Genotoxicity of coke-oven and urban air particulate matter in in vitro acellular assays coupled with 32P-postlabeling and HPLC analysis of DNA adducts

This study is an in vitro part of the ongoing biomarker studies with population from a polluted region of Northern Bohemia and coke-oven workers from Czech and Slovak Republics. The aim of this study is to compare DNA adduct forming ability of chemical compound classes from both the urban and coke-oven extractable organic mass (EOM) of airborne particles. The crude extracts were fractionated into seven fractions by acid-base partitioning and silica gel column chromatography. In in vitro acellular assays we used calf thymus DNA (CT DNA) with oxidative (+S9) and reductive activation mediated by xanthine oxidase (+XO) under anaerobic conditions. Both the butanol and nuclease P1 versions of 32P-postlabeling for detection of bulky aromatic and/or hydrophobic adducts were used. The results showed that the spectra of major DNA adducts resulting from both the in vitro assays are within the fractions similar for both the urban and coke-oven samples. The highest DNA adduct levels with S9-activation were detected for the neutral aromatic fraction, followed by slightly polar and acidic fractions for both samples. With XO-mediated metabolism, the highest DNA adduct levels were detected for both the acidic fractions. Assuming additivity of compound activities, then the acidic fraction, which in the urban sample comprises a major portion of EOM mass (28%), may contain the greatest activity in both in vitro assays (39 and 69%, +S9 and +XO, respectively). In contrast, the aromatic fraction constituting only 8% of total urban EOM mass may account for comparable activity (34%) with organic acids. The highest DNA adduct forming activity of the coke-oven sample accounts for the aromatic fraction (82 and 63%, +S9 and +XO, respectively) that also contains the greatest portion of the total EOM (48%). To characterize some of the specific DNA adducts formed, we coupled TLC on 20x20 cm plates with HPLC analysis of 32P-postlabeled adducts. In both S9-treated samples of the aromatic fraction, we tentatively identified DNA adducts presumably diolepoxide-derived from: 9-hydroxy-benzo[a]pyrene (9-OH-B[a]P), benzo[a]pyrene-r-7,t-8-dihydrodiol-t-9,10-epoxide[+/-] (anti-BPDE), benzo[b,j,k]fluoranthenes (B[b]F, B[j]F, B[k]F), chrysene (CHRY), benz[a]-anthracene (B[a]A) and indeno[cd]pyrene (I[cd]P). These DNA adducts accounted for about 57% of total DNA adducts detected in both S9-treated samples of the aromatic fraction. DNA adducts of XO-treated samples were sensitive to nuclease P1 and HPLC profiles of the major adducts were markedly different from the major adducts of S9-treated samples. However, the combination of TLC and HPLC did not confirm the presence of DNA adducts derived from 1-nitropyrene (1 NP), 9-nitroanthracene (9 NA) and 3-nitrofluoranthene (3 NF) that were detected by GC-MS in the slightly polar fraction. We concluded that the chemical fractionation procedure facilitates the assessing of DNA adduct forming ability of different chemical compound classes. However, based on the results obtained with the whole extracts, it does not fulfil a task of the actual contribution of individual fractions within the activity of the whole extracts. Our results are the first in detecting of DNA adducts derived from urban air and coke-oven particulate matter.     

Sketching human character animations by composing sequences from large motion database

Quick creation of 3D character animations is an important task in game design, simulations, forensic animation, education, training, and more. We present a framework for creating 3D animated characters using a simple sketching interface coupled with a large, unannotated motion database that is used to find the appropriate motion sequences corresponding to the input sketches. Contrary to the previous work that deals with static sketches, our input sketches can be enhanced by motion and rotation curves that improve matching in the context of the existing animation sequences. Our framework uses animated sequences as the basic building blocks of the final animated scenes, and allows for various operations with them such as trimming, resampling, or connecting by use of blending and interpolation. A database of significant and unique poses, together with a two-pass search running on the GPU, allows for interactive matching even for large amounts of poses in a template database. The system provides intuitive interfaces, an immediate feedback, and poses very small requirements on the user. A user study showed that the system can be used by novice users with no animation experience or artistic talent, as well as by users with an animation background. Both groups were able to create animated scenes consisting of complex and varied actions in less than 20 minutes.     

Inverse Procedural Modelling of Trees

Procedural tree models have been popular in computer graphics for their ability to generate a variety of output trees from a set of input parameters and to simulate plant interaction with the environment for a realistic placement of trees in virtual scenes. However, defining such models and their parameters is a difficult task. We propose an inverse modelling approach for stochastic trees that takes polygonal tree models as input and estimates the parameters of a procedural model so that it produces trees similar to the input. Our framework is based on a novel parametric model for tree generation and uses Monte Carlo Markov Chains to find the optimal set of parameters. We demonstrate our approach on a variety of input models obtained from different sources, such as interactive modelling systems, reconstructed scans of real trees and developmental models.     

Terrain Modelling from Feature Primitives

We introduce a compact hierarchical procedural model that combines feature‐based primitives to describe complex terrains with varying level of detail. Our model is inspired by skeletal implicit surfaces and defines the terrain elevation function by using a construction tree. Leaves represent terrain features and they are generic parametrized skeletal primitives, such as mountains, ridges, valleys, rivers, lakes or roads. Inner nodes combine the leaves and subtrees by carving, blending or warping operators. The elevation of the terrain at a given point is evaluated by traversing the tree and by combining the contributions of the primitives. The definition of the tree leaves and operators guarantees that the resulting elevation function is Lipschitz, which speeds up the sphere tracing used to render the terrain. Our model is compact and allows for the creation of large terrains with a high level o detail using a reduced set of primitives. We show the creation of different kinds of landscapes and demonstrate that our model allows to efficiently control the shape and distribution of landform features.     

Woodification: User‐Controlled Cambial Growth Modeling

We present a botanical simulation of secondary (cambial) tree growth coupled to a physical cracking simulation of its bark. Whereas level set growth would use a fixed resolution voxel grid, our system extends the deformable simplicial complex (DSC), supporting new biological growth functions robustly on any surface polygonal mesh with adaptive subdivision, collision detection and topological control. We extend the DSC with temporally coherent texturing, and surface cracking with a user‐controllable biological model coupled to the stresses introduced by the cambial growth model.     

Relationship between the Undrained Shear Strength, Water Content, and Mineralogical Properties of Fine-Grained Soils

The relationship between the undrained shear strength of fine-grained soils and the water content can be described with a nonlinear function in which the type of soil is determined by two parameters. It is well known that these parameters depend mainly on the mineral compositions of soils; these relationships, however, have not yet been investigated. The findings described in this paper define those mineralogical properties of soils which determine the values of both parameters. Experimentally obtained results suggest that the parameters primarily depend on the size of the clay minerals, their quantity in soil composition, and the interlayer water quantity in the expanding clay minerals. As this dependence is well defined, the parameters, and thus the undrained shear strength at different water content, can be defined from knowledge of these mineralogical soil properties.     

Preparation and Transport Properties of Bi2O2Se Single Crystals

Bi₂O₂Se single crystals were grown by a gas-phase transport reaction with a temperature gradient. X-ray diffraction revealed that the products crystallized in a tetragonal-type lattice with lattice parameters a?=?0.38866?nm and c?=?1.22001?nm. The samples were characterized by measuring the electrical conductivity, Hall coefficient, and Seebeck coefficient as functions of temperature between 80?K and 470?K. The obtained experimental data allowed us to calculate the reduced Fermi level, provided that the single-valley parabolic model applied. The corresponding value of the electron effective mass proved to be m _ef????0.29. Free electron mobility is governed by the scattering of carriers by acoustic phonons.     

Kinetic study of the depolymerization of Bruceton coal

The depolymerization of coals using phenol and p-toluenesulphonic acid, was studied.In this reaction the acid ‘catalyst’ is destroyed, its rate of destruction being different for different coals. A kinetic study of the depolymerization of Bruceton coal under conditions of gradually declining acid concentration has been carried out. Parameters which were monitored include the weight increase of the products, the solubility of the products in benzene-ethanol, the extractability of the products into pyridine, the amount of colloidal material present in the pyridine-extractables, and the molecular weight distribution of the pyridine-soluble products. Under the conditions used, the reaction produces primarily polymeric products from coal. The molecular weight distribution of the pyridine-soluble material seems to undergo no major changes with reaction time.