Fluorous Iminoalditols: A New Family of Glycosidase Inhibitors and Pharmacological Chaperones

A collection of new reversible glycosidase inhibitors of the iminoalditol type featuring N‐substituents containing perfluorinated regions has been prepared for evaluation of physicochemical, biochemical and diagnostic properties. The vast variety of feasible oligofluoro moieties allows for modular approaches to customised structures according to the intended applications, which are influenced by the fluorine content as well as the distance of the fluorous moiety from the ring nitrogen. The first examples, in particular in the D ‐galacto series, exhibited excellent inhibitory activities. A preliminary screen with two human cell lines showed that, at subinhibitory concentrations, they are powerful pharmacological chaperones enhancing the activities of the catalytically handicapped lysosomal D ‐galactosidase mutants associated with GM1 gangliosidosis and Morquio B disease.     

Vertical and Radial Consolidation Analysis of Multilayered Soil Using the Spectral Method

A new, easy to implement, solution to the consolidation of multilayered soil based on the spectral method is presented. Combined vertical and radial drainage under instantaneous or single ramp loading is considered, ignoring well resistance. Flow in the vertical direction is based on the average hydraulic gradient at a particular depth which allows smear effects to be included. The excess pore-water pressure profile across all soil layers is described by a single expression calculated with common matrix operations. Average excess pore pressures within or across any number of layers are easily calculated from the single expression. The new model is verified against other solutions from the current literature indicating that the more general spectral method model can replace the separate solutions developed for specific problems.     

Bioinspired pressure actuated adhesive system

We developed a dry synthetic adhesive system inspired by gecko feet adhesion that can switch reversibly from adhesion to non-adhesion with applied pressure as external stimulus. Micropatterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surfaces with pillars of 30 μm length and 10 μm diameter were fabricated using photolithography and moulding. Adhesion properties were determined with a flat probe as a function of preload. For low and moderate applied compressive preloads, measured adhesion was 7.5 times greater than on flat controls whereas for high applied preloads adhesion dropped to very low values. In situ imaging shows that the increased preload caused the pillars to deform by bending and/or buckling and to lose their adhesive contact. The elasticity of PDMS aids the pillar recovery to the upright position upon removal of preload enabling repeatability of the switch.     

High-throughput approach to the catalytic combustion of diesel soot II: Screening of oxide-based catalysts

Following the development of a high-throughput (HT) methodology for the evaluation of diesel soot oxidation catalysts in a 16 parallel channels reactor, a library of over 60 catalysts was tested under optimized conditions. The catalyst compositions were chosen to include solids which specific properties like oxygen storage capacity, oxygen mobility and ionic conductivity. The key parameters for high activity appear related to the presence of active and mobile surface oxygen species, and to an appropriate catalyst particle size in order to favour the number of contacts with the soot. In contrast, high oxygen storage capacity and bulk oxygen ion mobility do not appear as relevant properties for high catalytic activity. Nine new formulations were found to perform better than the reference catalyst “high surface area (HSA) ceria” (Rhodia).     

Electronic States and Light Absorption in a Cylindrical Quantum Dot Having Thin Falciform Cross Section

Energy level structure and direct light absorption in a cylindrical quantum dot (CQD), having thin falciform cross section, are studied within the framework of the adiabatic approximation. An analytical expression for the energy spectrum of the particle is obtained. For the one-dimensional “fast” subsystem, an oscillatory dependence of the wave function amplitude on the cross section parameters is revealed. For treatment of the “slow” subsystem, parabolic and modified Pöschl-Teller effective potentials are used. It is shown that the low-energy levels of the spectrum are equidistant. In the strong quantization regime, the absorption coefficient and edge frequencies are calculated. Selection rules for the corresponding quantum transitions are obtained.     

Variance reduction for fixed-source Monte Carlo calculations in multiplying systems by improving chain-length statistics

For a fixed-source calculation in a multiplying system, the variance in the neutron-chain length can create an unstable calculation and a neutron flux with high variance. In this paper an analytical frame is derived to calculate a priori the variance of the neutron flux in a simple model of a fixed-source calculation. This method is then used to find better variance reduction techniques not only for this simplified problem, but also for general cases.     

PANCA: Panel concordance analysis

This paper proposes panel concordance analysis (PANCA) as a tool for panel leaders to identify disconsensus between the panelists on the sensory attributes used. PANCA summarizes the sensory data ([products × panelists × replicates] × attributes) by a low-rank approximation which is penalized for disconsensus (disagreement) between the panelists. When all the panelists agree on the sensory attributes used, the disconsensus penalty will have a negligible effect. However, if the assumption of good consensus is not supported by the data, considerable residual errors will arise. Consequently, PANCA can be used to identify difficult sensory attributes or even poor/deviating panelists which requires further training or could call for an alternative data processing strategy. It is also demonstrated that PANCA can be used to apply a multivariate ANOVA decomposition like in ASCA (ANOVA simultaneous component analysis). Theory and applications are explained by means of a real-life example from industrial sensory practice.     

Annotation of multiword expressions in the Prague dependency treebank

We describe annotation of multiword expressions (MWEs) in the Prague dependency treebank, using several automatic pre-annotation steps. We use subtrees of the tectogrammatical tree structures of the Prague dependency treebank to store representations of the MWEs in the dictionary and pre-annotate following occurrences automatically. We also show a way to measure reliability of this type of annotation.     

Effects of perinatal testosterone on handedness of gerbils: Support for part of the Geschwind-Galaburda hypothesis.

When assuming their species-typical tripodal stance. male Mongolian gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) use their right forepaw for support more frequently than do females. This experiment determined whether. as N. Geschwind and A. M. Galaburda (1987) have proposed, the direction of such sexualIy dimorphic lateral asymmetry of forelimb use is affected by perinatal exposure to testosterone (TP). It was found that male gerbils injected with TP when 4 days old were significantly less likely to rest on their right forepaw when in a tripodal stance than were their oil-injected siblings. Female gerbils injected with TP when 6 days old were more likely than oil-injected controls to use their right forepaws for support. The findings demonstrate effects of perinatal exposure to TP on handedness in gerbils and suggest that the relationship between TP exposure and asymmetrical forelimb use is not always as direct as Geschwind and Galaburda's model suggests. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Flexible active-matrix displays and shift registers based on solution-processed organic transistors

At present, flexible displays are an important focus of research. Further development of large, flexible displays requires a cost-effective manufacturing process for the active-matrix backplane, which contains one transistor per pixel. One way to further reduce costs is to integrate (part of) the display drive circuitry, such as row shift registers, directly on the display substrate. Here, we demonstrate flexible active-matrix monochrome electrophoretic displays based on solution-processed organic transistors on 25-microm-thick polyimide substrates. The displays can be bent to a radius of 1 cm without significant loss in performance. Using the same process flow we prepared row shift registers. With 1,888 transistors, these are the largest organic integrated circuits reported to date. More importantly, the operating frequency of 5 kHz is sufficiently high to allow integration with the display operating at video speed. This work therefore represents a major step towards 'system-on-plastic'.