Apoptosis and delayed neuronal damage after carbon monoxide poisoning in the rat

Delayed neurological damage after CO hypoxia was studied in rats to determine whether programmed cell death (PCD), in addition to necrosis, is involved in neuronal death. In rats exposed to either air or CO (2500 ppm), microdialysis in brain cortex and hippocampus was performed to determine the extent of glutamate release and hydroxyl radical generation during the exposures. Groups of control and CO-exposed rats also were tested in a radial maze to assess the effects of the CO exposures on learning and memory. At 3, 7, and 21 days after CO exposure brains were perfusion-fixed and hematoxylin-eosin (H&E) was used to assess injury and to select regions for further examination. DNA fragmentation was sought by examining cryosections with the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick-end labeling (TUNEL) reaction. We found significant increases in glutamate release and .OH generation during and immediately after CO hypoxia. CO-exposed rats showed learning and memory deficits after exposure associated with heterogeneous cell loss in cortex, globus pallidus, and cerebellum. The frontal cortex was affected most seriously; the damage was slight at Day 3, increased at Day 7, and persistent at Day 21 after CO exposure. TUNEL staining was positive at all three time points, and TUNEL-labeled cells were distributed similarly to eosinophilic cells. The number of cells stained by TUNEL was less than by H&E and amounted to 2 to 5% of all cell nuclei in regions of injury. Ultrastructural features of both neuronal necrosis and apoptosis also were observed readily by electron microscopy. These findings indicate that both necrosis and apoptosis (PCD) contribute to CO poisoning-induced brain cell death.     

Chronic pain in elderly people

Using the fear-potentiated startle paradigm in rats, 4 experiments examined whether the inhibitory effect of a feature is evident after its offset following serial feature-negative discrimination training (A+ and X-->A-). When startle probes were presented shortly after the offset of X on X-->A test trials, the inhibitory properties of X were observed immediately after its offset. Furthermore, trace reinforcement of X (X-->+), but not delay reinforcement (X+), disrupted the ability of X to inhibit fear-potentiated startle on X-->A trials. Trace conditioning to X was also retarded after A+ and X-->A- training. These results suggest that the inhibitory properties of the serially trained feature are present after its offset and raise the possibility that either temporal information regarding nonreinforcement or poststimulus attributes of X acquire inhibitory properties.     

Voluntary head stabilization in space during oscillatory trunk movements in the frontal plane performed in weightlessness

The ability voluntarily to stabilize the head in space during lateral rhythmic oscillations (0.59+/-0.09 Hz) of the trunk has been investigated during microgravity (microG) and normal gravity (nG) conditions (parabolic flights). Five healthy young subjects, who gave informed consent, were examined. The movements were performed with eyes open or eyes closed, during phases of either microG or nG. The main result was that head orientation with respect to vertical may be stabilized about the roll axis under microG with, as well as without vision, despite the reduction in vestibular afferent and muscle proprioceptive inputs. Moreover, the absence of head stabilization about the yaw axis confirms that the degrees of freedom of the neck can be independently controlled, as was previously reported. These results seem to indicate that voluntary head stabilization does not depend crucially upon static vestibular afferents. Head stabilization in space may in fact be organized on the basis of either dynamic vestibular afferents or a short-term memorized postural body schema.     

Densification involved in the UV-based photosensitivity of silicaglasses and optical fibers

A comprehensive survey of photosensitivity in silica glasses and optical fiber is reviewed. Recent work on understanding the mechanisms contributing to germanium or aluminum doped fiber photosensitivity is discussed within the framework of photoelastic densification models     

光纤通信在市内接入网的应用

先说明市内接入网的单位用户和住家用户两大类使用通信和电视、交互型和分配型业务的要求不相同，相应地对光纤传输的应用须作不同的考虑，文中认为；光纤从市内交换局直连办公大楼是合乎现实需要的，而对于居民住家，宜选用光纤连至路边或光纤与同轴结合和适当利用无源光网络等方案，俟将来时机成熟才实行光纤连至每一家，文末有概括总结，说明接入网不同于长途网，接入网的光纤系统可以使用常规单模光纤，工作于波长1．3μm，而光放大器和波分多路系统不是普遍需要，但光电子集成在光端机中是必要的。     

Water sorption of glycol-modified cross-linked gelatin-based hydrogels

The water sorption behaviour of several cross-linked gelatin-based systems were investigated and compared. The systems were gelatin, gelatin/ethyleneglycol, gelatin/polyoxypropylenediamine, and gelatin/polyethylene oxide. For all the systems, an increased water gain was obtained by raising the concentration of the second component, while the swelling was reduced by an increase of the cross-linking density. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Phase-only adaptive nulling with a genetic algorithm

This paper describes a new approach to adaptive phase-only nulling with phased arrays. A genetic algorithm adjusts some of the least significant bits of the beam steering phase shifters to minimize the total output power. Using small adaptive phase values results in minor deviations in the beam steering direction and small perturbations in the sidelobe level in addition to constraining the search space of the genetic algorithm. Various results are presented to show the advantages and limitations of this approach, in general, the genetic algorithm proves to be better than previous phase-only adaptive algorithms