Agonistic Onset Marks Emotional Changes and Dispersal Propensity in Wild House Mouse Males (Mus domesticus).

The authors investigated implications of agonistic onset for anxiety and dispersive motivation in maturing wild house mouse males (Mus domesticus). Laboratory-kept fraternal pairs either developed agonistic dominance or stayed amicable during their first 2 months of life, when the authors assessed open-field behavior and dispersal propensity. State anxiety was lower in amicable than agonistic males and higher in subordinate than dominant ones. During subsequent dispersal trials, 1 dominant and 1 amicable male from 2 fraternal pairs were concomitantly introduced into seminatural enclosures containing 3 females. One male invariably became territorial. The defeated males, if previously dominant, dispersed at significantly higher rates than if previously amicable. The authors conclude that agonistic onset during development represents an adaptive behavioral switch from a submissive-philopatric to agonistic-dispersive coping strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An A Contrario Decision Method for Shape Element Recognition

Shape recognition is the field of computer vision which addresses the problem of finding out whether a query shape lies or not in a shape database, up to a certain invariance. Most shape recognition methods simply sort shapes from the database along some (dis-)similarity measure to the query shape. Their main weakness is the decision stage, which should aim at giving a clear-cut answer to the question: “do these two shapes look alike?” In this article, the proposed solution consists in bounding the number of false correspondences of the query shape among the database shapes, ensuring that the obtained matches are not likely to occur “by chance”. As an application, one can decide with a parameterless method whether any two digital images share some shapes or not.     

Heterogeneous distribution of glycinergic and GABAergic afferents on an identified central neuron

Age-related increases and decreases have been described in cortical dendritic neuropil. Here, we examine age-related changes in the basilar dendrites of supragranular pyramidal cells in human superior temporal gyrus (i.e., Wernicke's area) of left and right hemispheres. Tissue was obtained from 20 neurologically normal right-handers from 18-79 years: 10 males (Mage = 52.2 years; SDage = 17.4) and 10 females (Mage = 47.8; SDage = 20.5). In tissue prepared by a modified rapid Golgi technique, ten pyramidal cells were sampled from each hemisphere and evaluated according to the following parameters: total dendritic length, mean dendritic length, and dendritic segment count. Despite considerable interindividual variation, the data exhibited significant dendritic degeneration with aging. There was an age-related decrease in total dendritic length (r[20] = -0.44; P < 0.05) and especially in mean dendritic length (r[20] = -0.69; P < 0.001) with increasing age. Age-mean dendritic length correlations were negative for all segment orders and revealed a progressive decrease in segment length in more distal branches. The number of dendritic segments remained relatively stable across the age span sampled. The data also indicated that interhemispheric dendritic asymmetries decreased with age. Individuals under 50 years of age had significantly greater total dendritic length values in the left hemisphere. Interhemispheric dendritic differences were not significant in individuals over 50.     

Another version of the relay feedback experiment

Process dynamic behaviour is a key for designing any control scheme. A simple method to determine a point on the frequency characteristics of the plant is the closed loop relay experiment. This paper proposes a new version for this method, presenting its possible advantages, simulation and real time experimental results.     

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF FATIGUE CRACK GROWTH IN A COATED SUBSTRATE

A surface crack penetrating the interface between a presstressd hard coating and a substrate is analysed in terms of linear fracture mechanics in order to assess the fatigue properties of such a composite. Assuming Paris law, fatigue crack growth rate allows the determination of safe regimes, where a crack always experiences closure.     

Simultaneous continuous,nonchromatographic monitoring and discrete chromatographic monitoring of polymerization reactions

Automatic continuous nonchromatographic monitoring and discrete chromatographic monitoring were coupled together for the first time and used to monitor free radical and controlled‐radical polymerization reactions. This was achieved by adding a multidetector Size Exclusion Chromatography (SEC) system (alternatively termed Gel Permeation Chromatography, GPC) to the ACOMP platform (Automatic Continuous Online Monitoring of Polymerization reactions). The fact that the reactor solution is already preconditioned in the ACOMP front‐end to the concentration levels used in SEC makes direct coupling possible. Kinetics from two different types of reactions, Reversible Addition Fragmentation Transfer (RAFT) and free radical polymerization of butyl acrylate were studied, including the production of a bimodal population. Complementary and contrasting features from the continuous and SEC approaches are highlighted. The main advantage of the SEC detection is to follow the evolution of full molecular weight distributions (MWD), especially in ‘living’ type reactions, where polydispersity decreases with monomer conversion, whereas the continuous detection provides a much more detailed characterization of the reaction. Interestingly, in the case where a bimodal molecular weight distribution was produced, the continuous method automatically detected the onset of the second mode in a model independent fashion, whereas SEC could only discern the bimodality by applying preconceived models. The SEC approach will have valuable niche applications, however, such as when reactions are relatively slow, monitoring narrow polydispersity is of primary importance, and also in copolymerization and terpolymerization reactions where complex mixtures of reagents (e.g., RAFT agents, copper ions, etc.) make unfractionated spectroscopic resolution of comonomers difficult. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

The Effect of Cucurbit[7]uril on the Antitumor and Immunomodulating Properties of Oxaliplatin and Carboplatin

Cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) is a molecular container that may form host–guest complexes with platinum(II) anticancer drugs and modulate their efficacy and safety. In this paper, we report our studies of the effect of CB[7]–oxaliplatin complex and the mixture of CB[7] and carboplatin (1:1) on viability and proliferation of a primary cell culture (peripheral blood mononuclear cells), two tumor cell lines (B16 and K562) and their activity in the animal model of melanoma. At the same time, we studied the impact of platinum (II) drugs with CB[7] on T cells and B cells in vitro. Although the stable CB[7]–carboplatin complex was not formed, the presence of cucurbit[7]uril affected the biological properties of carboplatin. In vivo, CB[7] increased the antitumor effect of carboplatin, but, at the same time, increased its acute toxicity. Compared to free oxaliplatin, its complex with CB[7] shows a greater cytotoxic effect on tumor cell lines B16 and K562, while in vivo, the effects of the free drug and encapsulated drug were comparable. However, in vivo studies also demonstrated that the encapsulation of oxaliplatin in CB[7] lowered the toxicity of the drug.