An evolutionary approach to visual sensing for vehicle navigation

This paper presents an evolutionary approach able to process a digital image and detect tracks left by preceding vehicles on ice and snow in Antarctica. Biologically inspired by a colony of ants able to interact and cooperate to determine the shortest path to the food, this approach is based on autonomous agents moving along the image pixels and iteratively improving an initial coarse solution. The unfriendly Antarctic environment makes this image analysis problem extremely challenging, since light reflections, abruptly varying brightness conditions, and different terrain slopes must be considered as well. The ant-based approach is compared to a more traditional Hough-based solution and the results are discussed.     

Cerebral dominance and asynchrony between bimanual two-dimensional movements.

The asynchrony of bimanual movements was investigated. Right- and left-handers traced simple geometrical patterns (ellipses) continuously with both hands. All combinations of the direction of rotation in each hand were executed at different rhythms. Geometrically, performances were largely independent of manual dominance. However, by comparing the passage times at homologous positions, the authors found that the dominant hand led the nondominant one by about 25 msec. The asynchrony was affected by neither movement type nor rhythm. The variability of the asynchrony varied along the trajectory, with well-defined maxima and minima. The variability profiles for movements that engaged homologous muscles differed markedly from those that engaged nonhomologous muscles. The authors discuss the hypotheses that bimanual periodic movements are timed by a lateralized functional module and that asynchrony is due to the necessity of transmitting time-keeping information to the other hemisphere. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of Particle Size on Monometallic and Bimetallic (Au,Pd)/C on the Liquid Phase Oxidation of Glycerol

The influence of metal particle size of monometallic and bimetallic supported catalysts (Au, Pd, Au–Pd)/C was studied using as a model reaction the liquid phase oxidation of glycerol. By tuning the metal particle size from 2 to 16 nm a progressive decrease of activity and simultaneously an increase in the selectivity to sodium glycerate was observed. Moreover, the influence of the temperature was studied and it was found that by increasing the temperature, only with a large particle size the formed glycerate was retained and not over-oxidized to tartronate.     

In-utero transplantation of parental CD34 haematopoietic progenitor cells in a patient with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCIDXI)

BACKGROUND: X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCIDXI) is an inherited immune defect which leads to death in infancy from severe infections. The defect is caused by mutations of the IL-2RG gene that encodes for the common gamma chain shared by several cytokine receptors. The disease is characterised by lack of T and NK cells with normal numbers of B cells. SCIDXI can be cured by bone marrow transplantation (BMT) or prevented by abortion after prenatal diagnosis. METHODS: A male fetus was diagnosed as having SCIDXI by molecular, immunophenotypic, and functional analyses. The fetus was injected intraperitoneally under ultrasound guidance with CD34 haematopoietic progenitor cells purified from paternal bone marrow and T-cell depleted by E rosetting. Chimerism analysis was by HLA-DQ alpha typing and gamma-chain staining on cord blood. FINDINGS: A healthy 3.6 kg boy was delivered by caesarean section at 38 weeks of gestation with no clinical or laboratory signs of graft-versus-host disease. Engraftment of donor-derived CD2 cells was found at birth. At 3.5 months of age the infant is well and his T-cell counts and function are normal. INTERPRETATION: In-utero transplantation of haematopoietic progenitor cells allowed immune reconstitution of a fetus with SCIDXI and may be an alternative to elective abortion. Our report should encourage applications of this method to other inherited disorders curable by BMT.     

Alu and L1 sequence distributions in Xq24-q28 and their comparative utility in YAC contig assembly and verification

The contents of Alu- and L1-containing TaqI restriction fragments were assessed by Southern blot analyses across YAC contigs already assembled by other means and localized within Xq24-q28. Fingerprinting patterns of YACs in contigs were concordant, and using software based on that of M. V. Olson et al. (1986, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 83: 7826) to analyze digitized data on fragment sizes, fingerprinting itself could establish matches among about 40% of a test group of 435 YACs. At 100-kb resolution, both repetitive elements were found throughout the region, with no apparent enrichment of Alu or L1 in DNA of G compared to that found in R bands. However, consistent with a random overall distribution, delimited regions of up to 100 kb contained clusters of repetitive elements. The local concentrations may help to account for the reported differential hybridization of Alu and L1 probes to segments of metaphase chromosomes.     

Defibrotide, a single-stranded polydeoxyribonucleotide acting as an adenosine receptor agonist

The binding of single-stranded polydeoxyribonucleotides to adenosine A1 and A2 receptors was investigated. Defibrotide, a natural substance with established anti-thrombotic and anti-ischaemic effects, displaced [3H]CHA (N6-cyclohexyl-adenosine) and [3H]NECA (5'-N-ethylcarboxamido-adenosine) concentration dependently, completely and competitively. Ki values of 371 +/- 68 and 688 +/- 115 micrograms/ml (mean +/- S.E.M. of 4-5 replications) were computed for adenosine A1 and A2 sites, respectively. Higher and lower molecular weight polydeoxyribonucleotides displayed comparable affinity, whereas a double-stranded polydeoxyribonucleotide and a polyanion with a negative charge comparable to that of defibrotide were inactive. Defibrotide did not affect the total number of binding sites in radioligand saturation experiments. Defibrotide relaxed the K(+)-contracted guinea-pig trachealis muscle (IC50 = 4001 micrograms/ml) about one-third as potently as the CHA-contracted preparation and as potently as the resting preparation. NECA, a mixed adenosine A1/A2 receptor agonist, behaved similarly. The effects were abolished by the adenosine A1/A2 receptor blocker 8-phenyltheophylline, but not by the selective A1 blocker, 1,3-dipropyl-8-(2-amino-4-chlorophenyl)-xanthine. These results demonstrate that defibrotide binds to adenosine receptors and triggers pharmacological responses comparable to those of a known agonist.     

Deep-MEG: spatiotemporal CNN features and multiband ensemble classification for predicting the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease with magnetoencephalography

Neural Computing and Applications - In this paper, we present the novel Deep-MEG approach in which image-based representations of magnetoencephalography (MEG) data are combined with ensemble...     

High-Fat Diet Leads to Reduced Protein O-GlcNAcylation and Mitochondrial Defects Promoting the Development of Alzheimer’s Disease Signatures

The disturbance of protein O-GlcNAcylation is emerging as a possible link between altered brain metabolism and the progression of neurodegeneration. As observed in brains with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), flaws of the cerebral glucose uptake translate into reduced protein O-GlcNAcylation, which promote the formation of pathological hallmarks. A high-fat diet (HFD) is known to foster metabolic dysregulation and insulin resistance in the brain and such effects have been associated with the reduction of cognitive performances. Remarkably, a significant role in HFD-related cognitive decline might be played by aberrant protein O-GlcNAcylation by triggering the development of AD signature and mitochondrial impairment. Our data support the impairment of total protein O-GlcNAcylation profile both in the brain of mice subjected to a 6-week high-fat-diet (HFD) and in our in vitro transposition on SH-SY5Y cells. The reduction of protein O-GlcNAcylation was associated with the development of insulin resistance, induced by overfeeding (i.e., defective insulin signaling and reduced mitochondrial activity), which promoted the dysregulation of the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway (HBP) flux, through the AMPK-driven reduction of GFAT1 activation. Further, we observed that a HFD induced the selective impairment of O-GlcNAcylated-tau and of O-GlcNAcylated-Complex I subunit NDUFB8, thus resulting in tau toxicity and reduced respiratory chain functionality respectively, highlighting the involvement of this posttranslational modification in the neurodegenerative process.