidonic) into triacylglycerols by hamster fibroblasts was markedly enhanced (two-to fourfold) in the presence of theophylline or dibutyryl cyclic adenosinemonophosphate (dbcAMP). This effect was observed for short-term (1–6 hr) as well as long-term (15–24 hr) preincubation with dbcAMP. In the presence of sodium fluoride, a phosphoprotein phosphatase inhibitor, measurement of diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT) activity in cells pretreated with dbcAMP pointed out a marked increase (3X) in specific activity. The results suggest that DGAT activity in fibroblasts could be activated by a cAMP-dependent phosphorylation process.     

Spatial reasoning in a fuzzy region connection calculus

Although the region connection calculus (RCC) offers an appealing framework for modelling topological relations, its application in real-world scenarios is hampered when spatial phenomena are affected by vagueness. To cope with this, we present a generalization of the RCC based on fuzzy set theory, and discuss how reasoning tasks such as satisfiability and entailment checking can be cast into linear programming problems. We furthermore reveal that reasoning in our fuzzy RCC is NP-complete, thus preserving the computational complexity of reasoning in the RCC, and we identify an important tractable subfragment. Moreover, we show how reasoning tasks in our fuzzy RCC can also be reduced to reasoning tasks in the original RCC. While this link with the RCC could be exploited in practical reasoning algorithms, we mainly focus on the theoretical consequences. In particular, using this link we establish a close relationship with the Egg-Yolk calculus, and we demonstrate that satisfiable knowledge bases can be realized by fuzzy regions in any dimension.