Persistence of visual cortex dendritic alterations induced by postweaning exposure to a "superenriched" environment in rats.

To assess the relative permanence of dendritic alterations induced by postweaning housing conditions, dendritic field parameters in the occipital cortex were compared among rats that had spent 30 days, beginning at 23–25 days of age, in a "superenriched" environment, rats that had the same treatment followed by 30 days of housing in individual cages, and rats that spent either 30 or 60 days in individual cages. The superenriched environment consisted of two large toy-filled cages, one containing water and one containing food, which were attached to opposite ends of a maze in which the pattern of barriers was changed daily. Aspinous stellate neurons of layer IV and pyramidal neurons of layer III both exhibited increases in total dendritic length and number of branches in response to superenriched environment exposure. In a factorial analysis of initial experience condition by age of subject, the consistent presence of experience effects combined with the relatively rare appearance of either age effects or interactions indicated that the dominant result was for the dendritic effects of the initial superenriched environment exposure to persist through the subsequent period of individual housing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An efficient and lightweight multi‐scroll chaos‐based hardware solution for protecting fingerprint biometric templates

This paper presents a new efficient and lightweight approach for enhancing the security of biometric models, namely, fingerprint templates, against possible attacks. The proposed design is based on Vernam stream cipher in which the key generator is designed in the hardware manner. The designed cryptosystem consists of using multi‐scroll chaotic system that is characterized by a large key space and can be generated N×N grid multi‐scroll attractors, with a good behavior of chaotic dynamic. The hardware approach is carried out through describing Euler method by VHDL. Field‐programmable gate array (FPGA) experimental results validate the developed architecture while still providing a good compromise between hardware resources and performance. Indeed, security analysis also shows that the designed encryption algorithm is robust against statistical, brute force, and entropy attacks. Therefore, it can be considered as a lightweight security solution, which could be very useful in many embedded applications namely securing biometric authentication systems.     

Dielectric properties of thermosonically treated Agaricus bisporus slices during microwave vacuum drying and correlation with the water state

Abstract

The dielectric properties of thermosonically treated Agaricus bisporus slices during microwave vacuum drying were determined, by using a network analyzer and an open-ended coaxial-line probe at microwave frequency (915 and 2450?MHz). The permittivity at 25?°C was also correlated to the water state determined by low field nuclear magnetic resonance (LF-NMR) analysis. Results showed that the dielectric constant ε' and loss factor ε″ of A. bisporus slices were affected significantly by the composition of water state in the sample. Thermosonic pretreatment enhanced the influence of semi-bound water (M₂₂) and bound water (M₂₁) on the permittivities in sample slices during microwave vacuum drying (MVD). The dependency of permittivities on the moisture content and temperature at 915 and 2450?MHz for thermosonically treated A. bisporus samples could be described by third-degree polynomial models, with R² higher than 0.998. Infrared thermal imaging analysis confirmed that thermosonic pretreatment is a potential technology to promote the uniformity of A. bisporus slices during the MVD process.     

Capillary interactions between molten silicon and porous graphite

The capillary properties (wetting, infiltration) of the reactive Si/porous graphite system are studied by the sessile drop technique that enables the spreading and infiltration dynamics to be monitored in situ. The experiments are performed by varying the temperature, the type of graphite (porosity, grain size) and the vapour phase (inert gas or high vacuum). Further experiments are performed in order to quantify the influence of the exothermic reaction between Si and graphite on the temperature field close to the infiltration front. The effects of Si–graphite interactions on graphite mechanical integrity are also evidenced.     

A comparative study of drying methods on physical characteristics,nutritional properties and antioxidant capacity of broccoli

Abstract

Broccoli is considered one of the attractive raw materials for dehydrated vegetables owing to its high nutritional value. However, information about how drying methods affect the physicochemical and nutritional properties of broccoli is limited. In this study, broccoli pieces were subjected to freeze drying (FD), hot air drying (HAD), microwave vacuum drying (MVD), vacuum drying (VD), MVD combined with HAD (MVD?+?HAD), and MVD combined with VD (MVD?+?VD). Quality attributes of dehydrated broccolis were contrasted in terms of color, texture, volume shrinkage, nutritional components, antioxidant activity, and rehydration capacity. Results demonstrated that FD better preserved the nutrients while HAD displayed the worst effect. The combination of MVD?+?HAD and MVD?+?VD resulted in higher retention of nutritional compositions, better antioxidant activity, and lower energy consumption than that of HAD. Furthermore, combined drying processing exhibited similar rehydration capacity but lower hardness compared to that of HAD.     

Explainable,Domain-Adaptive,and Federated Artificial Intelligence in Medicine

Artificial intelligence(AI) continues to transform data analysis in many domains.Progress in each domain is driven by a growing body of annotated data,increased computational resources,and technological innovations.In medicine,the sensitivity of the data,the complexity of the tasks,the potentially high stakes,and a requirement of accountability give rise to a particular set of challenges.In this review,we focus on three key methodological approaches that address some of the particular challenges...     

Ultrasound-assisted osmotic process on quality of microwave vacuum drying sweet potato

The effects of pretreatment before microwave vacuum drying (MVD) on texture, color, expansion, rehydration, drying rate, microstructure, sensory evaluation, and other properties of sweet potato were investigated in this study. The pretreatment consisted in five processing conditions, using blanching; osmotic dehydration at 35°Brix of sucrose (OD); ultrasound in distilled water (US); ultrasound in distilled water before osmotic dehydration (US?+?OD), and ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration (USOD). Pretreatments of sweet potato before MVD have shown success in reducing drying time with US treatment relatively more effective regarding drying time than other treatments. Compared with other treatments, US showed the highest rehydration ratio values. The osmotic group pretreatment exhibited a pronounced effect on water loss and solid gain, improved the color, aroma, and taste of dried sweet potato, whereas sucrose impregnation resulted in a hard texture observed with OD sample. USOD samples had a higher expansion ratio, lower hardness and color difference values, appeared less cell damaged, and recorded better overall quality than the other samples. There was a slight difference between USOD and US?+?OD samples. Combining osmotic dehydration with ultrasound as a pretreatment can significantly accelerate the heat transfer rate, reducing the dried time accordingly and increasing energy efficiency.     

Pd-Cu-Ni-P Bulk Metallic Glass: A Very Low Damping Material

The present work addresses damping experiments performed in a Pd-Cu-Ni-P bulk metallic glass. After an appropriated thermal treatment, this material exhibits a very low damping coefficient, down to 10⁻⁶. This result is discussed considering the different possible origins of the damping phenomena: thermoelasticity, energy dissipation by electrons, phonons, defects, and residual stresses. Thermoelasticity and defects appear to be the most important sources of mechanical damping. This article is based on a presentation given in the symposium entitled “Bulk Metallic Glasses IV,” which occurred February 25−March 1, 2007 during the TMS Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida under the auspices of the TMS/ASM Mechanical Behavior of Materials Committee.     

Combined retinol-lactose-glycolic acid effects on photoaged skin: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of the combination of retinol, lactose and glycolic acid applied topically on photodamaged skin. Forty female volunteers were enrolled in a double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled clinical study. A cream containing retinol, lactose and glycolic acid was applied on one side of the face and a placebo cream on the other side, twice daily for 12 weeks. Skin photoageing signs were assessed clinically, whereas skin microrelief and moisturization were measured instrumentally. Both the clinical assessment and the objective instrumental measurements revealed that the active-treated side was significantly improved at the end of the study compared with baseline and control-treated side. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that topical application of a combination of retinol, lactose and glycolic acid has significantly improved the appearance of photodamaged skin.