Glyconanoparticle-DNA interactions: an atomic force microscopy study.

Glyconanoparticles which present carbohydrate and amino groups motifs at their surface were produced. These particles were highly stable and soluble in aqueous solutions. The presence of the carbohydrate groups also allowed the inclusion of more strongly binding groups, without affecting solubility. The binding of a model DNA, plasmid by these nanoparticles was studied by atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and gel electrophoresis. Significant differences between the nanoparticles based on their affinities for the DNA were found, with implications for their potential use as nonviral gene delivery agents.     

Test of the deterministic conjecture for the instantaneous time phase fluctuations of an oscillator

The fluctuations observed by recording the picosecond pulses of a mode-locked laser with a synchroscan streak camera are due to the laser jitter and to the variations of the zero crossing of the synchronization. By means of a simple model, it is shown that the dispersions measured when the synchronization is generated from the mode-locker oscillator reflect the instantaneous time phase fluctuations of this oscillator. From the study of the experimental recordings with methods of time series analysis it results that the phase noise of the electronic oscillator is consistent with an underlying low-dimensional strange attractor.     

Does a regional accent perturb speech processing?

The processing costs involved in regional accent normalization were evaluated by measuring differences in lexical decision latencies for targets placed at the end of sentences with different French regional accents. Over a series of 6 experiments, the authors examined the time course of comprehension disruption by manipulating the duration and presentation conditions of accented speech. Taken together, the findings of these experiments indicate that regional accent normalization involves a short-term adjustment mechanism that develops as a certain amount of accented signal is available, resulting in a temporary perturbation in speech processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Monitoring herbaceous fuel moisture content with SPOT VEGETATION time-series for fire risk prediction in savanna ecosystems

This paper evaluated the capacity of SPOT VEGETATION time-series to monitor herbaceous fuel moisture content (FMC) in order to improve fire risk assessment in the savanna ecosystem of Kruger National Park in South Africa. In situ herbaceous FMC data were used to assess the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI), Vegetation Dryness Index (VDI), Improved VDI (IVDI), and Accumulated Relative NDVI Decrement (ARND) during the dry season. The effect of increasing amounts of dead vegetation on the monitoring capacity of derived indices was studied by sampling mixed live and dead FMC. The IVDI was proposed as an improvement of the VDI to monitor herbaceous FMC during the dry season. The IVDI is derived by replacing NDVI with the integrated Relative Vegetation Index (iRVI), as an approximation of yearly herbaceous biomass, when analyzing the 2-dimensional space with NDWI. It was shown that the iRVI offered more information than the NDVI in combination with NDWI to monitor FMC. The VDI and IVDI exhibited a significant relation to FMC with R² of 0.25 and 0.73, respectively. The NDWI, however, correlated best with FMC (R² = 0.75), while the correlation of ARND and FMC was weaker (R² = 0.60) than that found for NDVI, NDWI, and IVDI. The use of in situ herbaceous FMC consequently indicated that NDWI is appropriate as spatio-temporal information source of herbaceous FMC variation which can be used to optimize fire risk and behavior assessment for fire management in savanna ecosystems.     

Motion synthesis and editing for the generation of new sign language content

Machine Translation - Existing work on the animation of signing avatars often relies on pure procedural techniques or on the playback of Motion Capture (MoCap) data. While the first solution...     

Decomposition of solid explosives by laser irradiation: A mass spectrometric study

Experimental investigations have been made in which single crystals of solid explosives such as cyclotrimethylene trinitramine, RDX, pentaerythritol tetranitrate, PETN, AgN₃ and Pb(N₃)₂, were irradiated with a focused laser beam of wavelength 266 nm and duration 5 nsec in an ultra high vacuum system housing a fast and sensitive time-of-flight mass spectrometer. From the mass spectra (both +ve and -ve ions) of the chemical species obtained, possible decomposition schemes of RDX and PETN have been proposed. For silver and lead azides, the laser irradiation did not cause explosions if the power density was sufficiently low, but micrometre size craters were formed. In the mass spectra of AgN₃ products N₃ ^– and silver cluster ions, Ag _n ⁺, have been found for the first time. It has been suggested that such investigations may possibly throw some light on our understanding of the reactions taking place in a deflagration/detonation wave.     

Hemi- and Homozygous Loss-of-Function Mutations in DSG2 (Desmoglein-2) Cause Recessive Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy with an Early Onset

About 50% of patients with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) carry a pathogenic or likely pathogenic mutation in the desmosomal genes. However, there is a significant number of patients without positive familial anamnesis. Therefore, the molecular reasons for ACM in these patients are frequently unknown and a genetic contribution might be underestimated. Here, we used a next-generation sequencing (NGS) approach and in addition single nucleotide polymor-phism (SNP) arrays for the genetic analysis of two independent index patients without familial medical history. Of note, this genetic strategy revealed a homozygous splice site mutation (DSG2–c.378+1G>T) in the first patient and a nonsense mutation (DSG2–p.L772X) in combination with a large deletion in DSG2 in the second one. In conclusion, a recessive inheritance pattern is likely for both cases, which might contribute to the hidden medical history in both families. This is the first report about these novel loss-of-function mutations in DSG2 that have not been previously identi-fied. Therefore, we suggest performing deep genetic analyses using NGS in combination with SNP arrays also for ACM index patients without obvious familial medical history. In the future, this finding might has relevance for the genetic counseling of similar cases.     

Multicomponent Bioluminescence Imaging with Naphthylamino Luciferins

Bioluminescent tools have been used for decades to image processes in complex tissues and preclinical models. However, few distinct probes are available to probe multicellular interactions. We and others are addressing this limitation by engineering new luciferases that can selectively process synthetic luciferin analogues. In this work, we explored naphthylamino luciferins as orthogonal bioluminescent probes. Three analogues were prepared using an optimized synthetic route. The luciferins were found to be robust emitters with native luciferase in vitro and in cellulo. We further screened the analogues against libraries of luciferase mutants to identify unique enzyme-substrate pairs. The new probes can be used in conjunction with existing bioluminescent tools for multi-component imaging.