Cholesterol is critical to the integrity of neuronal porosome/fusion pore

Secretion is one of the most fundamental cellular processes. Porosomes have been demonstrated as the universal secretory machinery in cells. Earlier studies determine the presence of a number of proteins in porosomes, among them the N- and P/Q-type calcium channels, actin, syntaxin-1, synaptotagmin-1, vimentin, the N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF), the chloride channel CLC-3, and the alpha subunit of the heterotrimeric GTP-binding protein G(o). Studies demonstrate that t-SNAREs localize at the base of porosomes, and directly interact with calcium channels. In the present study, we demonstrate that Syntaxin-1 co-localizes with cholesterol in solubilized synaptosomal membrane preparations. Depletion of cholesterol, results in the dissociation of both Syntaxin-1 and N-type calcium channel from neuronal porosomes. Thus, cholesterol participates as an integral component of the neuronal porosome complex, and is required for its stability.     

Microstructural and Tribological Properties of A356 Al–Si Alloy Reinforced with Al<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> Particles

In the present study, the effect of the Al₂O₃ particles (average size of 12 μm, 3 and 10 wt.%) reinforcement on the microstructure and tribological properties of Al–Si alloy (A356) was investigated. Composites were produced by applying compocasting process. Tribological properties of unreinforced alloy and composites were studied, using pin-on-disc tribometer, under dry sliding conditions at different specific loads and sliding speed of 1 m/s. Microhardness measurements, optical microscope and scanning electron microscope were used for microstructural characterization and investigation of worn surfaces and wear debris. During compocasting of A356 alloy, a transformation from a typical dendritic primary α phase to a non-dendritic rosette-like structure occurred. Composites exhibited better wear resistance compared with unreinforced alloy. Presence of 3 wt.% Al₂O₃ particles in the composite material affected the wear resistance only at specific loads up to 1 MPa. The wear rate of composite with 10 wt.% Al₂O₃ particles was nearly two order of the magnitude lower than the wear rate of the matrix alloy. Dominant wear mechanism for all materials was adhesion, with others mechanisms: oxidation, abrasion and delamination as minor ones.     

Hydrogen Effervescence from Aluminum Alloy Melts

With expansion of integrated computational materials engineering, new mathematical models are required for the assessment of processes that traditionally were manually monitored on factory production floors. The Richards logistic function is used to describe the total amount of porosity in an as-cast aluminum alloy sample after treatment under near vacuum and atmospheric pressures. The acquired function constants were correlated to the different process parameters during solidification. It is found that the Richards logistic function describes the best formation of porosity in aluminum alloy melts. The maximum porosity (M _P) and lowest porosity level (L _P) constants are directly related to the highest and lowest porosity levels in the analyzed samples, while the rate (r) defines the increase of porosity with respect to an increase in dissolved hydrogen between the threshold and mass transfer limits. The Richards logistic function can be used instead of traditional low-order mathematical equations to predict threshold limit and amount of porosity in solidified aluminum alloys by assessing the hydrogen concentration in aluminum alloy melts.     

Determination of 200 °C Isothermal Section of Al-Ag-Ga Phase Diagram by Microanalysis,X-ray Diffraction,Hardness and Electrical Conductivity Measurements

Ternary Al-Ag-Ga system at 200 °C was experimentally and thermodynamically assessed. Isothermal section was extrapolated using optimized thermodynamic parameters for constitutive binary systems. Microstructure and phase composition of the selected alloy samples were analyzed using light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy combined with energy-dispersive spectrometry and x-ray powder diffraction technique. The obtained experimental results were found to be in a close agreement with the predicted phase equilibria. Hardness and electrical conductivity of the alloy samples from four vertical sections Al-Ag₈₀Ga₂₀, Al-Ag₆₀Ga₄₀, Ag-Al₈₀Ga₂₀ and Ag-Al₆₀Ga₄₀ of the ternary Al-Ag-Ga system at 200 °C were experimentally determined using Brinell method and eddy current measurements. Additionally, hardness of the individual phases present in the microstructure of the studied alloy samples was determined using Vickers microhardness test. Based on experimentally obtained results, isolines of Brinell hardness and electrical conductivity were calculated for the alloys from isothermal section of the ternary Al-Ag-Ga system at 200 °C.     

Forward Adaptive Logarithmic Quantizer with New Lossless Coding Method for Laplacian Source

The aim of this paper is to improve the G.711 standard, which is widely used, especially in the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Two solutions are proposed. The first solution uses only lossless coder, achieving a bit-rate decrease of 0.82 bits/sample, compared to the G.711 codec. The second solution uses forward adaptation and a lossless coder, further decreasing the bit-rate (by 1.25 bits/sample) and achieving higher average signal-to-quantization noise ratio (SQNR) in comparison with the G.711 codec. Also, the second solution is more robust than the G.711 codec, which means that it has near constant SQNR for a wide range of input signal power. That is very important for signals whose input power varies with time, such as speech and video signals. Our solutions are compatible with the G.711 codec, they have little additional complexity and delay and therefore can be applied in real-time systems, such as PSTN or VoIP. They can also be used in many other systems, such as WiMax and OFDM, as a replacement or improvement of the G.711 codec. Standardization process of the G.711.1 standard (which is a wide-band extension of the G.711 standard) is largely present. Our solutions fulfill all the requirements for that new standard; therefore they can be implemented in its low-frequency part.     

The dependence of the photocatalytic activity of TiO2/carbon nanotubes nanocomposites on the modification of the carbon nanotubes

Nanostructural TiO₂/modified multi-wall carbon nanotubes photocatalysts were prepared by hydrolysis of Ti(iso-OC₃H₇)₄ providing chemical bonding of anatase TiO₂ nanoparticles onto oxidized- or amino-functionalized multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The processes of functionalization of the MWCNT and the deposition of TiO₂ influence the photocatalytic activity of the synthesized nanocomposites. The phase composition, crystallite size, and the structural and surface properties of the obtained TiO₂/modified-MWCNT nanocomposite were analyzed from XRD, FEG-SEM, TEM/HRTEM and FTIR data, as well low temperature N₂ adsorption. In the photocatalytic study, the TiO₂/oxidized-MWCNT catalyst showed the highest and the TiO₂/amino functionalized-MWCNT catalysts somewhat lower degradation rates, indicating that the enhancement of photocatalysis was supported by the more effective electron transfer properties of the oxygen- than amino-containing functional groups, which support the efficient charge transportation and separation of the photogenerated electron-hole pairs.     

Multiexcitonic dual emission in CdSe/CdS tetrapods and nanorods

CdSe/CdS semiconductor nanocrystal heterostructures are currently of high interest for the peculiar electronic structure offering unique optical properties. Here, we show that nanorods and tetrapods made of such material combination enable efficient multiexcitonic emission, when the volume of the nanoparticle is maximized. This condition is fulfilled by tetrapods with an arm length of 55 nm and results in a dual emission with comparable intensities from the CdS arms and CdSe core. The relative intensities of the dual emission, originating from exciton phase-space filling and reduced Auger recombination, can be effectively modulated by the photon fluence of the pump laser. The results, obtained under steady-state detection conditions, highlight the properties of tetrapods as multiexciton dual-color emitters.     

Efficiency of high‐order elements for continuous and discontinuous Galerkin methods

To evaluate the computational performance of high‐order elements, a comparison based on operation count is proposed instead of runtime comparisons. More specifically, linear versus high‐order approximations are analyzed for implicit solver under a standard set of hypotheses for the mesh and the solution. Continuous and discontinuous Galerkin methods are considered in two‐dimensional and three‐dimensional domains for simplices and parallelotopes. Moreover, both element‐wise and global operations arising from different Galerkin approaches are studied. The operation count estimates show, that for implicit solvers, high‐order methods are more efficient than linear ones. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.