Environmental life-cycle inventory of detergent-grade surfactant sourcing and production

Life-cycle inventories were compiled to characterize natural resource requirements and environmental emissions associated with the sourcing and production of selected, detergent-grade surfactants and surfactant feedstocks. Petrochemical surfactant types examined were linear alkylbenzene sulfonate, alcohol sulfate (AS), alcohol ethoxylate (AE) and alcohol ethoxylate sulfate (AES). Oleochemical surfactants derived from palm oil, palm kernel oil and inedible tallow were AS, AE, AES and (for palm oil and tallow) methyl ester sulfonate. It was determined that natural resource requirements were primarily related to the source of feedstock and secondarily to surfactant type. Likewise, the composition and mass of atmospheric, aqueous and solid emissions were principally determined by feedstock source. Energy requirements varied as a function of both feedstock and surfactant type. The inventories do not support fundamental shifts in surfactant usage or feedstock sourcing on the basis of environmental concerns, as no single surfactant or feedstock was identified as superior across all resource and emissions criteria examined. The data provide baselines for evaluating opportunities for resource optimization, pollution prevention and waste minimization within each production technology surveyed.     

Sex, Age, and Training Modulate Spatial Memory in the Rhesus Monkey (Macaca mulatta).

The authors tested 90 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) on a task of spatial memory, the spatial Delayed Recognition Span Test. The results showed that performance declined significantly with age, males had greater scores than females, and the rate of apparent decline with age was greater in males than in females. Both working and reference memory declined with age, but only working memory showed sex differences. The authors compared these data with that of 22 monkeys who were trained on a simpler version of the task before formal testing. Training had no effect on males but dramatically improved working memory in young females. The results confirm a male advantage in spatial working memory at a young age and confirm a greater decline with age in males than in females. It is important to note that prior training completely reverses the deficits of young females. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stress Generation, Avoidance Coping, and Depressive Symptoms: A 10-Year Model.

This study examined (a) the role of avoidance coping in prospectively generating both chronic and acute life stressors and (b) the stress-generating role of avoidance coping as a prospective link to future depressive symptoms. Participants were 1,211 late-middle-aged individuals (500 women and 711 men) assessed 3 times over a 10-year period. As predicted, baseline avoidance coping was prospectively associated with both more chronic and more acute life stressors 4 years later. Furthermore, as predicted, these intervening life stressors linked baseline avoidance coping and depressive symptoms 10 years later, controlling for the influence of initial depressive symptoms. These findings broaden knowledge about the stress-generation process and elucidate a key mechanism through which avoidance coping is linked to depressive symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Auditory-visual cross-modal perception of communicative stimuli in Tufted Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella).

Research on cross-modal performance in nonhuman primates is limited to a small number of sensory modalities and testing methods. To broaden the scope of this research, the authors tested capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) for a seldom-studied cross-modal capacity in nonhuman primates, auditory-visual recognition. Monkeys were simultaneously played 2 video recordings of a face producing different vocalizations and a sound recording of 1 of the vocalizations. Stimulus sets varied from naturally occurring conspecific vocalizations to experimentally controlled human speech stimuli. The authors found that monkeys preferred to view face recordings that matched presented vocal stimuli. Their preference did not differ significantly across stimulus species or other stimulus features. However, the reliability of the latter set of results may have been limited by sample size. From these results, the authors concluded that capuchin monkeys exhibit auditory-visual cross-modal perception of conspecific vocalizations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discriminative Stimulus, Reinforcing, Physical Dependence, and Antinociceptive Effects of Oxycodone in Mice, Rats, and Rhesus Monkeys.

Despite oxycodone's (4,5-epoxy-14-hydroxy-3-methoxy-17-methylmorphinan-6-one) history of clinical use and the attention it has received as a drug of abuse, few reports have documented its pharmacology's relevance to its abuse or its mechanism of action. The purposes of the present study were to further characterize the analgesic effects of oxycodone, its mechanism of action, and its effects in terms of its relevance to its abuse liability. The results indicate that oxycodone had potent antinociceptive effects in the mouse paraphenylquinone writhing, hot-plate, and tail-flick assays, in which it appeared to be acting as a μ-opioid receptor agonist. It generalized to the heroin discriminative stimulus and served as a positive reinforcer in rats and completely suppressed withdrawal signs in morphinedependent rhesus monkeys. These results suggest that the analgesic and abuse liability effects of oxycodone are likely mediated through μ-opioid receptors and provide the first laboratory report of its discriminative stimulus, reinforcing, and morphine cross-dependency effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiplexed-Based Assessment of DNA Damage Response to Chemotherapies Using Cell Imaging Cytometry

The current methods for measuring the DNA damage response (DDR) are relatively labor-intensive and usually based on Western blotting, flow cytometry, and/or confocal immunofluorescence analyses. They require many cells and are often limited to the assessment of a single or few proteins. Here, we used the Celigo^® image cytometer to evaluate the cell response to DNA-damaging agents based on a panel of biomarkers associated with the main DDR signaling pathways. We investigated the cytostatic or/and the cytotoxic effects of these drugs using simultaneous propidium iodide and calcein-AM staining. We also describe new dedicated multiplexed protocols to investigate the qualitative (phosphorylation) or the quantitative changes of eleven DDR markers (H2AX, DNA-PKcs, ATR, ATM, CHK1, CHK2, 53BP1, NBS1, RAD51, P53, P21). The results of our study clearly show the advantage of using this methodology because the multiplexed-based evaluation of these markers can be performed in a single experiment using the standard 384-well plate format. The analyses of multiple DDR markers together with the cell cycle status provide valuable insights into the mechanism of action of investigational drugs that induce DNA damage in a time- and cost-effective manner due to the low amounts of antibodies and reagents required.     

Theragnostic Efficacy of K18 Response in Alcohol Use Disorder with Clinically Significant Fibrosis Using Gut-Liver Axis

(1) Background: Fibrosis in early-stage alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is commonly under-diagnosed in routine clinical practice. This study characterized the liver-injury and cell death response in alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients with ALD who also exhibited fibrosis and assessed the efficacy of standard of care (SOC) treatment in the improvement in liver injury. (2) Methods: Forty-eight heavy-drinking AUD patients aged 21–65 yrs. without clinical manifestations of liver injury were grouped by Fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) score, as negative (Gr.1 < 1.45, n = 21) or positive (Gr.2 ≥ 1.45, n = 27). Patients received 2-weeks (2 w) inpatient SOC. Data on demographics, drinking patterns, liver-injury, immune markers, and liver cell death (K18s) markers were analyzed at baseline (BL) and after 2 w SOC. (3) Results: Lifetime drinking (LTDH, yrs.) and acute heavy drinking (Heavy Drinking Days Past 90 Days [HDD90]) markers were significantly higher in Gr.2 vs. Gr.1. BL ALT, AST, AST:ALT and K18M65 were considerably higher in Gr.2. Dysregulated gut dysfunction and elevated immune activity were evident in Gr.2 characterized by TNF-α, IL-8 and LPS levels. After SOC, Gr.2 showed improvement in AST, ALT, AST/ALT ratio; and in the K18M65, K18M30 and K18M65/M30 ratio vs. Gr.1. The true positivity of BL IL-8 response to predict the improvement in K18M65 to normal levels among Gr.2 patients against those who did not have improvement after 2 w SOC was very high (AUROC = 0.830, p = 0.042). (4) Conclusions: Gut dysfunction, elevated cytokine response and necrotic liver cell death were elevated in AUD patients with early-stage ALD. K18 showed promise as a predictive theragnostic factor to differentiate among the AUD patients with early-stage ALD and baseline fibrosis who had improvement in liver injury against those who did not, by the levels of baseline IL-8.     

Degrees of unsolvability associated with Markov algorithms

The degree representations of the general halting, word, and confluence problems for Markov algorithms are investigated. Each of these problems is shown to represent every r.e. (recursively enumerable) many-one degree but not every r.e. one-one degree of unsolvability. In the course of proving this we also show that every total recursive function is computed by a Markov algorithm which always halts and that the immortality problem for the class of Markov algorithms is ₂ ^o -complete.This research partially supported by NSF Grant GP 23779.     

Photoreceptor Cells Constitutively Express IL-35 and Promote Ocular Immune Privilege

Interleukin-27 is constitutively secreted by microglia in the retina or brain, and upregulation of IL-27 during neuroinflammation suppresses encephalomyelitis and autoimmune uveitis. However, while IL-35 is structurally and functionally similar to IL-27, the intrinsic roles of IL-35 in CNS tissues are unknown. Thus, we generated IL-35/YFP-knock-in reporter mice (p35-KI) and demonstrated that photoreceptor neurons constitutively secrete IL-35, which might protect the retina from persistent low-grade inflammation that can impair photoreceptor functions. Furthermore, the p35-KI mouse, which is hemizygous at the il12a locus, develops more severe uveitis because of reduced IL-35 expression. Interestingly, onset and exacerbation of uveitis in p35-KI mice caused by extravasation of proinflammatory Th1/Th17 lymphocytes into the retina were preceded by a dramatic decrease of IL-35, attributable to massive death of photoreceptor cells. Thus, while inflammation-induced death of photoreceptors and loss of protective effects of IL-35 exacerbated uveitis, our data also suggest that constitutive production of IL-35 in the retina might have housekeeping functions that promote sterilization immunity in the neuroretina and maintain ocular immune privilege.