Retrograde Amnesia Induced by Drugs Acting on Different Molecular Systems.

The gamma aminobutyric acid-A (GABAA) agonist, muscimol, the glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, D-2-amino-5-phosphonopentanoic acid (AP5), and the inhibitor of the extracellularly regulated kinases (ERKs), UO 126, cause retrograde amnesia when administered to the hippocampus. In the present study, the authors found that they all cause retrograde amnesia for 1-trial inhibitory avoidance, not only when infused into the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus, but also when infused into the basolateral amygdala or the entorhinal, parietal, and posterior cingulate cortices. The posttraining time course of the effect of each drug was, however, quite different across brain structures. Thus, in all of them, NMDA receptors and the ERK pathway are indispensable for memory consolidation, and GABAA receptor activation inhibits memory consolidation: but in each case, their influence is interwoven differently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of the addition of an enzyme pool on an activated sludge system treating dairy wastewater under fat shock loads

BACKGROUND: The application of lipase‐rich enzyme pools (such as the crude solid enzymatic preparation (SEP) obtained from Penicillium restrictum solid‐state fermentation of agro‐industrial wastes) to activated sludge systems may be an effective strategy for preventing various operational problems. The continuous addition of SEP to the treatment system can become cost‐prohibitive when in situ production and/or storage are factored in. The application of SEP to high‐fat wastewater treatment would only be justified as an emergency measure, such as a sudden increase in the fat content of the bioreactor influent. Therefore, the primary objective of this work was to investigate the efficiency of a crude SEP during fat shock loads, simulated through the periodic addition of dairy industry waste containing high fat concentrations to the feed stock of an activated sludge system, operated in continuous mode. RESULTS: The test bioreactor exhibited a higher average chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency than the control bioreactor (83% for control and 90% for test) and the fat accumulation in the biological flocs of the test bioreactor was 3.2 times lower than that in the control bioreactor. Turbidity was also lower in the effluent of the test bioreactor (123 and 66 FTU in control and test, respectively) and it had a shorter recovery time between shock loads, especially when the interval between loads was shorter than one month (biweekly and weekly shock loads). CONCLUSION: The addition of SEP during fat overloads in the reactor feed maintained efficient COD removal in the test bioreactor for 270 days without any operational problems. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Study of Ozonated Sunflower Oil Using 1H NMR and Microbiological Analysis

Prior studies have proven that ozonated vegetable oils present a high germicidal power. Ozonation of sunflower oil at different applied ozone dosage was carried out and peroxide and aldehydes indices along with antimicrobial activity were determined. The reaction products were identified using Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (¹H NMR). The principal signals intensity values were used for following the reaction course between ozone and sunflower oil. The reaction was following up to peroxide index values of 1202 mmol-equi/kg. The intensities of olefinic proton signals decreased with the gradual increase in ozone concentration but without disappearing completely. The Criegee ozonides obtained at 107.1 mg/g of ozone doses were approximately 3.9-fold higher than that at beginning of the reaction. The aldehyde protons were observed as a weak intensity signal in all the spectra. The signals belonging to olefinic protons from hydroperoxides appeared weak and increased with the increase in ozone doses. Signals from other oxygenated groups were assigned. The highest action spectrum of antimicrobial activity was obtained with the higher peroxide index. It was concluded that at higher applied ozone doses, the higher the antimicrobial activity potential of ozonized sunflower oil     

One-week low-dose triple therapy vs. two-week medium-dose double therapy for H.pylori infection

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Our study is to compare a short-term low-dose triple therapy with a long-term medium-dose double therapy for H.pylori eradication. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred and ten consecutive patients, suffering from dyspeptic symptoms, with H.pylori infection, were randomly allocated to one of the following 2 groups with different therapeutic regimens: A) omeprazole 20 mg/day for 7 days, tinidazole 500 mg bid for 7 days, clarithromycin 250 mg bid for 7 days (55 pts, 20 with peptic ulcer); B) omeprazole 20 mg bid for 14 days, amoxycillin 1000 mg bid for 14 days (55 pts, 28 with peptic ulcer). The "H.pylori status" was evaluated by means of histology, culture and urease test, at entry and 8 weeks after treatment. RESULTS: Two group A and one group B pts didn't complete the treatment. The H.pylori eradication was obtained in 38 pts of group A (71.69%) (C.I.95%: 55.19176-80.86293), in 31 of group B (58.49%) (C.I.95%: 42.32777-69.7017); on Intention-to-Treat analysis, the rate of eradication gave similar results. Side effects occurred in 9 pts of group A (16.98%), in 8 of group B (14.81%). CONCLUSIONS: Short-term low-dose triple therapy with omeprazole/tinidazole/clarithromycin has a better cost/benefit ratio than long-term dual therapy with omeprazole/amoxycillin in the H.pylori eradication, but it causes more side-effects.     

On the decoding of binary cyclic codes with the Newton identities

We revisit in this paper the concept of decoding binary cyclic codes with Gröbner bases. These ideas were first introduced by Cooper, then Chen, Reed, Helleseth and Truong, and eventually by Orsini and Sala. We discuss here another way of putting the decoding problem into equations: the Newton identities. Although these identities have been extensively used for decoding, the work was done manually, to provide formulas for the coefficients of the locator polynomial. This was achieved by Reed, Chen, Truong and others in a long series of papers, for decoding quadratic residue codes, on a case-by-case basis. It is tempting to automate these computations, using elimination theory and Gröbner bases.Thus, we study in this paper the properties of the system defined by the Newton identities, for decoding binary cyclic codes. This is done in two steps, first we prove some facts about the variety associated with this system, then we prove that the ideal itself contains relevant equations for decoding, which lead to formulas.Then we consider the so-called online Gröbner basis decoding, where the work of computing a Gröbner basis is done for each received word. It is much more efficient for practical purposes than preprocessing and substituting into the formulas. Finally, we conclude with some computational results, for codes of interesting length (about one hundred).     

Wafer-level fabrication process for fully encapsulated micro-supercapacitors with high specific energy

In this paper a wafer-level process is proposed to fully integrate carbon-based micro-supercapacitor onto silicon substrate. This process relies on the deposition of a paste containing carbon, PVDF and acetone into cavities etched in silicon. After electrolyte deposition in a controlled atmosphere, a wafer-level encapsulation is realized. Cyclic voltammetry performed on non-encapsulated micro-components showed specific energy of 257 mJ cm⁻² for 336 μm deep cavities. The specific encapsulation process developed was tested separately and proved to be efficient in terms of resistance to organic electrolytes and mechanical strength.     

Simultaneous analysis of carbohydrates and volatile fatty acids by HPLC for monitoring fermentative biohydrogen production

The production of biohydrogen through anaerobic fermentation has received increasingly attention and has great potential as an alternative process for clean fuel production in the future. The monitoring of the stages of anaerobic fermentation provides relevant information about the bioprocess. The objective of this study is to propose a novel methodology for simultaneous analysis of sucrose, glucose, fructose and volatile fatty acids (VFAs), such as, acetic, propionic, isobutyric and butyric during anaerobic fermentation by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The following chromatographic conditions were optimized: column Aminex HPX-87H, mobile phase consisting of H₂SO₄ 0.005 mol/L, flow rate of 1.0 mL/min and temperature of 55 °C. Sucrose, glucose and fructose were analyzed by refractive index detector (RI) while acetic, propionic, isobutyric and butyric acids were analyzed by ultraviolet (UV) detection at 210 nm. Some analytical parameters of validation, such as, linearity, selectivity, repeatability, intermediate precision, limit of detection and quantification, accuracy and robustness were evaluated. The proposed methodology was successfully applied in the determination of substrates and metabolites during different stages of biohydrogen production.     

Distance field computation for geological slab surface data sets

The three-dimensional shapes of tectonic plates that sink into the Earth’s mantle (slabs) are the starting point for a range of geoscience studies, from determining the forces driving the motion of tectonic plates, to potential seismic and tsunami hazards, to the sources of magmas beneath active volcanos. For many of these applications finite element methods are used to model the deformation or fluid flow, and therefore the input model parameters, such as feature geometries, temperature or viscosity, must be defined with respect to a smooth, continuous distance field around the slab. In this paper we present a framework for processing sparse and noisy seismic data (earthquake locations), defining the shape of the slab and computing a continuous distance function on a mesh with variable node spacing. Due to the inhomogeneous volumetric distribution of earthquakes within the slab and significant inaccuracies in the locations of earthquakes occurring hundreds of kilometers below the Earth’s surface, the seismicity data set is extremely noisy and incomplete. Therefore, the preprocessing is the major part of the framework consisting of several steps including a point based smoothing procedure, a powerful method to use other observational constraints on slab location (e.g., seismic tomography or geologic history) to extend of the slab shape beyond earthquake data set and continuous resampling using moving least squares method. For the preprocessed point data we introduce approaches for finding the three-dimensional boundary of the slab and a subdivision of the slab into quadric implicit polynomials. The resulting distance field is then compiled from distances to the piecewise continuous approximation of the slab and distances to slab boundary.     

A new procedure for treatment of oily slurry using geotextile filters

A new procedure to mitigate the environmental impacts and reduce the cost of disposal of oil slurry is present in this paper. Waste from the petroleum industry has a high environmental impact. Systems for oil–water separation have been used to mitigate the contamination potential of these types of effluents. At the outlet of these systems, the oil is skimmed-off the surface, while the slurry is removed from the base. Due to the high concentration of contaminants, the disposal of this slurry is an environmentally hazardous practice. Usually this type of waste is disposed of in tanks or landfills after removal from the industrial plant. Basically, the proposed procedure utilizes drying beds with geotextile filters to both reduce the water content in the slurry and obtain a less contaminated effluent. Laboratory tests were carried out to simulate the drying system. Four types of filters were analyzed: two non-woven geotextiles, one woven geotextile, and a sand filter.     

Development and validation of a near-infrared method for the quantitation of caffeine in intact single tablets

A near-infrared spectroscopic method was developed and validated for determining the caffeine concentration of single and intact tablets in a Finnish pharmaceutical product containing 58.82% (m/m) caffeine.The spectral region of interest contained a total of 474 data points. The second derivative of Savitsky-Golay, a standard normal variate, and mean centering were used as spectral preprocessing options. The feasibility study showed nonuniformity of caffeine repartition within each tablet. Thus, spectra were recorded from both faces of the tablets, and the analysis result for a single tablet was reported as the average of both face determinations. Precision of the method was validated because the relative standard deviations from repeatability and intermediate precision tests were below 0.75% (m/m). Accuracy validation proved that the NIR results were not significantly different (P = 0.09, n = 12) from the results obtained with the reference HPLC method. The limit of quantification for caffeine was 13.7% (m/m) in the tablets. The method was found to be unaffected by NIR source replacement, but the repeatability of the results was affected if the sample holder was not placed in the correct position in the light beam. Routine NIR analysis of caffeine in tablet form was found to be more flexible and much faster than that performed with the HPLC method.