Highly Exfoliated Natural Rubber/Clay Composites by “Propping‐Open Procedure”: The Influence of Fatty‐Acid Chain Length on Exfoliation

A high degree of exfoliation of MMT in NR is achieved by using the so‐called “propping‐open approach” in which a stepwise expansion of the interlayer spacing of MMT takes place. The nanostructure is characterized by WAXD and TEM which indicate different extents of clay dispersion depending on the fatty‐acid chain length. Curing kinetics of different nanocomposites is studied and interestingly low activation energies of the vulcanization process are observed in the case of NR/EMMT nanocomposites. The incorporation of EMMT dramatically affects composite properties whereas DMA indicates significant reduction of tan δ peak height and the tensile strength approximately doubles from 14 to 30 MPa with only 5 phr EMMT.

     

Global effect of a nearby distractor on targeting eye and hand movements.

Eye-hand coordination was investigated with the global effect paradigm. In this paradigm, saccades typically land in between the target and a nearby presented distractor, the configuration's center of gravity. This so-called global effect, or spatial averaging, is attributed to incomplete target selection. Four experiments demonstrated a similar effect for hand movements; thus, eye and hand are coupled during target selection. However, under some conditions the global effect was different for eye and hand, suggesting that their coupling is not achieved through a shared target representation. Instead, eye and hand seem to use 2 separate target representations that exchange information. The convergent amplitudes of eye and hand with simultaneous execution support this interpretation. Latencies showed a similar converging pattern. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Debaryomyces hansenii--an extremophilic yeast with biotechnological potential

We illuminate the ecological, physiological and genetic characteristics of the yeast Debaryomyces hansenii in the view of our belief that this metabolically versatile, non-pathogenic, osmotolerant and oleaginous microorganism represents an attractive target for fundamental and applied biotechnological research. To this end, we give a broad overview of extant biotechnological procedures using D. hansenii, e.g. in the manufacture of various foods, and propose research into the heterologous synthesis of a range of fine chemicals.     

Reinforced chloroprene rubber by in situ generated silica particles: Evidence of bound rubber on the silica surface

Nano silica is generated in situ inside the uncrosslinked chloroprene rubber (CR) by the sol‐gel reaction of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS). This results in appreciable improvement in mechanical properties of the CR composites at relatively low filler content. Furthermore, exploitation of reactive organosilanes, γ‐aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (γ‐APS) in particular, in the silica synthesis process facilitates growing of spherical silica particles with a size distribution in the range of 20‐50 nm. The silica particles are found to be uniformly dispersed and they do not suffer from filler‐filler interaction. Additionally, it is observed that the silica particles are coated by silane and rubber chains together which are popularly known as bound rubber. The existence of the bound rubber on silica surface has been supported by the detailed investigations with transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy filtered transmission electron microscopy (EFTEM) and energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDAX). The interaction between rubber and silica, via bi‐functionality of the γ‐APS, has been explored by detailed FTIR studies. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43717.     

Poloxamer-based hydrogels hardening at body core temperature as carriers for cell based therapies: in vitro and in vivo analysis

Cell-based regenerative therapies for bone defects usually employ bone precursor cells seeded on solid scaffolds. Thermosensitive hydrogels that harden at body core temperature are promising alternative cell carriers as they are applicable minimally invasively. We modified Pluronic^® P123 with different chain extenders and assessed rheology and biocompatibility of the resulting hydrogels. The best candidate was tested in a rat’s femoral defect model. All gels hardened above 25 °C with butane-diisocyanate-hydrogels (BDI-gels) displaying the highest storage moduli. BDI-gels showed the most favourable biocompatibility and did not affect cellular adipogenic or osteogenic differentiation in vitro. Implantation of BDI-hydrogel into femoral defects did not impede bone healing in vivo as evidenced by μCT and histological analysis. We conclude that thermosensitive BDI-gels are promising alternative cell carriers. The gels harden upon injection in vivo without interfering with bone metabolism. Further experiments will assess the gels’ capacity to effectively transport living cells into bone defects.     

Quantification of aboveground rangeland productivity and anthropogenic degradation on the Arabian Peninsula using Landsat imagery and field inventory data

The productivity of semi-arid rangelands on the Arabian Peninsula is spatially and temporally highly variable, and increasing grazing pressure as well as the likely effects of climatic change further threatens vegetation resources. Using the Al Jabal al Akhdar mountains in northern Oman as an example, our objectives were to analyse the availability and spatial distribution of aboveground net primary production (ANPP) and the extent and causes of vegetation changes during the last decades with a remote sensing approach. A combination of destructive and non-destructive biomass measurements by life-form specific allometric equations was used to identify the ANPP of the ground vegetation (< 50 cm) and the leaf and twig biomass of phanerophytes. The ANPP differed significantly among the life forms and the different plant communities, and the biomass of the sparsely vegetated ground was more than 50 times lower (mean = 0.22 t DM ha^− 1) than the biomass of phanerophytes (mean = 12.3 t DM ha^− 1). Among the different vegetation indices calculated NDVI proved to be the best predictor for rangeland biomass.Temporal trend analysis of Landsat satellite images from 1986 to 2009 was conducted using a pixel-based least square regression with the annual maximum Normalized Differenced Vegetation Index (NDVI_max) as a dependent variable. Additionally, linear relationships of NDVI_max and annual rainfall along the time series were calculated. The extent of human-induced changes was analysed using the residual trends method. A strongly significant negative biomass trend detected for 83% of the study area reflected a decrease in annual rainfall but even without clear evidence of deforestation of trees and shrubs, human-induced vegetation degradation due to settlement activities were also important.     

A clash of bottom-up and top-down processes in visual search: The reversed letter effect revisited.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 37(4) of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance (see record 2011-12773-001). The authors have requested a number of corrections. The corrections are given in the erratum.] It is harder to find the letter “N” among its mirror reversals than vice versa, an inconvenient finding for bottom-up saliency accounts based on primary visual cortex (V1) mechanisms. However, in line with this account, we found that in dense search arrays, gaze first landed on either target equally fast. Remarkably, after first landing, gaze often strayed away again and target report was delayed. This delay was longer for target “N” We suggest that the delay arose because bottom-up saliency clashed with top-down shape recognition. Thus, although gaze landed accurately and quickly to the distinctive feature in the target shape (the orientation of the diagonal bar in “N” or “И”), the identical zigzag shape of target and distractors was registered, leading to temporary confusion. In sparser search arrays with smaller set sizes, top-down target shape recognition occurs earlier and bottom-up saliency is weaker. The clash in this case causes search asymmetry even before target location at first gaze landing. Our findings rule out previous suggestions that search asymmetry stems from stronger preattentive salience for the reversed target and/or faster rejection of familiar distractors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

An application of formal concept analysis to semantic neural decoding

This paper proposes a novel application of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to neural decoding: the semantic relationships between the neural representations of large sets of stimuli are explored using concept lattices. In particular, the effects of neural code sparsity are modelled using the lattices. An exact Bayesian approach is employed to construct the formal context needed by FCA. This method is explained using an example of neurophysiological data from the high-level visual cortical area STSa. Prominent features of the resulting concept lattices are discussed, including indications for hierarchical face representation and a product-of-experts code in real neurons. The robustness of these features is illustrated by studying the effects of scaling the attributes.