Inhibitory control over no-longer-relevant information: adult age differences

Hartmann and Hasher (1991) used a garden-path task in which younger and older adults generated the final word for each of a series of high-cloze sentences. Under instructions to remember the final word, the experiment included critical sentences for which the generated word was replaced by a new, to-be-remembered target. Using an implicit priming task, the first experiment replicated a basic finding: Younger adults showed priming only for the target words, whereas older adults showed priming for both the generated and target words. Two experiments explored the boundary conditions. One showed that an additional sentence that interpreted the new target word enabled older adults to narrow access to only the target word. The provision of additional time following the introduction of the new target word did not. Specific information, not more time, is required for inefficient inhibitory mechanisms to clear the recent past from memory.     

Submilliamp long-wavelength InP-based vertical-cavitysurface-emitting laser with stable linear polarisation

A 1.5 μm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser operating with high efficiency under continuous wave conditions at room temperature is demonstrated with threshold current and voltage below 1 mA and 1 V, respectively. The singlemode emission spectrum exhibits stable linear polarisation with a sidemode suppression ratio of 30 dB     

Correlation between in vitro and in vivo parameters of commercial paracetamol tablets

Three leading and competitive commercial products of paracetamol tablets coded as brands A, B and C (A, being the innovator product) in the country were evaluated for their in vitro properties and in vivo comparative bioavailability. The studies included chemical equivalence, hardness, disintegration time, dissolution rate and systemic availability among eight healthy volunteers. The disintegration times were 2.1 min for brand A, 5.7 min for brand B and 36.2 min for brand C. The dissolution rate (T70) were 33.0 min, 74.5 min and 56.5 min for brands A, B and C, respectively. While brand A passed all the in vitro tests as specified in the official monograph, brand B failed only the dissolution rate test and brand C failed both the disintegration and dissolution tests. These significant differences observed among the products after in vitro tests were not reflected in the in vivo availability. While the absorption rate (indicated by tmax) of brand C was significantly faster (i.e. shorter) than those of Brands A and B, the extent of absorption (indicated by AUC) was comparable among the three brands. The relative bioavailabilities (with respect to brand A) were 92 and 91% for brands B and C, respectively indicating that the products were bioequivalent. Comparison of the in vitro and in vivo data suggest that the systemic absorption of paracetamol may not be dissolution--rate limited and that using in vitro dissolution rate studies alone to establish bioequivalency of paracetamol tablets should be done with caution.     

Coordinate intracellular expression of Salmonella genes induced during infection

Salmonella typhimurium in vivo-induced (ivi) genes were grouped by their coordinate behavior in response to a wide variety of environmental and genetic signals, including pH, Mg2+, Fe2+, and PhoPQ. All of the seven ivi fusions that are induced by both low pH and low Mg2+ (e.g., iviVI-A) are activated by the PhoPQ regulatory system. Iron-responsive ivi fusions include those induced under iron limitation (e.g., entF) as well as one induced by iron excess but only in the absence of PhoP (pdu). Intracellular expression studies showed that each of the pH- and Mg2+-responsive fusions is induced upon entry into and growth within three distinct mammalian cell lines: RAW 264.7 murine macrophages and two cultured human epithelial cell lines: HEp-2 and Henle-407. Each ivi fusion has a characteristic level of induction consistent within all three cell types, suggesting that this class of coordinately expressed ivi genes responds to general intracellular signals that are present both in initial and in progressive stages of infection and may reflect their responses to similar vacuolar microenvironments in these cell types. Investigation of ivi expression patterns reveals not only the inherent versatility of pathogens to express a given gene(s) at various host sites but also the ability to modify their expression within the context of different animal hosts, tissues, cell types, or subcellular compartments.     

Ambient oxygen ingress rate method—an alternative method to Ox‐Tran for measuring oxygen transmission rate of whole packages

The ambient oxygen ingress rate method (AOIR) is an alternative method to Ox‐Tran for measuring the oxygen transmission rates (OTR) of whole packages. The objective of the present work was (a) to compare OTR values obtained by the two methods, and (b) to evaluate the use of the AOIR method for measuring OTR at realistic food storage temperatures and humidity levels. The AOIR method gave equal OTR values compared to the Ox‐Tran method for the five different types of whole packages used in the experiment, with OTR values in the range 0.06–1.48 ml O₂/day. The repeatability of the AOIR method measured on an HDPE bottle was ±2.6% of the measured value in this experiment. This is slightly higher than the general specifications of the Ox‐Tran method (1% of reading for packages). However, the AOIR method can be considered to be a reliable, precise and cheap alternative method to the Ox‐Tran method for measuring OTR of whole packages. The capacity of the method is also high. The AOIR method showed satisfactory results when comparing OTR for packages tested under realistic food storage conditions covering 23°C/50% relative humidity (RH) and at 4°C/60% RH on the outside, combined with water (100% RH) or dry air inside the packages. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Riboflavin-mediated delivery of a macromolecule into cultured human cells

The effects of perivascular nerve stimulation and phenylephrine on osmolyte release were studied in the intact perfused rat liver and isolated liver parenchymal cells (PC) and nonparenchymal cells. In the perfused liver, electrical stimulation of perivascular nerves (20 Hz/2 ms/20 V) led to a phentolamine-sensitive increase of cell hydration by 6.5% +/- 1.2% (n = 3) and a transient phentolamine-sensitive stimulation of taurine and inositol, but not betaine, release. These nerve effects were mimicked by phenylephrine, but not prostaglandin F2alpha, and were not affected by sodium nitroprusside (SNP) or ibuprofen. Nerve stimulation-induced taurine, but not inositol, release was inhibited by 4, 4'-di-isothiocyanatostilbene-2,2'-disulphonic acid (DIDS) (50 micromol/L). Single-cell fluorescence studies with isolated liver PC, Kupffer cells (KC), sinusoidal endothelial cells (SEC), and hepatic stellate cells (HSC) revealed that phenylephrine induced an increase in cytosolic free Ca2+ only in PC and HSC, but not in KC and SEC, whereas extracellular uridine triphosphate (UTP) produced Ca2+ transients/oscillations in all liver cell types studied. Phenylephrine had no effect on osmolyte release from isolated KC and SEC, but increased taurine (but not inositol) release from PC and inositol (but not taurine) efflux from HSC. The data suggest that: 1) liver cell hydration and-consecutively-osmolyte content are modulated by hepatic nerves via an alpha-adrenergic mechanism, which does not involve eicosanoids or hemodynamic changes; 2) that PC and HSC are the primary targets for nerve-dependent alpha-adrenergic activation, whereas 3) KC and SEC probably do not express alpha-adrenoceptors coupled to Ca2+ mobilization or osmolyte efflux.