Establishment of primary cell culture and an intracranial xenograft model of pediatric ependymoma: a prospect for therapy development and understanding of tumor biology

PubMed Central

Pavon, Lorena Favaro; Sibov, Tatiana Tais; Caminada de Toledo, Silvia Regina; Mara de Oliveira, Daniela; Cabral, Francisco Romero; Gabriel de Souza, Jean; Boufleur, Pamela; Marti, Luciana C.; Malheiros, Jackeline Moraes; Ferreira da Cruz, Edgar; Paiva, Fernando F.; Malheiros, Suzana M.F.; de Paiva Neto, Manoel A.; Tannús, Alberto; Mascarenhas de Oliveira, Sérgio; Silva, Nasjla Saba; Cappellano, Andrea Maria; Petrilli, Antonio Sérgio; Chudzinski-Tavassi, Ana Marisa; Cavalheiro, Sérgio

2018-01-01

Background Ependymoma (EPN), the third most common pediatric brain tumor, is a central nervous system (CNS) malignancy originating from the walls of the ventricular system. Surgical resection followed by radiation therapy has been the primary treatment for most pediatric intracranial EPNs. Despite numerous studies into the prognostic value of histological classification, the extent of surgical resection and adjuvant radiotherapy, there have been relatively few studies into the molecular and cellular biology of EPNs. Results We elucidated the ultrastructure of the cultured EPN cells and characterized their profile of immunophenotypic pluripotency markers (CD133, CD90, SSEA-3, CXCR4). We established an experimental EPN model by the intracerebroventricular infusion of EPN cells labeled with multimodal iron oxide nanoparticles (MION), thereby generating a tumor and providing a clinically relevant animal model. MRI analysis was shown to be a valuable tool when combined with effective MION labeling techniques to accompany EPN growth. Conclusions We demonstrated that GFAP/CD133+CD90+/CD44+ EPN cells maintained key histopathological and growth characteristics of the original patient tumor. The characterization of EPN cells and the experimental model could facilitate biological studies and preclinical drug screening for pediatric EPNs. Methods In this work, we established notoriously challenging primary cell culture of anaplastic EPNs (WHO grade III) localized in the posterior fossa (PF), using EPNs obtained from 1 to 10-year-old patients (n = 07), and then characterized their immunophenotype and ultrastructure to finally develop a xenograft model. PMID:29774098

Subterranean, Herbivore-Induced Plant Volatile Increases Biological Control Activity of Multiple Beneficial Nematode Species in Distinct Habitats

PubMed Central

Ali, Jared G.; Alborn, Hans T.; Campos-Herrera, Raquel; Kaplan, Fatma; Duncan, Larry W.; Rodriguez-Saona, Cesar; Koppenhöfer, Albrecht M.; Stelinski, Lukasz L.

2012-01-01

While the role of herbivore-induced volatiles in plant-herbivore-natural enemy interactions is well documented aboveground, new evidence suggests that belowground volatile emissions can protect plants by attracting entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs). However, due to methodological limitations, no study has previously detected belowground herbivore-induced volatiles in the field or quantified their impact on attraction of diverse EPN species. Here we show how a belowground herbivore-induced volatile can enhance mortality of agriculturally significant root pests. First, in real time, we identified pregeijerene (1,5-dimethylcyclodeca-1,5,7-triene) from citrus roots 9–12 hours after initiation of larval Diaprepes abbreviatus feeding. This compound was also detected in the root zone of mature citrus trees in the field. Application of collected volatiles from weevil-damaged citrus roots attracted native EPNs and increased mortality of beetle larvae (D. abbreviatus) compared to controls in a citrus orchard. In addition, field applications of isolated pregeijerene caused similar results. Quantitative real-time PCR revealed that pregeijerene increased pest mortality by attracting four species of naturally occurring EPNs in the field. Finally, we tested the generality of this root-zone signal by application of pregeijerene in blueberry fields; mortality of larvae (Galleria mellonella and Anomala orientalis) again increased by attracting naturally occurring populations of an EPN. Thus, this specific belowground signal attracts natural enemies of widespread root pests in distinct agricultural systems and may have broad potential in biological control of root pests. PMID:22761668

[Dimensional approach of emotion in psychiatry: validation of the Positive and Negative Emotionality scale (EPN-31)].

PubMed

Pélissolo, A; Rolland, J-P; Perez-Diaz, F; Jouvent, R; Allilaire, J-F

2007-01-01

This paper reports the first validation study of the EPN-31 scale (Positive and Negative Emotionality scale, 31 items) in a French psychiatric sample. This questionnaire has been adapted by Rolland from an emotion inventory developed by Diener, and is also in accordance with Watson and Clark's tripartite model of affects. Respondents were asked to rate the frequency with which they had experienced each affect (31 basic emotional states) during the last month. The answer format was a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 "Not experienced at all" to 7 "Experienced this affect several times each day". Three main scores were calculated (positive affects, negative affects, and surprise affects), as well as six sub-scores (joy, tenderness, anger, fear, sadness, shame). Four hundred psychiatric patients were included in this study, and completed the EPN-31 scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale. The Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale was rated, as well as DSM IV diagnostic criteria. We performed a principal component analysis, with Varimax orthogonal transformation, and explored the factorial structure of the questionnaire, the internal consistency of each dimension, and the correlations between EPN-31 scores and HAD scores. The factorial structure of the EPN-31 was well-defined as expected, with a three-factor (positive, negative and surprise affects) solution accounting for 58.2% of the variance of the questionnaire. No correlation was obtained between positive and negative affects EPN-31 scores (r=0.006). All alpha Cronbach coefficients were between 0.80 and 0.95 for main scores, and between 0.72 and 0.90 for sub-scores. GAF scores were significantly correlated with EPN-31 positive affects scores (r=0.21; p=0.001) and with EPN-31 negative affects scores (r=- 0.45; p=0.001). We obtained significant correlations between positive affects score and HAD depression score (r=- 0.45; p<0.001), and between negative affects score and HAD anxiety (r=0.56; p<0.001) and depression (r=0.45; p<0.001) scores. This pattern of correlation was in accordance with the Watson tripartite model of emotionality. Significantly higher EPN-31 positive affect mean scores were observed in females when compared to males (p<0.001). The third factor of the EPN-31 is less robust than the others and, the validity of the surprise score could hence be discussed. In all, this study confirmed the validity and the interest of the EPN-31 use in psychiatric patients. Various clinical and research applications can be considered, such as infra-symptomatic studies of emotions in affective disorders and during treatment protocols or definition of phenotypic markers in genetic or neuro-imagery studies.

Diversity and distribution of entomopathogenic nematodes (Nematoda: Steinernematidae, Heterorhabditidae) and their bacterial symbionts (gamma-Proteobacteria: Enterobacteriaceae) in Jordan.

PubMed

Stock, S Patricia; Al Banna, Luma; Darwish, Rula; Katbeh, Ahmad

2008-06-01

Until now, only a few systematic surveys of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) have been conducted in Middle Eastern countries. Many of the recovered EPN species in this region have shown to own distinctive qualities that enable their survival in unique environments, such as high temperatures and low moisture levels tolerance. These new species and strains, with unique environmental tolerances, are more suitable for their consideration in pest management programs in xerophytic regions. With this background in mind, we recently conducted a survey of EPN in Jordan. This study records for the first time the diversity and distribution of these nematodes and their bacterial symbionts in this country. Jordan's three geographic regions: (1) the highlands, (2) Jordan valley and (3) the desert region were sampled. Within each region, natural habitats and agricultural regions characteristic to each region were considered for sampling purposes. Four EPN species including three Steinernema and one Heterorhabditis were recovered. Nematodes were identified using a combination of molecular markers and classic morphological diagnostic tools. Bacterial symbionts were identified by analysis of 16S rRNA sequences. Abiotic characteristics such as soil type, soil pH, and elevation were also recorded. We herein report the diversity of EPN species in Jordan and discuss their potential in Biocontrol and IPM programs for this country.

Effectiveness of Metarhizium anisopliae and Entomopathogenic Nematodes to Control Oryctes rhinoceros Larvae in the Rainy Season.

PubMed

Indriyanti, Dyah Rini; Widiyaningrum, Priyantini; Haryuni; Slamet, Muji; Maretta, Yoris Adi

2017-01-01

Metarhizium anisopliae (MET) and entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) are microorganisms that attack the larvae of Oryctes rhinoceros. The effects of MET, EPN and the combination of both on the O. rhinoceros larvae were studied during the rainy season in Jepara Indonesia. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of Metarhizium anisopliae and entomopathogenic nematodes to control Oryctes rhinoceros larvae in the rainy season. There were four level doses of MET, four level doses of EPN and four mixture of MET and EPN. The experiment used 72 containers that were placed in the garden with coconut palm shade. Five kilograms of organic soil that was mixed with biological control agents (MET, EPN and MET+EPN) and ten O. rhinoceros larvae 3rd instar were put in each other container. The data were analyzed by descriptive analysis. Every larvae mortality was observed once a week and observations are for 8 weeks. The result showed that the larval mortality due to MET treatment occurred on 2nd-7th week. Meanwhile, the larval mortality due to EPN treatment took place on 2nd-8th weeks and the larval mortality due to MET+EPN treatment occurred on 1st-5th weeks. The combination of MET and EPN was simultaneously effective to control O. rhinoceros larvae than separate use of MET or EPN. Result of this study showed that using two agents of biocontrol was more effective, so that it can be beneficial for controlling O. rhinoceros larvae in the field.

Emphysematous pyelonephritis with calculus: Management strategies.

PubMed

Goel, Tanmaya; Reddy, Sreedhar; Thomas, Joseph

2007-07-01

Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) with calculus is well recognized but with very few reports on its treatment. Our aim is to elucidate our experience in its successful management. Over four years, we diagnosed seven cases (eight renal units) of EPN, out of which two patients (three renal units) had EPN with urinary calculi. After the initial conservative management of EPN, the stones were tackled appropriately. EPN was initially managed effectively with antibiotics and supportive care. Once the patient was stable, the stones were cleared in a step-wise fashion. The associated postoperative complications were also tackled efficiently with preservation of renal function. In EPN with stones, nephrectomy is not the sole option available and they can be effectively managed with open / endoscopic measures.

Neurotoxic and teratogenic effects of an organophosphorus insecticide (phenyl phosphonothioic acid-O-ethyl -O-[4-nitrophenyl] ester) on mallard development

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hoffman, D.J.; Sileo, L.

1984-01-01

Phenyl phosphonothioic acid-O-ethyl-O-[4-nitrophenyl] ester (EPN) is one of the 10 most frequently used organophosphorus insecticides and causes delayed neurotoxicity in adult chickens and mallards. Small amounts of organophosphorus insecticides placed on birds' eggs are embryotoxic and teratogenic. For this reason, the effects of topical egg application on EPN were examined on mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) embryo development. Mallard eggs were treated topically at 72 hr of incubation with 25 microliter of a nontoxic oil vehicle or with EPN in the vehicle at concentrations of approximately 12, 36, or 108 micrograms/g egg, equivalent to one, three, and nine times the agricultural level of application used to spray crops. Treatment with EPN resulted in 22 to 44% mortality over this dose range by 18 days of development compared with 4 and 5% for untreated and vehicle-treated controls. EPN impaired embryonic growth and was highly teratogenic: 37-42% of the surviving embryos at 18 days were abnormal with cervical and axial scoliosis as well as severe edema. Brain weights were significantly lower in EPN-treated groups at different stages of development including hatchlings. Brain neurotoxic esterase (NTE) activity was inhibited by as much as 91% at 11 days, 81% at 18 days, and 79% in hatchlings. Examination of brain NTE activity during the course of normal development revealed an increase of nearly sixfold from Day 11 through hatching. The most rapid increase occurred between Day 20 and hatching. Brain acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity was inhibited by as much as 41% at 11 days, 47% at 18 days, and 20% in hatchlings. Plasma cholinesterase and alkaline phosphatase activities were inhibited and plasma aspartate aminotransferase activity was increased at one or more stages of development. Hatchlings from EPN-treated eggs were weaker and slower to right themselves. Histopathological examination did not reveal demyelination and axonopathy of the spinal cord that was characteristic of delayed neurotoxicity in adult birds.

Emphysematous pyelonephritis with calculus: Management strategies

PubMed Central

Goel, Tanmaya; Reddy, Sreedhar; Thomas, Joseph

2007-01-01

Objective: Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) with calculus is well recognized but with very few reports on its treatment. Our aim is to elucidate our experience in its successful management. Materials and Methods: Over four years, we diagnosed seven cases (eight renal units) of EPN, out of which two patients (three renal units) had EPN with urinary calculi. After the initial conservative management of EPN, the stones were tackled appropriately. Results: EPN was initially managed effectively with antibiotics and supportive care. Once the patient was stable, the stones were cleared in a step-wise fashion. The associated postoperative complications were also tackled efficiently with preservation of renal function. Conclusion: In EPN with stones, nephrectomy is not the sole option available and they can be effectively managed with open / endoscopic measures. PMID:19718324

Therapeutic Impact of Cytoreductive Surgery and Irradiation of Posterior Fossa Ependymoma in the Molecular Era: A Retrospective Multicohort Analysis.

PubMed

Ramaswamy, Vijay; Hielscher, Thomas; Mack, Stephen C; Lassaletta, Alvaro; Lin, Tong; Pajtler, Kristian W; Jones, David T W; Luu, Betty; Cavalli, Florence M G; Aldape, Kenneth; Remke, Marc; Mynarek, Martin; Rutkowski, Stefan; Gururangan, Sridharan; McLendon, Roger E; Lipp, Eric S; Dunham, Christopher; Hukin, Juliette; Eisenstat, David D; Fulton, Dorcas; van Landeghem, Frank K H; Santi, Mariarita; van Veelen, Marie-Lise C; Van Meir, Erwin G; Osuka, Satoru; Fan, Xing; Muraszko, Karin M; Tirapelli, Daniela P C; Oba-Shinjo, Sueli M; Marie, Suely K N; Carlotti, Carlos G; Lee, Ji Yeoun; Rao, Amulya A Nageswara; Giannini, Caterina; Faria, Claudia C; Nunes, Sofia; Mora, Jaume; Hamilton, Ronald L; Hauser, Peter; Jabado, Nada; Petrecca, Kevin; Jung, Shin; Massimi, Luca; Zollo, Massimo; Cinalli, Giuseppe; Bognár, László; Klekner, Almos; Hortobágyi, Tibor; Leary, Sarah; Ermoian, Ralph P; Olson, James M; Leonard, Jeffrey R; Gardner, Corrine; Grajkowska, Wieslawa A; Chambless, Lola B; Cain, Jason; Eberhart, Charles G; Ahsan, Sama; Massimino, Maura; Giangaspero, Felice; Buttarelli, Francesca R; Packer, Roger J; Emery, Lyndsey; Yong, William H; Soto, Horacio; Liau, Linda M; Everson, Richard; Grossbach, Andrew; Shalaby, Tarek; Grotzer, Michael; Karajannis, Matthias A; Zagzag, David; Wheeler, Helen; von Hoff, Katja; Alonso, Marta M; Tuñon, Teresa; Schüller, Ulrich; Zitterbart, Karel; Sterba, Jaroslav; Chan, Jennifer A; Guzman, Miguel; Elbabaa, Samer K; Colman, Howard; Dhall, Girish; Fisher, Paul G; Fouladi, Maryam; Gajjar, Amar; Goldman, Stewart; Hwang, Eugene; Kool, Marcel; Ladha, Harshad; Vera-Bolanos, Elizabeth; Wani, Khalida; Lieberman, Frank; Mikkelsen, Tom; Omuro, Antonio M; Pollack, Ian F; Prados, Michael; Robins, H Ian; Soffietti, Riccardo; Wu, Jing; Metellus, Phillipe; Tabori, Uri; Bartels, Ute; Bouffet, Eric; Hawkins, Cynthia E; Rutka, James T; Dirks, Peter; Pfister, Stefan M; Merchant, Thomas E; Gilbert, Mark R; Armstrong, Terri S; Korshunov, Andrey; Ellison, David W; Taylor, Michael D

2016-07-20

Posterior fossa ependymoma comprises two distinct molecular variants termed EPN_PFA and EPN_PFB that have a distinct biology and natural history. The therapeutic value of cytoreductive surgery and radiation therapy for posterior fossa ependymoma after accounting for molecular subgroup is not known. Four independent nonoverlapping retrospective cohorts of posterior fossa ependymomas (n = 820) were profiled using genome-wide methylation arrays. Risk stratification models were designed based on known clinical and newly described molecular biomarkers identified by multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses. Molecular subgroup is a powerful independent predictor of outcome even when accounting for age or treatment regimen. Incompletely resected EPN_PFA ependymomas have a dismal prognosis, with a 5-year progression-free survival ranging from 26.1% to 56.8% across all four cohorts. Although first-line (adjuvant) radiation is clearly beneficial for completely resected EPN_PFA, a substantial proportion of patients with EPN_PFB can be cured with surgery alone, and patients with relapsed EPN_PFB can often be treated successfully with delayed external-beam irradiation. The most impactful biomarker for posterior fossa ependymoma is molecular subgroup affiliation, independent of other demographic or treatment variables. However, both EPN_PFA and EPN_PFB still benefit from increased extent of resection, with the survival rates being particularly poor for subtotally resected EPN_PFA, even with adjuvant radiation therapy. Patients with EPN_PFB who undergo gross total resection are at lower risk for relapse and should be considered for inclusion in a randomized clinical trial of observation alone with radiation reserved for those who experience recurrence. © 2016 by American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Therapeutic Impact of Cytoreductive Surgery and Irradiation of Posterior Fossa Ependymoma in the Molecular Era: A Retrospective Multicohort Analysis

PubMed Central

Ramaswamy, Vijay; Hielscher, Thomas; Mack, Stephen C.; Lassaletta, Alvaro; Lin, Tong; Pajtler, Kristian W.; Jones, David T.W.; Luu, Betty; Cavalli, Florence M.G.; Aldape, Kenneth; Remke, Marc; Mynarek, Martin; Rutkowski, Stefan; Gururangan, Sridharan; McLendon, Roger E.; Lipp, Eric S.; Dunham, Christopher; Hukin, Juliette; Eisenstat, David D.; Fulton, Dorcas; van Landeghem, Frank K.H.; Santi, Mariarita; van Veelen, Marie-Lise C.; Van Meir, Erwin G.; Osuka, Satoru; Fan, Xing; Muraszko, Karin M.; Tirapelli, Daniela P.C.; Oba-Shinjo, Sueli M.; Marie, Suely K.N.; Carlotti, Carlos G.; Lee, Ji Yeoun; Rao, Amulya A. Nageswara; Giannini, Caterina; Faria, Claudia C.; Nunes, Sofia; Mora, Jaume; Hamilton, Ronald L.; Hauser, Peter; Jabado, Nada; Petrecca, Kevin; Jung, Shin; Massimi, Luca; Zollo, Massimo; Cinalli, Giuseppe; Bognár, László; Klekner, Almos; Hortobágyi, Tibor; Leary, Sarah; Ermoian, Ralph P.; Olson, James M.; Leonard, Jeffrey R.; Gardner, Corrine; Grajkowska, Wieslawa A.; Chambless, Lola B.; Cain, Jason; Eberhart, Charles G.; Ahsan, Sama; Massimino, Maura; Giangaspero, Felice; Buttarelli, Francesca R.; Packer, Roger J.; Emery, Lyndsey; Yong, William H.; Soto, Horacio; Liau, Linda M.; Everson, Richard; Grossbach, Andrew; Shalaby, Tarek; Grotzer, Michael; Karajannis, Matthias A.; Zagzag, David; Wheeler, Helen; von Hoff, Katja; Alonso, Marta M.; Tuñon, Teresa; Schüller, Ulrich; Zitterbart, Karel; Sterba, Jaroslav; Chan, Jennifer A.; Guzman, Miguel; Elbabaa, Samer K.; Colman, Howard; Dhall, Girish; Fisher, Paul G.; Fouladi, Maryam; Gajjar, Amar; Goldman, Stewart; Hwang, Eugene; Kool, Marcel; Ladha, Harshad; Vera-Bolanos, Elizabeth; Wani, Khalida; Lieberman, Frank; Mikkelsen, Tom; Omuro, Antonio M.; Pollack, Ian F.; Prados, Michael; Robins, H. Ian; Soffietti, Riccardo; Wu, Jing; Metellus, Phillipe; Tabori, Uri; Bartels, Ute; Bouffet, Eric; Hawkins, Cynthia E.; Rutka, James T.; Dirks, Peter; Pfister, Stefan M.; Merchant, Thomas E.; Gilbert, Mark R.; Armstrong, Terri S.; Korshunov, Andrey; Ellison, David W.

2016-01-01

Purpose Posterior fossa ependymoma comprises two distinct molecular variants termed EPN_PFA and EPN_PFB that have a distinct biology and natural history. The therapeutic value of cytoreductive surgery and radiation therapy for posterior fossa ependymoma after accounting for molecular subgroup is not known. Methods Four independent nonoverlapping retrospective cohorts of posterior fossa ependymomas (n = 820) were profiled using genome-wide methylation arrays. Risk stratification models were designed based on known clinical and newly described molecular biomarkers identified by multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses. Results Molecular subgroup is a powerful independent predictor of outcome even when accounting for age or treatment regimen. Incompletely resected EPN_PFA ependymomas have a dismal prognosis, with a 5-year progression-free survival ranging from 26.1% to 56.8% across all four cohorts. Although first-line (adjuvant) radiation is clearly beneficial for completely resected EPN_PFA, a substantial proportion of patients with EPN_PFB can be cured with surgery alone, and patients with relapsed EPN_PFB can often be treated successfully with delayed external-beam irradiation. Conclusion The most impactful biomarker for posterior fossa ependymoma is molecular subgroup affiliation, independent of other demographic or treatment variables. However, both EPN_PFA and EPN_PFB still benefit from increased extent of resection, with the survival rates being particularly poor for subtotally resected EPN_PFA, even with adjuvant radiation therapy. Patients with EPN_PFB who undergo gross total resection are at lower risk for relapse and should be considered for inclusion in a randomized clinical trial of observation alone with radiation reserved for those who experience recurrence. PMID:27269943

Activity of eight strains of entomopathogenic nematodes (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae, Heterorhabditidae) against five stored product pests.

PubMed

de Carvalho Barbosa Negrisoli, Carla Ruth; Negrisoli Júnior, Aldomario Santo; Bernardi, Daniel; Garcia, Mauro Silveira

2013-07-01

Stored product pests are responsible for losses that can amount 10% during cereal storage in the world. Aiming to find an alternative method to the chemicals used for the stored-product pests, eight strains of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) were tested against five species of stored product pests. The bioassays were conducted in microtubes containing paper, inoculated with EPNs and insect diet. All the insect species were susceptible to the EPNs strains. Anagasta kuehniella and Tenebrio molitor larvae and Acanthoscelides obtectus adults were highly sensitive to the higher doses with most species and/or strains of EPNs. Adults of Sitophilus oryzae and Sitophilus zeamais were relatively less sensitive to all EPNs. Therefore, EPNs show as potential control agents for stored products pests in prophylactic applications in warehouses. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Distribution of the entomopathogenic nematodes from La Rioja (Northern Spain).

PubMed

Campos-Herrera, Raquel; Escuer, Miguel; Labrador, Sonia; Robertson, Lee; Barrios, Laura; Gutiérrez, Carmen

2007-06-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) distribution in natural areas and crop field edges in La Rioja (Northern Spain) has been studied taking into account environmental and physical-chemical soil factors. Five hundred soil samples from 100 sites of the most representative habitats were assayed for the presence of EPNs. The occurrence of EPNs statistically fitted to a negative binomial distribution, which pointed out that the natural distribution of these nematodes in La Rioja was in aggregates. There were no statistical differences (p < or = 0.05) in the abundance of EPNs to environmental and physical-chemical variables, although, there were statistical differences in the altitude, annual mean air temperature and rainfall, potential vegetation series and moisture percentage recovery frequency. Twenty-seven samples from 14 sites were positive for EPNs. From these samples, twenty isolates were identified to a species level and fifteen strains were selected: 11 Steinernema feltiae, two S. carpocapsae and two S. kraussei strains. S. kraussei was isolated from humid soils of cool and high altitude habitats and S. carpocapsae was found to occur in heavy soils of dry and temperate habitats. S. feltiae was the most common species with a wide range of altitude, temperature, rainfall, pH and soil moisture, although this species preferred sandy soils. The virulence of nematode strains were assessed using G. mellonella as insect host, recording the larval mortality percentage and the time to insect die, as well as the number of infective juveniles produced to evaluate the reproductive potential and the time tooks to leave the insect cadaver to determinate the infection cycle length. The ecological trends and biological results are discussed in relationship with their future use as biological control.

Endemic Oscheius Nematodes of Hawai'i

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) parasitize insects utilizing mutualistic bacteria to kill the host, allowing the nematode to feed and reproduce within the insect cadaver. Consequently EPNs are highly sought after for their biological control potential. A survey for EPNs was conducted on O’ahu and...

Odor Discrimination in Drosophila: From Neural Population Codes to Behavior

PubMed Central

Parnas, Moshe; Lin, Andrew C.; Huetteroth, Wolf; Miesenböck, Gero

2013-01-01

Summary Taking advantage of the well-characterized olfactory system of Drosophila, we derive a simple quantitative relationship between patterns of odorant receptor activation, the resulting internal representations of odors, and odor discrimination. Second-order excitatory and inhibitory projection neurons (ePNs and iPNs) convey olfactory information to the lateral horn, a brain region implicated in innate odor-driven behaviors. We show that the distance between ePN activity patterns is the main determinant of a fly’s spontaneous discrimination behavior. Manipulations that silence subsets of ePNs have graded behavioral consequences, and effect sizes are predicted by changes in ePN distances. ePN distances predict only innate, not learned, behavior because the latter engages the mushroom body, which enables differentiated responses to even very similar odors. Inhibition from iPNs, which scales with olfactory stimulus strength, enhances innate discrimination of closely related odors, by imposing a high-pass filter on transmitter release from ePN terminals that increases the distance between odor representations. PMID:24012006

Entomopathogenic nematodes in agricultural areas in Brazil.

PubMed

de Brida, Andressa Lima; Rosa, Juliana Magrinelli Osório; Oliveira, Cláudio Marcelo Gonçalves de; Castro, Bárbara Monteiro de Castro E; Serrão, José Eduardo; Zanuncio, José Cola; Leite, Luis Garrigós; Wilcken, Silvia Renata Siciliano

2017-04-06

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) (Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae) can control pests due to the mutualistic association with bacteria that kill the host by septicemia and make the environment favorable for EPNs development and reproduction. The diversity of EPNs in Brazilian soils requires further study. The identification of EPNs, adapted to environmental and climatic conditions of cultivated areas is important for sustainable pest suppression in integrated management programs in agricultural areas of Brazil. The objective was to identify EPNs isolated from agricultural soils with annual, fruit and forest crops in Brazil. Soil samples were collected and stored in 250 ml glass vials. The nematodes were isolated from these samples with live bait traps ([Galleria mellonella L. (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) larvae]. Infective juveniles were collected with White traps and identified by DNA barcoding procedures by sequencing the D2/D3 expansion of the 28S rDNA region by PCR. EPNs identified in agricultural areas in Brazil were Heterorhabditis amazonensis, Metarhabditis rainai, Oscheios tipulae and Steinernema rarum. These species should be considered pest biocontrol agents in Brazilian agricultural areas.

Entomopathogenic Nematodes Combined with Adjuvants Presents a New Potential Biological Control Method for Managing the Wheat Stem Sawfly, Cephus cinctus (Hymenoptera: Cephidae)

PubMed Central

Portman, Scott L.; Krishnankutty, Sindhu M.

2016-01-01

The wheat stem sawfly, (Cephus cinctus Norton) Hymenoptera: Cephidae, has been a major pest of winter wheat and barley in the northern Great Plains for more than 100 years. The insect’s cryptic nature and lack of safe chemical control options make the wheat stem sawfly (WSS) difficult to manage; thus, biological control offers the best hope for sustainable management of WSS. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) have been used successfully against other above-ground insect pests, and adding adjuvants to sprays containing EPNs has been shown to improve their effectiveness. We tested the hypothesis that adding chemical adjuvants to sprays containing EPNs will increase the ability of EPNs to enter wheat stems and kill diapausing WSS larvae. This is the first study to test the ability of EPNs to infect the WSS, C. cinctus, and test EPNs combined with adjuvants against C. cinctus in both the laboratory and the field. Infection assays showed that three different species of EPNs caused 60–100% mortality to WSS larvae. Adding Penterra, Silwet L-77, Sunspray 11N, or Syl-Tac to solutions containing EPNs resulted in higher WSS mortality than solutions made with water alone. Field tests showed that sprays containing S. feltiae added to 0.1% Penterra increased WSS mortality up to 29.1%. These results indicate a novel control method for WSS, and represent a significant advancement in the biological control of this persistent insect pest. PMID:28006820

Variation in the susceptibility of Drosophila to different entomopathogenic nematodes.

PubMed

Peña, Jennifer M; Carrillo, Mayra A; Hallem, Elissa A

2015-03-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) in the genera Heterorhabditis and Steinernema are lethal parasites of insects that are of interest as models for understanding parasite-host interactions and as biocontrol agents for insect pests. EPNs harbor a bacterial endosymbiont in their gut that assists in insect killing. EPNs are capable of infecting and killing a wide range of insects, yet how the nematodes and their bacterial endosymbionts interact with the insect immune system is poorly understood. Here, we develop a versatile model system for understanding the insect immune response to parasitic nematode infection that consists of seven species of EPNs as model parasites and five species of Drosophila fruit flies as model hosts. We show that the EPN Steinernema carpocapsae, which is widely used for insect control, is capable of infecting and killing D. melanogaster larvae. S. carpocapsae is associated with the bacterium Xenorhabdus nematophila, and we show that X. nematophila induces expression of a subset of antimicrobial peptide genes and suppresses the melanization response to the nematode. We further show that EPNs vary in their virulence toward D. melanogaster and that Drosophila species vary in their susceptibilities to EPN infection. Differences in virulence among different EPN-host combinations result from differences in both rates of infection and rates of postinfection survival. Our results establish a powerful model system for understanding mechanisms of host-parasite interactions and the insect immune response to parasitic nematode infection. Copyright © 2015, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

PRELIMINARY SURVEY OF ENTOMOPATHOGENIC NEMATODES IN UPPER NORTHERN THAILAND.

PubMed

Vitta, Apichat; Fukruksa, Chamaiporn; Yimthin, Thatcha; Deelue, Kitsakorn; Sarai, Chutima; Polseela, Raxsina; Thanwisai, Aunchalee

2017-01-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) of the genera Steinernema and Heterorhabditis are used as biocontrol agents for insect pests. Survey of indigenous EPNs provides not only the diversity aspects but also the contribution in pest management in local areas. The objective of this study was to survey EPNs in upper northern Thailand. Nine hundred seventy soil samples were obtained from 194 sites in upper northern region of Thailand; of these 60 (6.2%) had EPNs in 2 genera: Steinernema (32 isolates) and Heterorhabditis (28 isolates). Most EPNs were isolated from loam with a soil temperature of 24-38°C, a pH of 1.5-7.0 and a soil moisture content of 0.5-6.8%. Molecular identification based on sequencing of a partial region of an internal transcribed spacer was performed for Heterorhabditis and the 28S rDNA for Steinernema. A BLASTN search of known sequence EPNs revealed 24 isolates of S. websteri and one isolate of S. scarabaei were identified; closely related to S. websteri (accession no. JF503100) and S. scarabaei (accession no. AY172023). The Heterorhabditis species identified were: H. indica (11 isolates), H. gerrardi (2 isolates) and Heterorhabditis sp (8 isolates). Phylogenetic analysis revealed 11 isolates of Heterorhabditis were related to H. indica; 2 isolates were related to Heterorhabditis gerrardi and 8 isolates were closely related to Heterorhabditis sp SGmg3. The study results show the genetic diversity of EPNs and describe a new observation of S. scarabaei and H. gerrardi in Thailand. This finding is new and provides important information for further study on using native EPNs in biological control.

Odor discrimination in Drosophila: from neural population codes to behavior.

PubMed

Parnas, Moshe; Lin, Andrew C; Huetteroth, Wolf; Miesenböck, Gero

2013-09-04

Taking advantage of the well-characterized olfactory system of Drosophila, we derive a simple quantitative relationship between patterns of odorant receptor activation, the resulting internal representations of odors, and odor discrimination. Second-order excitatory and inhibitory projection neurons (ePNs and iPNs) convey olfactory information to the lateral horn, a brain region implicated in innate odor-driven behaviors. We show that the distance between ePN activity patterns is the main determinant of a fly's spontaneous discrimination behavior. Manipulations that silence subsets of ePNs have graded behavioral consequences, and effect sizes are predicted by changes in ePN distances. ePN distances predict only innate, not learned, behavior because the latter engages the mushroom body, which enables differentiated responses to even very similar odors. Inhibition from iPNs, which scales with olfactory stimulus strength, enhances innate discrimination of closely related odors, by imposing a high-pass filter on transmitter release from ePN terminals that increases the distance between odor representations. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Entomopathogenic nematode food webs in an ancient, mining pollution gradient in Spain.

PubMed

Campos-Herrera, Raquel; Rodríguez Martín, José Antonio; Escuer, Miguel; García-González, María Teresa; Duncan, Larry W; Gutiérrez, Carmen

2016-12-01

Mining activities pollute the environment with by-products that cause unpredictable impacts in surrounding areas. Cartagena-La Unión mine (Southeastern-Spain) was active for >2500years. Despite its closure in 1991, high concentrations of metals and waste residues remain in this area. A previous study using nematodes suggested that high lead content diminished soil biodiversity. However, the effects of mine pollution on specific ecosystem services remain unknown. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) play a major role in the biocontrol of insect pests. Because EPNs are widespread throughout the world, we speculated that EPNs would be present in the mined areas, but at increased incidence with distance from the pollution focus. We predicted that the natural enemies of nematodes would follow a similar spatial pattern. We used qPCR techniques to measure abundance of five EPN species, five nematophagous fungi species, two bacterial ectoparasites of EPNs and one group of free-living nematodes that compete for the insect-cadaver. The study comprised 193 soil samples taken from mining sites, natural areas and agricultural fields. The highest concentrations of iron and zinc were detected in the mined area as was previously described for lead, cadmium and nickel. Molecular tools detected very low numbers of EPNs in samples found to be negative by insect-baiting, demonstrating the importance of the approach. EPNs were detected at low numbers in 13% of the localities, without relationship to heavy-metal concentrations. Only Acrobeloides-group nematodes were inversely related to the pollution gradient. Factors associated with agricultural areas explained 98.35% of the biotic variability, including EPN association with agricultural areas. Our study suggests that EPNs have adapted to polluted habitats that might support arthropod hosts. By contrast, the relationship between abundance of Acrobeloides-group and heavy-metal levels, revealed these taxa as especially well suited bio-indicators of soil mining pollution. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Emotional event-related potentials are larger to figures than scenes but are similarly reduced by inattention

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background In research on event-related potentials (ERP) to emotional pictures, greater attention to emotional than neutral stimuli (i.e., motivated attention) is commonly indexed by two difference waves between emotional and neutral stimuli: the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP). Evidence suggests that if attention is directed away from the pictures, then the emotional effects on EPN and LPP are eliminated. However, a few studies have found residual, emotional effects on EPN and LPP. In these studies, pictures were shown at fixation, and picture composition was that of simple figures rather than that of complex scenes. Because figures elicit larger LPP than do scenes, figures might capture and hold attention more strongly than do scenes. Here, we showed negative and neutral pictures of figures and scenes and tested first, whether emotional effects are larger to figures than scenes for both EPN and LPP, and second, whether emotional effects on EPN and LPP are reduced less for unattended figures than scenes. Results Emotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes. When pictures were unattended, emotional effects on EPN increased for scenes but tended to decrease for figures, whereas emotional effects on LPP decreased similarly for figures and scenes. Conclusions Emotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes, but these effects did not resist manipulations of attention more strongly for figures than scenes. These findings imply that the emotional content captures attention more strongly for figures than scenes, but that the emotional content does not hold attention more strongly for figures than scenes. PMID:22607397

Enhancement of oscillatory activity in the endopiriform nucleus of rats raised under abnormal oral conditions.

PubMed

Yoshimura, Hiroshi; Hasumoto-Honjo, Miho; Sugai, Tokio; Segami, Natsuki; Kato, Nobuo

2014-02-21

Endopiriform nucleus (EPN) is located deep to the piriform cortex, and has neural connections with not only neighboring sensory areas but also subcortical areas where emotional and nociceptive information is processed. Well-balanced oral condition might play an important role in stability of brain activities. When the oral condition is impaired, several areas in the brain might be affected. In the present study, we investigated whether abnormal conditions of oral region influence neural activities in the EPN. Orthodontic appliance that generates continuous force and chronic pain-related stress was fixed to maxillary incisors of rats, and raised. Field potential recordings were made from the EPN of brain slices. We previously reported that the EPN has an ability to generate membrane potential oscillation. In the present study, we have applied the same methods to assess activities of neuron clusters in the EPN. In the case of normal rats, stable field potential oscillations were induced in the EPN by application of low-frequency electrical stimulation under the medium with caffeine. In the case of rats with the orthodontic appliance, stable field potential oscillations were also induced, but both duration of oscillatory activities and wavelet number were increased. The enhanced oscillations were depressed by blockade of NMDA receptors. Thus, impairment of oral health under application of continuous orthodontic force and chronic pain-related stress enhanced neural activities in the EPN, in which up-regulation of NMDA receptors may be concerned. These findings suggest that the EPN might be involved in information processing with regard to abnormal conditions of oral region. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of a contraction flow field on hydrodynamic damage to entomopathogenic nematodes-A biological pest control agent.

PubMed

Fife, Jane P; Derksen, Richard C; Ozkan, H Erdal; Grewal, Parwinder S; Chalmers, Jeffrey J; Krause, Charles R

2004-04-05

Mechanized production and delivery of biological pesticides presents challenges because the biological agents must remain viable during these processes. This study evaluates the effect of flow through an abrupt contraction, where flow characteristics similar to that found within bioprocesses and spray equipment are developed, on damage to a benchmark biological pest control agent, entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs). An opposed-pistons, contraction flow device generated volumetric flow rates ranging between 8.26 cm(3)/s and 41.3 cm(3)/s. Four EPN species were evaluated: Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, Heterorhabditis megidis, Steinernema carpocapsae, and Steinernema glaseri. Damage was quantified by counting living and dead EPNs. Optical and cold field emission scanning electron microscope (CFE-SEM) images provided qualitative information to describe how the damage occurred. The experimental flow field was completely described using FLUENT, a computational fluid dynamics program. Local flow parameters computed in FLUENT were compared to EPN damage. The type and extent of damage varied between EPN species. Damaged Heterorhabditis spp. generally remained whole with an internal rupture located near the center of the body, while Steinernema spp. most often broke into several pieces. The fast-transient stress field generated at the entrance to the contraction caused a momentary tensile loading and then relaxation that damaged the EPNs. At high flow rates, the tensile stresses became large enough to cause failure of the EPN structural membrane. The relative elasticity of the EPN structural membrane may explain the differences in damage observed between the species. It is speculated that the internal rupture of the Heterorhabditis spp. occurred during the processes of stretching and relaxing at the contraction entrance. Appreciable damage was observed at lower average energy dissipation rates for H. bacteriophora (1.23E + 8 W/m(3)), H. megidis (1.72E + 8 W/m(3)), and S. glaseri (2.89E + 8 W/m(3)) compared to S. carpocapsae (3.70E + 8 W/m(3)). Energy dissipation rates within an equipment component should be kept below 1E + 8 W/m(3) to avoid hydrodynamic damage to EPNs. The relationship between average energy dissipation and EPN damage provides important information for future simulation efforts of actual spray equipment components. Copyright 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Time course of implicit processing and explicit processing of emotional faces and emotional words.

PubMed

Frühholz, Sascha; Jellinghaus, Anne; Herrmann, Manfred

2011-05-01

Facial expressions are important emotional stimuli during social interactions. Symbolic emotional cues, such as affective words, also convey information regarding emotions that is relevant for social communication. Various studies have demonstrated fast decoding of emotions from words, as was shown for faces, whereas others report a rather delayed decoding of information about emotions from words. Here, we introduced an implicit (color naming) and explicit task (emotion judgment) with facial expressions and words, both containing information about emotions, to directly compare the time course of emotion processing using event-related potentials (ERP). The data show that only negative faces affected task performance, resulting in increased error rates compared to neutral faces. Presentation of emotional faces resulted in a modulation of the N170, the EPN and the LPP components and these modulations were found during both the explicit and implicit tasks. Emotional words only affected the EPN during the explicit task, but a task-independent effect on the LPP was revealed. Finally, emotional faces modulated source activity in the extrastriate cortex underlying the generation of the N170, EPN and LPP components. Emotional words led to a modulation of source activity corresponding to the EPN and LPP, but they also affected the N170 source on the right hemisphere. These data show that facial expressions affect earlier stages of emotion processing compared to emotional words, but the emotional value of words may have been detected at early stages of emotional processing in the visual cortex, as was indicated by the extrastriate source activity. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Intelligent indexing: a semi-automated, trainable system for field labeling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clawson, Robert; Barrett, William

2015-01-01

We present Intelligent Indexing: a general, scalable, collaborative approach to indexing and transcription of non-machinereadable documents that exploits visual consensus and group labeling while harnessing human recognition and domain expertise. In our system, indexers work directly on the page, and with minimal context switching can navigate the page, enter labels, and interact with the recognition engine. Interaction with the recognition engine occurs through preview windows that allow the indexer to quickly verify and correct recommendations. This interaction is far superior to conventional, tedious, inefficient post-correction and editing. Intelligent Indexing is a trainable system that improves over time and can provide benefit even without prior knowledge. A user study was performed to compare Intelligent Indexing to a basic, manual indexing system. Volunteers report that using Intelligent Indexing is less mentally fatiguing and more enjoyable than the manual indexing system. Their results also show that it reduces significantly (30.2%) the time required to index census records, while maintaining comparable accuracy. (a video demonstration is available at http://youtube.com/gqdVzEPnBEw)

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTROPY OF SPIKE TIMING AND FIRING RATE IN ENTOPEDUNCULAR NUCLEUS NEURONS IN ANESTHETIZED RATS: FUNCTION OF THE NIGRO-STRIATAL PATHWAY

PubMed Central

Darbin, Olivier; Jin, Xingxing; von Wrangel, Christof; Schwabe, Kerstin; Nambu, Atsushi; Naritoku, Dean K; Krauss, Joachim K.; Alam, Mesbah

2016-01-01

The function of the nigro-striatal pathway on neuronal entropy in the basal ganglia (BG) output nucleus (entopeduncular nucleus, EPN) was investigated in the unilaterally 6-hyroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned rat model of Parkinson’s disease (PD). In both control subjects and subjects with 6-OHDA lesion of the nigro-striatal pathway, a histological hallmark for parkinsonism, neuronal entropy in EPN was maximal in neurons with firing rates ranging between 15Hz and 25 Hz. In 6-OHDA lesioned rats, neuronal entropy in the EPN was specifically higher in neurons with firing rates above 25Hz. Our data establishes that nigro-striatal pathway controls neuronal entropy in motor circuitry and that the parkinsonian condition is associated with abnormal relationship between firing rate and neuronal entropy in BG output nuclei. The neuronal firing rates and entropy relationship provide putative relevant electrophysiological information to investigate the sensory-motor processing in normal condition and conditions with movement disorders. PMID:26711712

Event and Pulse Node Hardware Design for Nuclear Fusion Experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fortunato, J. C.; Batista, A.; Sousa, J.; Fernandes, H.; Varandas, C. A. F.

2008-04-01

This article presents an event and pulse node hardware module (EPN) developed for use in control and data acquisition (CODAC) in current and upcoming long discharges nuclear fusion experiments. Its purpose is to allow real time event management and trigger distribution. The use of a mixture of digital signal processing and field programmable gate arrays, with fiber optic channels for event broadcast between CODAC nodes, and short length paths between the EPN and CODAC hardware, allows an effective and low latency communication path. This hardware will be integrated in the ISTTOK CODAC to allow long AC plasma discharges.

Spiders do not evoke greater early posterior negativity in the event-related potential as snakes.

PubMed

He, Hongshen; Kubo, Kenta; Kawai, Nobuyuki

2014-09-10

It has been long believed that both snakes and spiders are archetypal fear stimuli for humans. Furthermore, snakes have been assumed as stronger threat cues for nonhuman primates. However, it is still unclear whether spiders hold a special status in human perception. The current study explored to what extent spider pictures draw early visual attention [as assessed with early posterior negativity (EPN)] when compared with insects similar to spiders. To measure the EPN, participants watched a random rapid serial presentation of pictures, which consisted of two conditions: spider condition (spider, wasp, bumblebee, beetle) and snake condition (snake, bird). EPN amplitudes revealed no significant difference between spider, wasp, bumblebee, and beetle pictures, whereas EPN amplitudes were significantly larger for snake pictures relative to bird pictures. In addition, EPN amplitudes were significantly larger for snake pictures relative to spider pictures. These results suggest that the early visual attentional capture of animate objects is stronger for snakes, whereas spiders do not appear to hold special early attentional value.

Nephroureterectomy for emphysematous pyelonephritis: An aggressive approach is sometimes necessary. A case report and literature review.

PubMed

Nana, Gael R; Brodie, Andrew; Akhter, Waseem; Karim, Omer; Motiwala, Hanif

2015-01-01

Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) is a life-threatening urological emergency. A high index of suspicion is required for diagnosis as such patients may present to physicians with typical features of pyelonephritis. A 67 year old lady presented atypically to the Emergency Department with symptoms of renal colic. The diagnosis of emphysematous pyelonephritis was established on prompt CT scanning. She did not respond to conservative management. Due to acute, critical deterioration, she underwent a radical right nephroureterectomy. The resected kidney involved a long segment of necrotic, gangrenous ureter. The patient had a smooth post-operative recovery and was successfully discharged. She remains well on follow-up after one year. Early radiological diagnosis is imperative for risk stratification of EPN. Current evidence recommends percutaneous catheter drainage with interval nephrectomy as the gold standard treatment. We review the literature for pathophysiology and clinical prognostic factors. This case adds onto the limited evidence base on ureteric involvement in EPN, suggesting a revision of EPN classification. Further research on ureteric involvement and treatment outcomes in EPN is required. Even in the current era of minimally invasive surgery and renal preservation therapies, early open nephrectomy still has a role in the management of EPN. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Improving the biocontrol potential of entomopathogenic nematodes against Mamestra brassicae: effect of spray application technique, adjuvants and an attractant.

PubMed

Beck, Bert; Brusselman, Eva; Nuyttens, David; Moens, Maurice; Temmerman, Femke; Pollet, Sabien; Van Weyenberg, Stephanie; Spanoghe, Pieter

2014-01-01

Steinernema carpocapsae Weiser, an entomopathogenic nematode (EPN), is a potential biological control agent for the cabbage moth (Mamestra brassicae L.). This research aimed to identify a suitable spray application technique, and to determine whether yeast extract added to an EPN spray has an attracting and/or a feeding stimulant effect on M. brassicae. The biological control capabilities of EPN against this pest were examined in the field. Good coverage of the underside of cauliflower leaves, the habitat of young instar larvae (L1-L4) of M. brassicae was obtained using different spray boom configurations with vertical extensions that carried underleaf spraying nozzles. One of the configurations was selected for field testing with an EPN spray. Brewer's yeast extract stimulated larval feeding on leaves, and increased the mortality of these larvae when exposed to EPN. The field trial showed that a spray application with S. carpocapsae, Addit and xanthan gum can effectively lower the numbers of cabbage heads damaged by M. brassicae. Brewer's yeast extract did not significantly increase this field performance of EPN. Steinernema carpocapsae, applied with an appropriate spray technique, can be used within biological control schemes as part of a resistance management programme for Bt. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.

A realistic appraisal of methods to enhance desiccation tolerance of entomopathogenic nematodes.

PubMed

Perry, Roland N; Ehlers, Ralf-Udo; Glazer, Itamar

2012-06-01

Understanding the desiccation survival attributes of infective juveniles of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) of the genera Steinernema and Heterorhabditis, is central to evaluating the reality of enhancing the shelf-life and field persistence of commercial formulations. Early work on the structural and physiological aspects of desiccation survival focused on the role of the molted cuticle in controlling the rate of water loss and the importance of energy reserves, particularly neutral lipids. The accumulation of trehalose was also found to enhance desiccation survival. Isolation of natural populations that can survive harsh environments, such as deserts, indicated that some populations have enhanced abilities to survive desiccation. However, survival abilities of EPN are limited compared with those of some species of plant-parasitic nematodes inhabiting aerial parts of plants. Research on EPN stress tolerance has expanded on two main lines: i) to select strains of species, currently in use commercially, which have increased tolerance to environmental extremes; and ii) to utilize molecular information, including expressed sequence tags and genome sequence data, to determine the underlying genetic factors that control longevity and stress tolerance of EPN. However, given the inherent limitations of EPN survival ability, it is likely that improved formulation will be the major factor to enhance EPN longevity and, perhaps, increase the range of applications.

Snake scales, partial exposure, and the Snake Detection Theory: A human event-related potentials study.

PubMed

Van Strien, Jan W; Isbell, Lynne A

2017-04-07

Studies of event-related potentials in humans have established larger early posterior negativity (EPN) in response to pictures depicting snakes than to pictures depicting other creatures. Ethological research has recently shown that macaques and wild vervet monkeys respond strongly to partially exposed snake models and scale patterns on the snake skin. Here, we examined whether snake skin patterns and partially exposed snakes elicit a larger EPN in humans. In Task 1, we employed pictures with close-ups of snake skins, lizard skins, and bird plumage. In task 2, we employed pictures of partially exposed snakes, lizards, and birds. Participants watched a random rapid serial visual presentation of these pictures. The EPN was scored as the mean activity (225-300 ms after picture onset) at occipital and parieto-occipital electrodes. Consistent with previous studies, and with the Snake Detection Theory, the EPN was significantly larger for snake skin pictures than for lizard skin and bird plumage pictures, and for lizard skin pictures than for bird plumage pictures. Likewise, the EPN was larger for partially exposed snakes than for partially exposed lizards and birds. The results suggest that the EPN snake effect is partly driven by snake skin scale patterns which are otherwise rare in nature.

Snake scales, partial exposure, and the Snake Detection Theory: A human event-related potentials study

PubMed Central

Van Strien, Jan W.; Isbell, Lynne A.

2017-01-01

Studies of event-related potentials in humans have established larger early posterior negativity (EPN) in response to pictures depicting snakes than to pictures depicting other creatures. Ethological research has recently shown that macaques and wild vervet monkeys respond strongly to partially exposed snake models and scale patterns on the snake skin. Here, we examined whether snake skin patterns and partially exposed snakes elicit a larger EPN in humans. In Task 1, we employed pictures with close-ups of snake skins, lizard skins, and bird plumage. In task 2, we employed pictures of partially exposed snakes, lizards, and birds. Participants watched a random rapid serial visual presentation of these pictures. The EPN was scored as the mean activity (225–300 ms after picture onset) at occipital and parieto-occipital electrodes. Consistent with previous studies, and with the Snake Detection Theory, the EPN was significantly larger for snake skin pictures than for lizard skin and bird plumage pictures, and for lizard skin pictures than for bird plumage pictures. Likewise, the EPN was larger for partially exposed snakes than for partially exposed lizards and birds. The results suggest that the EPN snake effect is partly driven by snake skin scale patterns which are otherwise rare in nature. PMID:28387376

An enhanced Petri-net model to predict synergistic effects of pairwise drug combinations from gene microarray data.

PubMed

Jin, Guangxu; Zhao, Hong; Zhou, Xiaobo; Wong, Stephen T C

2011-07-01

Prediction of synergistic effects of drug combinations has traditionally been relied on phenotypic response data. However, such methods cannot be used to identify molecular signaling mechanisms of synergistic drug combinations. In this article, we propose an enhanced Petri-Net (EPN) model to recognize the synergistic effects of drug combinations from the molecular response profiles, i.e. drug-treated microarray data. We addressed the downstream signaling network of the targets for the two individual drugs used in the pairwise combinations and applied EPN to the identified targeted signaling network. In EPN, drugs and signaling molecules are assigned to different types of places, while drug doses and molecular expressions are denoted by color tokens. The changes of molecular expressions caused by treatments of drugs are simulated by two actions of EPN: firing and blasting. Firing is to transit the drug and molecule tokens from one node or place to another, and blasting is to reduce the number of molecule tokens by drug tokens in a molecule node. The goal of EPN is to mediate the state characterized by control condition without any treatment to that of treatment and to depict the drug effects on molecules by the drug tokens. We applied EPN to our generated pairwise drug combination microarray data. The synergistic predictions using EPN are consistent with those predicted using phenotypic response data. The molecules responsible for the synergistic effects with their associated feedback loops display the mechanisms of synergism. The software implemented in Python 2.7 programming language is available from request. stwong@tmhs.org.

Investigation of Noises in GPS Time Series: Case Study on Epn Weekly Solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klos, Anna; Bogusz, Janusz; Figurski, Mariusz; Kosek, Wieslaw; Gruszczynski, Maciej

2014-05-01

The noises in GPS time series are stated to be described the best by the combination of white (Gaussian) and power-law processes. They are mainly the effect of mismodelled satellite orbits, Earth orientation parameters, atmospheric effects, antennae phase centre effects, or of monument instability. Due to the fact, that velocities of permanent stations define the kinematic reference frame, they have to fulfil the requirement of being stable at 0.1 mm/yr. The previously performed researches showed, that the wrong assumption of noise model leads to the underestimation of velocities and their uncertainties from 2 up to even 11, especially in the Up direction. This presentation focuses on more than 200 EPN (EUREF Permanent Network) stations from the area of Europe with various monument types (concrete pillars, buildings, metal masts, with or without domes, placed on the ground or on the rock) and coordinates of weekly changes (GPS weeks 0834-1459). The topocentric components (North, East, Up) in ITRF2005 which come from the EPN Re-Processing made by the Military University of Technology Local Analysis Centre (MUT LAC) were processed with Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) using CATS software. We have assumed the existence of few combinations of noise models (these are: white, flicker and random walk noise with integer spectral indices and power-law noise models with fractional spectral indices) and investigated which of them EPN weekly time series are likely to follow. The results show, that noises in GPS time series are described the best by the combination of white and flicker noise model. It is strictly related to the so-called common mode error (CME) that is spatially correlated error being one of the dominant error source in GPS solutions. We have assumed CME as spatially uniform, what was a good approximation for stations located hundreds of kilometres one to another. Its removal with spatial filtering reduces the amplitudes of white and flicker noise by a factor of 2 or 3. The assumption of white plus flicker plus random-walk noise (which is considered to be the effect of badly monumented stations) resulted in the random-walk amplitudes at the level of single millimetres for some of the stations, while for the majority of them no random-walk was detected, due to the fact that flicker noise prevails in GPS time series. The removal of CME caused the decrease in flicker noise amplitudes leading at the same time to greater random-walk amplitudes. The assumed combination of white plus power-law noise showed that the spectral indices for the best fitted noise model are unevenly distributed around -1 what also indicates the flicker noise existence in EPN weekly time series. The poster will present all of the assumed noise model combinations with the comparison of noise amplitudes before and after spatial filtering. Additionally, we will discuss over the latitude and longitude noise dependencies for the area of Europe to indicate any similarities between noise amplitudes and the location of stations. Finally, we will focus on the velocities with their uncertainties that were determined from EPN weekly solutions and show how the wrong assumption of noise model changes both of them.

Specific expression of PD-L1 in RELA-fusion supratentorial ependymoma: Implications for PD-1-targeted therapy.

PubMed

Witt, Davis A; Donson, Andrew M; Amani, Vladimir; Moreira, Daniel C; Sanford, Bridget; Hoffman, Lindsey M; Handler, Michael H; Levy, Jean M Mulcahy; Jones, Kenneth L; Nellan, Anandani; Foreman, Nicholas K; Griesinger, Andrea M

2018-05-01

A desperate need for novel therapies in pediatric ependymoma (EPN) exists, as chemotherapy remains ineffective and radiotherapy often fails. EPN have significant infiltration of immune cells, which correlates with outcome. Immune checkpoint inhibitors provide an avenue for new treatments. This study characterizes tumor-infiltrating immune cells in EPN and aims at predicting candidates for clinical trials using checkpoint inhibitors targeting PD-L1/PD-1 (programmed death ligand 1/programmed death 1). The transcriptomic profiles of the primary study cohort of EPN and other pediatric brain tumors were interrogated to identify PD-L1 expression levels. Transcriptomic findings were validated using the western blotting, immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry. We evaluated PD-L1 mRNA expression across four intracranial subtypes of EPN in two independent cohorts and found supratentorial RELA fusion (ST-RELA) tumors to have significantly higher levels. There was a correlation between high gene expression and protein PD-L1 levels in ST-RELA tumors by both the western blot and immunohistochemisty. The investigation of EPN cell populations revealed PD-L1 was expressed on both tumor and myeloid cells in ST-RELA. Other subtypes had little PD-L1 in either tumor or myeloid cell compartments. Lastly, we measured PD-1 levels on tumor-infiltrating T cells and found ST-RELA tumors express PD-1 in both CD4 and CD8 T cells. A functional T-cell exhaustion assay found ST-RELA T cells to be exhausted and unable to secrete IFNγ on stimulation. These findings in ST-RELA suggest tumor evasion and immunsuppression due to PD-L1/PD-1-mediated T-cell exhaustion. Trials of checkpoint inhibitors in EPN should be enriched for ST-RELA tumors. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Effects of repeated deep brain stimulation on depressive- and anxiety-like behavior in rats: comparing entopeduncular and subthalamic nuclei.

PubMed

Creed, Meaghan C; Hamani, Clement; Nobrega, José N

2013-07-01

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) or internal globus pallidus (GPi) has been routinely used for the treatment of some movement disorders. However, DBS may be associated with adverse psychiatric effects, such as depression, anxiety and impulsivity. To compare DBS applied to the entopeduncular nucleus (EPN; the rodent homolog of the GPi) and STN in terms of their effects on depressive- and anxiety-like behavior in rats. DBS was applied for 21 days (4 h a day) to either the STN or EPN. Rats then underwent behavioral testing on learned helplessness and elevated plus maze tasks before being sacrificed for brain analyses of zif268, BDNF and trkB mRNA as well as BDNF protein levels. Repeated DBS of the STN, but not of the EPN, led to impaired performance in the learned helplessness task, suggesting that STN-DBS induces or potentiates depressive-like behavior. There was no effect of DBS on elevated plus maze or on open field behavior. Repeated STN-DBS, but not EPN-DBS, led to decreased levels of BDNF and trkB mRNA in hippocampus. Acute stimulation of the STN or EPN resulted in similar changes in zif268 levels in several brain areas, except for the raphe where decreases were seen only after STB-DBS. Together these results indicate that the effects of STN- and EPN-DBS differ in behavioral and neurochemical respects. Results further suggest that the EPN may be a preferable target for clinical DBS when psychiatric side effects are considered insofar as it may be associated with a lower incidence of depressive-like behavior than the STN. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Perspectives on the behavior of entomopathogenic nematodes from dispersal to reproduction: traits contributing to nematode fitness and biocontrol efficacy.

PubMed

Griffin, Christine T

2012-06-01

The entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) Heterorhabditis and Steinernema are widely used for the biological control of insect pests and are gaining importance as model organisms for studying parasitism and symbiosis. In this paper recent advances in the understanding of EPN behavior are reviewed. The "foraging strategy" paradigm (distinction between species with ambush and cruise strategies) as applied to EPN is being challenged and alternative paradigms proposed. Infection decisions are based on condition of the potential host, and it is becoming clear that already-infected and even long-dead hosts may be invaded, as well as healthy live hosts. The state of the infective juvenile (IJ) also influences infection, and evidence for a phased increase in infectivity of EPN species is mounting. The possibility of social behavior - adaptive interactions between IJs outside the host - is discussed. EPNs' symbiotic bacteria (Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus) are important for killing the host and rendering it suitable for nematode reproduction, but may reduce survival of IJs, resulting in a trade-off between survival and reproduction. The symbiont also contributes to defence of the cadaver by affecting food-choice decisions of insect and avian scavengers. I review EPN reproductive behavior (including sperm competition, copulation and evidence for attractive and organizational effects of pheromones), and consider the role of endotokia matricida as parental behavior exploited by the symbiont for transmission.

Spatial relationships between entomopathogenic nematodes and nematophagous fungi in Florida citrus orchards.

PubMed

Pathak, Ekta; Campos-Herrera, Raquel; El-Borai, Fahiem E; Duncan, Larry W

2017-03-01

Relationships between entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs), nematophagous fungi (NF) and soil physical and chemical properties were studied in a survey of 53 citrus orchards in central ridge and flatwoods ecoregions of Florida. Seven species of NF associated with nematodes were quantified directly using a real time qPCR assay. All nematophagous fungi studied except Arthrobotrys musiformis and Hirsutella rhossiliensis were frequently detected (24-56%) in both regions. Paecilomyces lilacinus and Gamsylella gephyropagumwere encountered more frequently in the flatwoods (P=0.03) and on the ridge (P=0.02), respectively. Redundancy analysis revealed seven abiotic and biotic factors as significantly related to the NF occurrence. Multiple regression of fungi on these variables explained 78%, 66%, 48%, 36%, 23% and 4% of the variation in Catenaria sp., A. musiformis, A. dactyloides, P. lilacinus, A. oligospora and G. gepharopagum, respectively. When the data from citrus were pooled with those reported previously from natural areas and subjected to principle component analysis, the first two principle components explained 43% of the variation in NF communities. The surveys (citrus vs natural areas) were discriminated by PC2 (P<0.001) and the ecoregion by PC1 (P<0.002), and all but one NF species were related (P<0.01) to one or both components. NF communities tended to have more species and greater diversity in the flatwoods, where EPN richness and diversity were the least. However, the strength of associations between individual EPN and NF species as measured by SADIE reflected the associations between each species and ground water depth, suggesting that ecoregion preferences affected the species associations. Within each ecoregion, significant relationships between the individual NF and EPN species measured by stepwise regression tended to be positive. The results did not support the hypothesis that NF modulate the spatial patterns of EPN species between or within these two ecoregions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Epidemic Percolation Networks, Epidemic Outcomes, and Interventions

DOE PAGES

Kenah, Eben; Miller, Joel C.

2011-01-01

Epidemic percolation networks (EPNs) are directed random networks that can be used to analyze stochastic “Susceptible-Infectious-Removed” (SIR) and “Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed” (SEIR) epidemic models, unifying and generalizing previous uses of networks and branching processes to analyze mass-action and network-based S(E)IR models. This paper explains the fundamental concepts underlying the definition and use of EPNs, using them to build intuition about the final outcomes of epidemics. We then show how EPNs provide a novel and useful perspective on the design of vaccination strategies.

Epidemic Percolation Networks, Epidemic Outcomes, and Interventions

PubMed Central

Kenah, Eben; Miller, Joel C.

2011-01-01

Epidemic percolation networks (EPNs) are directed random networks that can be used to analyze stochastic “Susceptible-Infectious-Removed” (SIR) and “Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Removed” (SEIR) epidemic models, unifying and generalizing previous uses of networks and branching processes to analyze mass-action and network-based S(E)IR models. This paper explains the fundamental concepts underlying the definition and use of EPNs, using them to build intuition about the final outcomes of epidemics. We then show how EPNs provide a novel and useful perspective on the design of vaccination strategies. PMID:21437002

Entomopathogenic nematodes in the European biocontrol market.

PubMed

Ehlers, R U

2003-01-01

In Europe total revenues in the biocontrol market have reached approximately 200 million Euros. The sector with the highest turn-over is the market for beneficial invertebrates with a 55% share, followed by microbial agents with approximately 25%. Annual growth rates of up to 20% have been estimated. Besides microbial plant protection products that are currently in the process of re-registration, several microbial products have been registered or are in the process of registration, following the EU directive 91/414. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) are exceptionally safe biocontrol agents. Until today, they are exempted from registration in most European countries, the reason why SMEs were able to offer economically reasonable nematode-based products. The development of technology for mass production in liquid media significantly reduced the product costs and accelerated the introduction of nematode products in tree nurseries, ornamentals, strawberries, mushrooms, citrus and turf. Progress in storage and formulation technology has resulted in high quality products which are more resistant to environmental extremes occurring during transportation to the user. The cooperation between science, industry and extension within the EU COST Action 819 has supported the development of quality control methods. Today four companies produce EPN in liquid culture, offering 8 different nematode species. Problems with soil insects are increasing. Grubs, like Melolontha melolontha and other scarabaeidae cause damage in orchards and turf. Since the introduction of the Western Corn Rootworm Diabrotica virgifera into Serbia in 1992, this pests as spread all over the Balkan Region and has reached Italy, France and Austria. These soil insect pests are potential targets for EPN. The development of insecticide resistance has opened another sector for EPN. Novel adjuvants used to improve formulation of EPN have enabled the foliar application against Western Flower Thrips and Plutella xylostella. To reach these markets, the product costs for EPN will have to further decrease in the future. One possibility to reduce application costs related with the use of EPN is the inoculative application to cause long term effects on pest populations.

Cognitive reappraisal of snake and spider pictures: An event-related potentials study.

PubMed

Langeslag, Sandra J E; van Strien, Jan W

2018-05-30

Fear of snakes and spiders are common animal phobias. Emotion regulation can change the response to emotional stimuli, including snakes and spiders. It is well known that emotion regulation modulates the late positive potential (LPP), which reflects sustained motivated attention. However, research concerning the effect of emotion regulation on the early posterior negativity (EPN), which reflects early selective attention, is scarce. The present research question was whether the EPN and LPP amplitudes are modulated by regulation of emotional responses to snake and spider stimuli. Emotion up- and down-regulation were expected to enhance and reduce the LPP amplitude, respectively, but emotion regulation was not expected to modulate the EPN amplitude. Female participants passively viewed snake, spider, and bird pictures, and up- and down-regulated their emotional responses to the snake and spider pictures using self-focused reappraisal, while their electroencephalogram was recorded. There were EPNs for snakes and spiders vs. birds, as well as for snakes vs. spiders. The LPP amplitude tended to be enhanced for snakes and spiders compared to birds. Most importantly, the LPP amplitude was larger in the up-regulate than in the down-regulate condition for both snakes and spiders, but there was no evidence that the EPN amplitude was modulated by emotion regulation. This suggests that emotion regulation modulated sustained motivated attention, but not early selective attention, to snakes and spiders. The findings are in line with the notion that the emotional modulation of the EPN is more automatic than the emotional modulation of the LPP. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Temperature-dependent changes in the host-seeking behaviors of parasitic nematodes.

PubMed

Lee, Joon Ha; Dillman, Adler R; Hallem, Elissa A

2016-05-06

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are lethal parasites of insects that are of interest as biocontrol agents for insect pests and disease vectors. Although EPNs have been successfully commercialized for pest control, their efficacy in the field is often inconsistent for reasons that remain elusive. EPN infective juveniles (IJs) actively search for hosts to infect using a diverse array of host-emitted odorants. Here we investigate whether their host-seeking behavior is subject to context-dependent modulation. We find that EPN IJs exhibit extreme plasticity of olfactory behavior as a function of cultivation temperature. Many odorants that are attractive for IJs grown at lower temperatures are repulsive for IJs grown at higher temperatures and vice versa. Temperature-induced changes in olfactory preferences occur gradually over the course of days to weeks and are reversible. Similar changes in olfactory behavior occur in some EPNs as a function of IJ age. EPNs also show temperature-dependent changes in their host-seeking strategy: IJs cultured at lower temperatures appear to more actively cruise for hosts than IJs cultured at higher temperatures. Furthermore, we find that the skin-penetrating rat parasite Strongyloides ratti also shows temperature-dependent changes in olfactory behavior, demonstrating that such changes occur in mammalian-parasitic nematodes. IJs are developmentally arrested and long-lived, often surviving in the environment through multiple seasonal temperature changes. Temperature-dependent modulation of behavior may enable IJs to optimize host seeking in response to changing environmental conditions, and may play a previously unrecognized role in shaping the interactions of both beneficial and harmful parasitic nematodes with their hosts.

Designed Proteins Induce the Formation of Nanocage-containing Extracellular Vesicles

PubMed Central

Votteler, Jörg; Ogohara, Cassandra; Yi, Sue; Hsia, Yang; Nattermann, Una; Belnap, David M.; King, Neil P.; Sundquist, Wesley I.

2017-01-01

Complex biological processes are often performed by self-organizing nanostructures comprising multiple classes of macromolecules, such as ribosomes (proteins and RNA) or enveloped viruses (proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids). Approaches have been developed for designing self-assembling structures consisting of either nucleic acids1,2 or proteins3–5, but strategies for engineering hybrid biological materials are only beginning to emerge6,7. Here, we describe the design of self-assembling protein nanocages that direct their own release from human cells inside small vesicles in a manner that resembles some viruses. We refer to these hybrid biomaterials as Enveloped Protein Nanocages (EPNs). Robust EPN biogenesis required protein sequence elements that encode three distinct functions: membrane binding, self-assembly, and recruitment of the Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport (ESCRT) machinery8. A variety of synthetic proteins with these functional elements induced EPN biogenesis, highlighting the modularity and generality of the design strategy. Biochemical and electron cryomicroscopic (cryo-EM) analyses revealed that one design, EPN-01, comprised small (~100 nm) vesicles containing multiple protein nanocages that closely matched the structure of the designed 60-subunit self-assembling scaffold9. EPNs that incorporated the vesicular stomatitis viral glycoprotein (VSV-G) could fuse with target cells and deliver their contents, thereby transferring cargoes from one cell to another. These studies show how proteins can be programmed to direct the formation of hybrid biological materials that perform complex tasks, and establish EPNs as a novel class of designed, modular, genetically-encoded nanomaterials that can transfer molecules between cells. PMID:27919066

Spinal cord ependymomas and myxopapillary ependymomas in the first 2 decades of life: a clinicopathological and immunohistochemical characterization of 19 cases.

PubMed

Stephen, James H; Sievert, Angela J; Madsen, Peter J; Judkins, Alexander R; Resnick, Adam C; Storm, Phillip B; Rushing, Elisabeth J; Santi, Mariarita

2012-06-01

Primary spinal cord ependymomas (EPNs) are rare in children, comprising classical WHO Grade II and III tumors and Grade I myxopapillary ependymomas (MEPNs). Despite their benign histology, recurrences and neural-axis dissemination have been reported in up to 33% MEPNs in the pediatric population. Treatment options beyond resection are limited, and little is known about their tumorigenesis. The purpose of this study was to explore the tumor biology and outcomes in a consecutive series of pediatric patients treated at a single institution. The authors performed a retrospective clinicopathological review of 19 patients at a tertiary referral children's hospital for resection of a spinal cord ependymoma. The population included 8 patients with a pathological diagnosis of MEPN and 11 patients with a pathological diagnosis of spinal EPN (10 cases were Grade II and 1 case was Grade III). The upregulation of the following genes HOXB13, NEFL, PDGFRα, EGFR, EPHB3, AQP1, and JAGGED 1 was studied by immunohistochemistry from archived paraffin-embedded tumor samples of the entire cohort to compare the expression in MEPN versus EPN. Gross-total resection was achieved in 75% of patients presenting with MEPNs and in 100% of those with EPNs. The average follow-up period was 79 months for the MEPN subset and 53 months for Grade II/III EPNs. Overall survival for both subsets was 100%. However, event-free survival was only 50% for patients with MEPNs. Of note, in all cases involving MEPNs that recurred, the patients had undergone gross-total resection on initial surgery. In contrast, there were no tumor recurrences in patients with EPNs. Immunohistochemistry revealed no significant differences in protein expression between the two tumor types with the exception of EPHB3, which demonstrates a tendency to be positive in MEPNs (6 reactive tumors of 9) rather than in EPN (2 reactive tumors of 10). The authors' experience shows that, following a gross-total resection, MEPNs are more likely to recur than their higher-grade counterpart, EPNs. This supports the recommendation for close long-term radiological follow-up of pediatric patients with MEPNs to monitor for recurrence, despite the tumor's low-grade histological feature. No significant difference in the protein expression of HOXB13, NEFL, PDGFRα, EGFR, EPHB3, AQP1, and JAGGED 1 was present in this selected cohort of pediatric patients.

Ethyl p-nitrophenyl phenylphosphorothioate (EPN)

Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)

Ethyl p - nitrophenyl phenylphosphorothioate ( EPN ) ; CASRN 2104 - 64 - 5 Human health assessment information on a chemical substance is included in the IRIS database only after a comprehensive review of toxicity data , as outlined in the IRIS assessment development process . Sections I ( Health Ha

Dynamics of a Subterranean Trophic Cascade in Space and Time

PubMed Central

Ram, Karthik; Gruner, Daniel S.; McLaughlin, John P.; Preisser, Evan L.; Strong, Donald R.

2008-01-01

Trophic cascades, whereby predators indirectly benefit plant biomass by reducing herbivore pressure, form the mechanistic basis for classical biological control of pest insects. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) are lethal to a variety of insect hosts with soil-dwelling stages, making them promising biocontrol agents. EPN biological control programs, however, typically fail because nematodes do not establish, persist and/or recycle over multiple host generations in the field. A variety of factors such as local abiotic conditions, host quantity and quality, and rates of movement affect the probability of persistence. Here, we review results from 13 years of study on the biology and ecology of an endemic population of Heterorhabditis marelatus (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae) in a California coastal prairie. In a highly seasonal abiotic environment with intrinsic variation in soils, vegetation structure, and host availability, natural populations of H. marelatus persisted at high incidence at some but not all sites within our study area. Through a set of field and lab experiments, we describe mechanisms and hypotheses to understand the persistence of H. marelatus. We suggest that further ecological study of naturally occurring EPN populations can yield significant insight to improve the practice and management of biological control of soil-dwelling insect pests. PMID:19259524

Spray Nozzles, Pressures, Additives and Stirring Time on Viability and Pathogenicity of Entomopathogenic Nematodes (Nematoda: Rhabditida) for Greenhouses

PubMed Central

Moreira, Grazielle Furtado; Batista, Elder Simões de Paula; Campos, Henrique Borges Neves; Lemos, Raphael Emilio; Ferreira, Marcelo da Costa

2013-01-01

The objective of this study was to evaluate different strategies for the application of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN). Three different models of spray nozzles with air induction (AI 11003, TTI 11003 and AD-IA 11004), three spray pressures (207, 413 and 720 kPa), four different additives for tank mixtures (cane molasses, mineral oil, vegetable oil and glycerin) and the influence of tank mixture stirring time were all evaluated for their effect on EPN (Steinernema feltiae) viability and pathogenicity. The different nozzles, at pressures of up to 620 kPa, were found to be compatible with S. feltiae. Vegetable oil, mineral oil and molasses were found to be compatible adjuvants for S. feltiae, and stirring in a motorized backpack sprayer for 30 minutes did not impact the viability or pathogenicity of this nematode. Appropriate techniques for the application of nematodes with backpack sprayers are discussed. PMID:23755280

Spray nozzles, pressures, additives and stirring time on viability and pathogenicity of entomopathogenic nematodes (nematoda: rhabditida) for greenhouses.

PubMed

Moreira, Grazielle Furtado; Batista, Elder Simões de Paula; Campos, Henrique Borges Neves; Lemos, Raphael Emilio; Ferreira, Marcelo da Costa

2013-01-01

The objective of this study was to evaluate different strategies for the application of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN). Three different models of spray nozzles with air induction (AI 11003, TTI 11003 and AD-IA 11004), three spray pressures (207, 413 and 720 kPa), four different additives for tank mixtures (cane molasses, mineral oil, vegetable oil and glycerin) and the influence of tank mixture stirring time were all evaluated for their effect on EPN (Steinernema feltiae) viability and pathogenicity. The different nozzles, at pressures of up to 620 kPa, were found to be compatible with S. feltiae. Vegetable oil, mineral oil and molasses were found to be compatible adjuvants for S. feltiae, and stirring in a motorized backpack sprayer for 30 minutes did not impact the viability or pathogenicity of this nematode. Appropriate techniques for the application of nematodes with backpack sprayers are discussed.

Wide interguild relationships among entomopathogenic and free-living nematodes in soil as measured by real time qPCR.

PubMed

Campos-Herrera, Raquel; El-Borai, Fahiem E; Duncan, Larry W

2012-10-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are promising biological control agents of soil-dwelling insect pests of many crops. These nematodes are ubiquitous in both natural and agricultural areas. Their efficacy against arthropods is affected directly and indirectly by food webs and edaphic conditions. It has long been suggested that a greater understanding of EPN ecology is needed to achieve consistent biological control by these nematodes and the development of molecular tools is helping to overcome obstacles to the study of cryptic organisms and complex interactions. Here we extend the repertoire of molecular tools to characterize soil food webs by describing primers/probe set to quantify certain free-living, bactivorous nematodes (FLBNs) that interact with EPNs in soil. Three FLBN isolates were recovered from soil baited with insect larvae. Morphological and molecular characterization confirmed their identities as Acrobeloides maximum (RT-1-R15C and RT-2-R25A) and Rhabditis rainai (PT-R14B). Laboratory experiments demonstrated the ability of these FLBNs to interfere with the development of Steinernema diaprepesi, Steinernema riobrave and Heterorhabditis indica parasitizing the weevil Diaprepes abbreviatus (P<0.001), perhaps due to resource competition. A molecular probe was developed for the strongest competitor, A. maximum. We selected the highly conserved SSU rDNA sequence to design the primers/probe, because these sequences are more abundantly available for free-living nematodes than ITS sequences that can likely provide better taxonomic resolution. Our molecular probe can identify organisms that share ⩾98% similarity at this locus. The use of this molecular probe to characterize soil communities from samples of nematode DNA collected within a citrus orchard revealed positive correlations (P<0.01) between Acrobeloides-group nematodes and total numbers of EPNs (S. diaprepesi, H. indica and Heterorhabditis zealandica) as well as a complex of nematophagous fungi comprising Catenaria sp. and Monachrosporium gephyropagum that are natural enemies of EPNs. These relationships can be broadly interpreted as supporting Linford's hypothesis, i.e., decomposition of organic matter (here, insect cadavers) greatly increases bactivorous nematodes and their natural enemies. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comparison of GPS tropospheric delays derived from two consecutive EPN reprocessing campaigns from the point of view of climate monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baldysz, Zofia; Nykiel, Grzegorz; Araszkiewicz, Andrzej; Figurski, Mariusz; Szafranek, Karolina

2016-09-01

The main purpose of this research was to acquire information about consistency of ZTD (zenith total delay) linear trends and seasonal components between two consecutive GPS reprocessing campaigns. The analysis concerned two sets of the ZTD time series which were estimated during EUREF (Reference Frame Sub-Commission for Europe) EPN (Permanent Network) reprocessing campaigns according to 2008 and 2015 MUT AC (Military University of Technology Analysis Centre) scenarios. Firstly, Lomb-Scargle periodograms were generated for 57 EPN stations to obtain a characterisation of oscillations occurring in the ZTD time series. Then, the values of seasonal components and linear trends were estimated using the LSE (least squares estimation) approach. The Mann-Kendall trend test was also carried out to verify the presence of linear long-term ZTD changes. Finally, differences in seasonal signals and linear trends between these two data sets were investigated. All these analyses were conducted for the ZTD time series of two lengths: a shortened 16-year series and a full 18-year one. In the case of spectral analysis, amplitudes of the annual and semi-annual periods were almost exactly the same for both reprocessing campaigns. Exceptions were found for only a few stations and they did not exceed 1 mm. The estimated trends were also similar. However, for the reprocessing performed in 2008, the trends values were usually higher. In general, shortening of the analysed time period by 2 years resulted in a decrease of the linear trends values of about 0.07 mm yr-1. This was confirmed by analyses based on two data sets.

Biodiversity of entomopathogenic nematodes in Italy.

PubMed

Tarasco, E; Clausi, M; Rappazzo, G; Panzavolta, T; Curto, G; Sorino, R; Oreste, M; Longo, A; Leone, D; Tiberi, R; Vinciguerra, M T; Triggiani, O

2015-05-01

An investigation was carried out on the distribution and biodiversity of steinernematid and heterorhabdtid entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) in nine regions of Italy in the period 1990-2010. More than 2000 samples were collected from 580 localities and 133 of them yielded EPN specimens. A mapping of EPN distribution in Italy showed 133 indigenous EPN strains belonging to 12 species: 43 isolates of Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, 1 of H. downesi, 1 of H. megidis, 51 of Steinernema feltiae, 12 of S. affine, 4 of S. kraussei, 8 of S. apuliae, 5 of S. ichnusae, 3 of S. carpocapsae, 1 of S. vulcanicum, 3 of Steinernema 'isolate S.sp.MY7' of 'S. intermedium group' and 1 of S. arenarium. Steinernematids are more widespread than heterorhabditids and S. feltiae and H. bacteriophora are the most commonly encountered species. Sampling sites were grouped into 11 habitats: uncultivated land, orchard, field, sea coast, pinewood, broadleaf wood, grasslands, river and lake borders, caves, salt pan and moist zones; the soil texture of each site was defined and the preferences of habitat and soil texture of each species was assessed. Except for the two dominant species, S. feltiae and H. bacteriophora, EPN occurrence tends to be correlated with a specific vegetation habitat. Steinernema kraussei, H. downesi and H. megidis were collected only in Sicily and three of the species recently described - S. apuliae, S. ichnusae and S. vulcanicum - are known only from Italy and seem to be endemic.

Effect of solar radio bursts on GNSS signal reception over Europe for the period 1999-2013

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chevalier, Jean-Marie; Bergeot, Nicolas; Marqué, Christophe; Aerts, Wim; Bruyninx, Carine

2015-04-01

Intense solar radio bursts (SRB) emitted at L-band frequencies can affect the carrier-to-noise C/N0 ratio of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals by increasing the background noise. Such space weather events can consequently decrease the quality of GNSS-based results especially for kinematic high-precision positioning. It is thus important to develop a method capable to detect such events in near real time on a wide area. For this purpose, the ROB-IONO software was adapted for analysing the effect of SRB on the dense EUREF Permanent GNSS Network (EPN). First, S1 and S2 raw data extracted from RINEX files were converted into the C/N0 unit (dB.Hz) taking into account manufacturer corrections. Then, the differences (ΔC/N0) between all these C/N0observables and their medians of the 7 previous satellite ground track repeat cycles, i.e. their normal quiet state, were computed. The mean of all these well-calibrated ΔC/N0values from different GNSS receivers and satellites offer at each epoch a reliable metric to detect and quantify the impact of a SRB. We investigated the degradation of GPS and GLONASS C/N0 on the entire EPN during 10 intense SRBs occurring at daylight over Europe between 1999 and 2013. The analysis shows that: (1) GPS and GLONASS ΔC/N0 agree at the 0.1±0.2dB.Hz level; (2) The standard deviation of the mean ΔC/N0of the EPN GNSS receivers is below 1dB.Hz 96% of the time, and below 0.6dB.Hz 76% of the time; (3) maximum ΔC/N0 degradation occurs at the epoch of maximum solar peak flux delivered by the solar ground observatories; (4) C/N0 degradation becomes larger with increasing solar zenithal angle. Consequently, the ROB-IONO software is capable to detect the degradation of GNSS signal reception over Europe due to SRBs. In addition, by taking advantage of the increasing number of EPN stations delivering C/N0 data since 2005, even less intense SRB events can now be detected. Finally, the developed method can be completely applied in near real time.

A weevil sex pheromone serves as an attractant for its entomopathogenic nematode predators

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Diaprepes abbreviatus is an invasive pest of citrus in the United States originating from the Caribbean. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are used as biological control agents in the citrus agroecosystems against D. abbreviatus. EPNs respond to herbivore-induced volatiles from citrus roots to assis...

Effect of inoculum age and physical parameters on in vitro culture of the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema feltiae

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) of the families Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae have a symbiotic association with bacteria which makes them virulent against insects. EPNs have been mass produced using in vivo and in vitro methods including both solid and liquid fermentation. This study asse...

Simultaneous perineal ultrasound and vaginal pressure measurement prove the action of electrical pudendal nerve stimulation in treating female stress incontinence.

PubMed

Wang, Siyou; Zhang, Shujing

2012-11-01

Study Type - Diagnostic (case series) Level of Evidence 4. What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) and transvaginal electrical stimulation (TES) are two commonly used forms of conservative treatment for stress urinary incontinence (SUI). PFMT may build up the structural support of the pelvis, but many SUI patients are unable to perform PFMT effectively and its primary disadvantage is lack of long-term patient compliance. TES is a passive treatment that produces PFM contraction and patient compliance with it is good; however, its effect is not as good as that of PFMT when performed correctly. Electrical pudendal nerve stimulation (EPNS) combines the advantages of PFMT and TES and incorporates the technique of deep insertion of long needles. In this study, simultaneous perineal ultrasound and vaginal pressure measurement prove that EPNS can contract the PFM and simulate PFMT. It is shown that EPNS is an alternative therapy for female SUI patients who fail PFMT and TES and the therapy can also be used for severe SUI. • To prove that electrical pudendal nerve stimulation (EPNS) can contract the pelvic floor muscles (PFM) and simulate pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT). • To show that EPNS is an alternative therapy for female stress urinary incontinence (SUI) that does not respond effectively to PFMT and transvaginal electrical stimulation (TES). • Thirty-five female patients with SUI who did not respond effectively to PFMT and TES (group I) were enrolled and 60 other female patients with SUI were allocated to group II (30 patients) and group III (30 patients). • Long needles were deeply inserted into four sacral points and electrified to stimulate the pudendal nerves. Group I and group II were treated by a doctor skilled in performing EPNS and group III, by a doctor unskilled in performing EPNS. • When EPNS was performed in group I, perineal ultrasonographic PFM movements, vaginal pressure (VP) and PFM electromyography were recorded simultaneously. • The therapeutic effects were evaluated according to objective and subjective criteria • When EPNS was performed correctly, the patient felt strong PFM contractions. Simultaneous recordings in group I showed: B-mode cranio-caudal PFM movements; M-mode PFM movement curves (amplitude: about 1 mm, n= 31); a sawtooth curve of VP changes (2.61 ± 1.29 cmH(2) O, n= 34); and PFM myoelectric waves (amplitude: 23.9 ± 25.3 µV). • If during the EPNS process the electric current was stopped or its intensity was reduced to about 7-12 mA or the two lower needles were drawn back, then the above ultrasonographic PFM movements and VP changes disappeared. • In group I, the incontinence severity and quality of life score was 16.5 ± 4.0 before treatment and decreased to 4.2 ± 4.0 after 27.5 ± 11.9 sessions of treatment (P < 0.01). At the end of treatment, 100% improvement occurred in 16 cases (45.7%). A 2-year follow-up showed that 100% improvement occurred in 14 of cases (40.0%). • In group II, the incontinence severity and quality of life score was 17.1 ± 6.3 before treatment and decreased to 3.5 ± 3.7 after 10 sessions of treatment (P < 0.01) and 100% improvement occurred in 12 cases (40.0%). In group III, the incontinence severity and quality of life score was 17.6 ± 6.3 before treatment and decreased to 10.8 ± 8.2 after 10 sessions of treatment (P < 0.01) and 100% improvement occurred in one case (3.3%). • The post-treatment score was lower and the therapeutic effect was better in group II than in group III (both P < 0.01). • EPNS can contract the PFM and simulate PFMT. • EPNS is an alternative therapy for female SUI patients who fail PFMT and TES. © 2012 BJU INTERNATIONAL.

Gender Difference in Event Related Potentials to Masked Emotional Stimuli in the Oddball Task

PubMed Central

Kim, Eun Young; Park, Gewnhi; Kim, Sangrae; Kim, Imyel; Chae, Jeong-Ho; Kim, Hyun Taek

2013-01-01

Objective We investigated gender differences in event-related potential (ERP) responses to subliminally presented threat-related stimuli. Methods Twenty-four participants were presented with threat-related and neutral pictures for a very brief period of time (17 ms). To explore gender differences in ERP responses to subliminally presented stimuli, we examined six ERP components [P1, N170, N250, P300, Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) and Late Positive Potential (LPP)]. Results The result revealed that only female participants showed significant increases in the N170 and the EPN in response to subliminally presented threat-related stimuli compared to neutral stimuli. Conclusion Our results suggest that female participants exhibit greater cortical processing of subliminally presented threat-related stimuli than male participants. PMID:23798965

Cloning and sequencing the genes encoding goldfish and carp ependymin.

PubMed

Adams, D S; Shashoua, V E

1994-04-20

Ependymins (EPNs) are brain glycoproteins thought to function in optic nerve regeneration and long-term memory consolidation. To date, epn genes have been characterized in two orders of teleost fish. In this study, polymerase chain reactions (PCR) were used to amplify the complete 1.6-kb epn genes, gf-I and cc-I, from genomic DNA of Cypriniformes, goldfish and carp, respectively. Amplified bands were cloned and sequenced. Each gene consists of six exons and five introns. The exon portion of gf-I encodes a predicted 215-amino-acid (aa) protein previously characterized as GF-I, while cc-I encodes a predicted 215-aa protein 95% homologous to GF-I.

Optogenetic Activation of the Sensorimotor Cortex Reveals "Local Inhibitory and Global Excitatory" Inputs to the Basal Ganglia.

PubMed

Ozaki, Mitsunori; Sano, Hiromi; Sato, Shigeki; Ogura, Mitsuhiro; Mushiake, Hajime; Chiken, Satomi; Nakao, Naoyuki; Nambu, Atsushi

2017-12-01

To understand how information from different cortical areas is integrated and processed through the cortico-basal ganglia pathways, we used optogenetics to systematically stimulate the sensorimotor cortex and examined basal ganglia activity. We utilized Thy1-ChR2-YFP transgenic mice, in which channelrhodopsin 2 is robustly expressed in layer V pyramidal neurons. We applied light spots to the sensorimotor cortex in a grid pattern and examined neuronal responses in the globus pallidus (GP) and entopeduncular nucleus (EPN), which are the relay and output nuclei of the basal ganglia, respectively. Light stimulation typically induced a triphasic response composed of early excitation, inhibition, and late excitation in GP/EPN neurons. Other response patterns lacking 1 or 2 of the components were also observed. The distribution of the cortical sites whose stimulation induced a triphasic response was confined, whereas stimulation of the large surrounding areas induced early and late excitation without inhibition. Our results suggest that cortical inputs to the GP/EPN are organized in a "local inhibitory and global excitatory" manner. Such organization seems to be the neuronal basis for information processing through the cortico-basal ganglia pathways, that is, releasing and terminating necessary information at an appropriate timing, while simultaneously suppressing other unnecessary information. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Emotional event-related potentials are reduced if negative pictures presented at fixation are unattended.

PubMed

Wiens, Stefan; Sand, Anders; Norberg, Joakim; Andersson, Per

2011-05-20

Viewing of emotional pictures elicits two event-related potentials (ERPs) to emotional versus neutral pictures: an early posterior negativity (EPN) and a late positive potential (LPP). Because it is unresolved whether these indexes of emotional processing are reduced to task-irrelevant pictures at fixation, negative and neutral pictures from the International Affective Picture Set (IAPS) were shown at fixation together with 6 letters that surrounded the pictures. In separate tasks, participants were instructed to attend either the pictures or the letters. When the pictures were task relevant, results showed an EPN and LPP. In contrast, when the pictures were task irrelevant, the EPN was eliminated and the LPP reduced. Performance was high in both tasks (hit rates>87%), but somewhat better when the pictures were relevant. However, analyses showed no relationship between this performance difference and the differences in EPN and LPP between tasks. These results suggest that emotional processing of strong, negative pictures is sensitive to manipulations of attention even if the pictures are shown at fixation. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Characterization of the aggregation responses of camel platelets.

PubMed

Al Ghumlas, Abeer K; Gader, Abdel Galil M Abdel

2013-09-01

Despite evidence of active hemostasis, camel platelets barely respond to common aggregating agents at standard doses used for human platelet aggregation. The purpose of the study was to find out whether camel platelets can be activated by high doses or combinations of aggregation agonists, and to characterize the receptor that mediates the aggregation response to adenosine diphosphate (ADP), the most potent agonist for camel platelets known so far. Aggregation studies were performed with platelet-rich plasma (PRP) in response to multiple doses or combinations of ADP, epinephrine (EPN), collagen, and arachidonic acid (AA). Aggregation responses to ADP were performed before and after the addition of the ADP receptor (P2Y12) antagonist Clopidogrel. Camel platelets responded to ADP at doses higher than the standard dose for human platelets, and to combinations of EPN and other agonists, while no aggregation was elicited with EPN or AA alone. Clopidogrel blocked the ADP-induced aggregation responses in a dose-dependent fashion in vitro. Camel platelet aggregation can be activated by increasing the dose of some agonists such as ADP, but not AA or EPN. Irreversible aggregation of camel platelets could also be triggered by a combination of EPN and ADP, and collagen and AA. Inhibition with clopidogrel suggests that camel platelets express the ADP receptor, P2Y12. Understanding platelet function in camels will add to the understanding of platelet function in health and disease. © 2013 American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology.

Identification of entomopathogenic nematodes and symbiotic bacteria from Nam Nao National Park in Thailand and larvicidal activity of symbiotic bacteria against Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus

PubMed Central

Yooyangket, Temsiri; Muangpat, Paramaporn; Polseela, Raxsina; Tandhavanant, Sarunporn; Thanwisai, Aunchalee

2018-01-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) that are symbiotically associated with Xenorhabdus and Photorhabdus bacteria can kill target insects via direct infection and toxin action. There are limited reports identifying such organisms in the National Park of Thailand. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to identify EPNs and symbiotic bacteria from Nam Nao National Park, Phetchabun Province, Thailand and to evaluate the larvicidal activity of bacteria against Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus. A total of 12 EPN isolates belonging to Steinernema and Heterorhabditis were obtained form 940 soil samples between February 2014 and July 2016. EPNs were molecularly identified as S. websteri (10 isolates) and H. baujardi (2 isolates). Symbiotic bacteria were isolated from EPNs and molecularly identified as P. luminescens subsp. akhurstii (13 isolates), X. stockiae (11 isolates), X. vietnamensis (2 isolates) and X. japonica (1 isolate). For the bioassay, bacterial suspensions were evaluated for toxicity against third to early fourth instar larvae of Aedes spp. The larvae of both Aedes species were orally susceptible to symbiotic bacteria. The highest larval mortality of Ae. aegypti was 99% after exposure to X. stockiae (bNN112.3_TH) at 96 h, and the highest mortality of Ae. albopictus was 98% after exposure to P. luminescens subsp. akhurstii (bNN121.4_TH) at 96 h. In contrast to the control groups (Escherichia coli and distilled water), the mortality rate of both mosquito larvae ranged between 0 and 7% at 72 h. Here, we report the first observation of X. vietnamensis in Thailand. Additionally, we report the first observation of P. luminescens subsp. akhurstii associated with H. baujardi in Thailand. X. stockiae has potential to be a biocontrol agent for mosquitoes. This investigation provides a survey of the basic diversity of EPNs and symbiotic bacteria in the National Park of Thailand, and it is a bacterial resource for further studies of bioactive compounds. PMID:29641570

Identification of entomopathogenic nematodes and symbiotic bacteria from Nam Nao National Park in Thailand and larvicidal activity of symbiotic bacteria against Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus.

PubMed

Yooyangket, Temsiri; Muangpat, Paramaporn; Polseela, Raxsina; Tandhavanant, Sarunporn; Thanwisai, Aunchalee; Vitta, Apichat

2018-01-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) that are symbiotically associated with Xenorhabdus and Photorhabdus bacteria can kill target insects via direct infection and toxin action. There are limited reports identifying such organisms in the National Park of Thailand. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to identify EPNs and symbiotic bacteria from Nam Nao National Park, Phetchabun Province, Thailand and to evaluate the larvicidal activity of bacteria against Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus. A total of 12 EPN isolates belonging to Steinernema and Heterorhabditis were obtained form 940 soil samples between February 2014 and July 2016. EPNs were molecularly identified as S. websteri (10 isolates) and H. baujardi (2 isolates). Symbiotic bacteria were isolated from EPNs and molecularly identified as P. luminescens subsp. akhurstii (13 isolates), X. stockiae (11 isolates), X. vietnamensis (2 isolates) and X. japonica (1 isolate). For the bioassay, bacterial suspensions were evaluated for toxicity against third to early fourth instar larvae of Aedes spp. The larvae of both Aedes species were orally susceptible to symbiotic bacteria. The highest larval mortality of Ae. aegypti was 99% after exposure to X. stockiae (bNN112.3_TH) at 96 h, and the highest mortality of Ae. albopictus was 98% after exposure to P. luminescens subsp. akhurstii (bNN121.4_TH) at 96 h. In contrast to the control groups (Escherichia coli and distilled water), the mortality rate of both mosquito larvae ranged between 0 and 7% at 72 h. Here, we report the first observation of X. vietnamensis in Thailand. Additionally, we report the first observation of P. luminescens subsp. akhurstii associated with H. baujardi in Thailand. X. stockiae has potential to be a biocontrol agent for mosquitoes. This investigation provides a survey of the basic diversity of EPNs and symbiotic bacteria in the National Park of Thailand, and it is a bacterial resource for further studies of bioactive compounds.

Interactions between the entomopathogenic nematode Heterorhabditis sonorensis (Nematoda: Heterorhabditidae) and the saprobic fungus Fusarium oxysporum (Ascomycota: Hypocreales).

PubMed

Navarro, P D; McMullen, J G; Stock, S P

2014-01-01

In this study, we assessed the effect of the saprobic fungus, Fusarium oxysporum (Ascomycota: Hypocreales) on the fitness of the entomopathogenic nematode Heterorhabditis sonorensis (Caborca strain). Sand column assays were considered to evaluate the effect of fungal mycelia on infective juvenile (IJ) movement and host access. Additionally, we investigated the effect of fungal spores on the nematodes' ability to search for a host, its virulence, penetration efficiency and reproduction. Three application timings were considered to assess interactions between the fungus and the nematodes. In vitro assays were also considered to determine the effect of fungal extracts on the nematode's symbiotic bacteria. Our observations indicate that presence and age of fungal mycelia significantly affect IJ movement in the sand columns and their ability to establish in the host. These results were also reflected in a reduced insect mortality. In particular, treatments with the 15 days old mycelia showed a significant reduction in insect mortality and penetration efficiency. Presence of fungal spores also impacted nematode virulence and reproduction. In particular, two of the application timings tested (simultaneous [EPN and fungal spores applied at the same time] and alternate I [EPN applied first, fungus applied 24h later]) resulted in antagonistic interactions. Moreover, IJ progeny was reduced to half in the simultaneous application. In vitro assays revealed that fungal extracts at the highest concentration tested (10mg/ml) inhibited the growth of the symbiotic bacteria. Overall, these results suggest that saprobic fungi may play an important role in regulating. EPN populations in the soil, and that they may be one of the factors that impact nematode survival in the soil and their access to insect hosts. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Identification of antimicrobial compound, diketopiperazines, from a Bacillus sp. N strain associated with a rhabditid entomopathogenic nematode against major plant pathogenic fungi.

PubMed

Nishanth Kumar, S; Mohandas, C; Siji, J V; Rajasekharan, K N; Nambisan, Bala

2012-10-01

To purify and characterize antimicrobial compounds from Bacillus sp. strain N associated with rhabditid entomopathogenic nematode (EPN). The cell-free culture filtrate of a bacterium associated with an EPN, Rhabditis (Oscheius) sp., exhibited strong antimicrobial activity. The ethyl acetate extract of the bacterial culture filtrate was purified by silica gel column chromatography to obtain three diketopiperazines (DKPs). The structure and absolute stereochemistry of this compound were determined based on extensive spectroscopic analyses (FABMS, (1) H NMR, (13) C NMR, (1) H-(1) H COSY, (1) H-(13) C HMBC) and Marfey's method. The compounds were identified as cyclo(l-Pro-l-Leu), cyclo(d-Pro-l-Leu) and cyclo(d-Pro-l-Tyr), respectively. Three DKPs were active against all the five fungi tested (Aspergillus flavus, Candida albicans, Fusarium oxysporum, Rhizoctonia solani and Penicillium expansum) and are more effective than the standard fungicide bavistin. The highest activity of 4 μg ml(-1) by cyclo(l-Pro-l-Leu) and cyclo(d-Pro-l-Tyr) was recorded against P. expansum, a plant pathogen responsible for causing postharvest decay of stored apples and oranges. Cyclo(d-Pro-l-Leu) recorded good antibacterial activity against all the four bacteria tested (Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa), and cyclo(l-Pro-l-Leu) and cyclo(d-Pro-l-Tyr) recorded good activity only against Gram-positive bacteria. To our knowledge, this is the first report of antifungal activity of the DKPs against the plant pathogenic fungi F. oxysporum, R. solani and P. expansum. The production of cyclo(l-Pro-l-Leu), cyclo(d-Pro-l-Leu) and cyclo-(d-Pro-l-Tyr) by a bacterium associated with EPN is also reported here for the first time. Isolated DKPs demonstrated high antimicrobial activity against bacteria and fungi, especially against plant pathogenic fungi. We conclude that the bacterium associated with EPN is a promising source of natural bioactive secondary metabolites which may receive great benefit in the field of agriculture. This study is a significant contribution to the knowledge of compounds unique from EPN bacteria as potential sources of new drugs in the agricultural and pharmacological industry. © 2012 The Authors Journal of Applied Microbiology © 2012 The Society for Applied Microbiology.

Activated entomopathogenic nematode infective juveniles release lethal venom proteins

PubMed Central

Macchietto, Marissa; Baldwin, James; Mortazavi, Ali

2017-01-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are unique parasites due to their symbiosis with entomopathogenic bacteria and their ability to kill insect hosts quickly after infection. It is widely believed that EPNs rely on their bacterial partners for killing hosts. Here we disproved this theory by demonstrating that the in vitro activated infective juveniles (IJs) of Steinernema carpocapsae (a well-studied EPN species) release venom proteins that are lethal to several insects including Drosophila melanogaster. We confirmed that the in vitro activation is a good approximation of the in vivo process by comparing the transcriptomes of individual in vitro and in vivo activated IJs. We further analyzed the transcriptomes of non-activated and activated IJs and revealed a dramatic shift in gene expression during IJ activation. We also analyzed the venom proteome using mass spectrometry. Among the 472 venom proteins, proteases and protease inhibitors are especially abundant, and toxin-related proteins such as Shk domain-containing proteins and fatty acid- and retinol-binding proteins are also detected, which are potential candidates for suppressing the host immune system. Many of the venom proteins have conserved orthologs in vertebrate-parasitic nematodes and are differentially expressed during IJ activation, suggesting conserved functions in nematode parasitism. In summary, our findings strongly support a new model that S. carpocapsae and likely other Steinernema EPNs have a more active role in contributing to the pathogenicity of the nematode-bacterium complex than simply relying on their symbiotic bacteria. Furthermore, we propose that EPNs are a good model system for investigating vertebrate- and human-parasitic nematodes, especially regarding the function of excretory/secretory products. PMID:28426766

A survey of entomopathogenic nematode species in continental Portugal.

PubMed

Valadas, V; Laranjo, M; Mota, M; Oliveira, S

2014-09-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) are lethal parasites of insects, used as biocontrol agents. The objectives of this work were to survey the presence of EPN in continental Portugal and to characterize the different species. Of the 791 soil samples collected throughout continental Portugal, 53 were positive for EPN. Steinernema feltiae and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora were the two most abundant species. Analysis of EPN geographical distribution revealed an association between nematode species and vegetation type. Heterorhabditis bacteriophora was mostly found in the Alentejo region while S. feltiae was present in land occupied by agriculture with natural vegetation, broadleaved forest, mixed forest and transitional woodland-shrub, agro-forestry areas, complex cultivated patterns and non-irrigated arable land. Although no clear association was found between species and soil type, S. feltiae was typically recovered from cambisols and H. bacteriophora was more abundant in lithosols. Sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region indicated that S. feltiae was the most abundant species, followed by H. bacteriophora. Steinernema intermedium and S. kraussei were each isolated from one site and Steinernema sp. from two sites. Phylogenetic analyses of ITS, D2D3 expansion region of the 28S rRNA gene, as well as mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COXI) and cytochrome b (cytb) genes, was performed to evaluate the genetic diversity of S. feltiae and H. bacteriophora. No significant genetic diversity was found among H. bacteriophora isolates. However, COXI seems to be the best marker to study genetic diversity of S. feltiae. This survey contributes to the understanding of EPN distribution in Europe.

Activity changes of antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes in Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) larvae infected by the entomopathogenic nematode Heterorhabditis beicherriana (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae).

PubMed

Li, Xingyue; Liu, Qizhi; Lewis, Edwin E; Tarasco, Eustachio

2016-12-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) of the genera Steinernema and Heterorhabditis are lethal parasites of many insect species. To investigate defensive mechanisms towards EPNs in relation to antioxidative and detoxifying enzymes, we chose Tenebrio molitor (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) as experimental insect. We studied the activity changes of superoxide dismutases (SODs), peroxidases (PODs), and catalases (CATs), as well as tyrosinase (TYR), acetylcholinesterase (AChE), carboxylesterase (CarE), and glutathione S-transferase (GSTs) for 40 h in T. molitor larvae infected with Heterorhabditis beicherriana infective juveniles (IJs) at 5 rates (0, 20, 40, 80, and 160 IJs/larva). We found that when T. molitor larvae infected with H. beicherriana at higher rates (80 and 160 IJs/larva), SOD activity quickly increased to more than 70 % higher than that control levels. The activities of POD and CAT increased after 24 h. TYR activity increased slowly at lower rates of infection for 16 h, followed by a slight decrease, and then increasing from 32 to 40 h. The other detoxifying enzymes (GST, CarE, and AChE) were enhanced at lower infection rates, but were inhibited at higher rates. Our results suggested that host antioxidative response and detoxification reactions played a central role in the defensive reaction to EPNs, and that this stress which was reflected by the higher level enzymes activity contributed to the death of hosts. Further study should explore the exact function of these enzymes using different species of EPNs and investigate the links between enzyme activity and host susceptibility to EPNs.

77 FR 35389 - EPN, Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order to Aid Public Comment

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-13

... practices or unfair methods of competition. The attached Analysis to Aid Public Comment describes both the... FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION [File No. 112 3143] EPN, Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order to Aid.... 721, 15 U.S.C. 46(f), and Sec. 2.34 the Commission Rules of Practice, 16 CFR 2.34, notice is hereby...

Attention to emotion: auditory-evoked potentials in an emotional choice reaction task and personality traits as assessed by the NEO FFI.

PubMed

Mittermeier, Verena; Leicht, Gregor; Karch, Susanne; Hegerl, Ulrich; Möller, Hans-Jürgen; Pogarell, Oliver; Mulert, Christoph

2011-03-01

Several studies suggest that attention to emotional content is related to specific changes in central information processing. In particular, event-related potential (ERP) studies focusing on emotion recognition in pictures and faces or word processing have pointed toward a distinct component of the visual-evoked potential, the EPN ('early posterior negativity'), which has been shown to be related to attention to emotional content. In the present study, we were interested in the existence of a corresponding ERP component in the auditory modality and a possible relationship with the personality dimension extraversion-introversion, as assessed by the NEO Five-Factors Inventory. We investigated 29 healthy subjects using three types of auditory choice tasks: (1) the distinction of syllables with emotional intonation, (2) the identification of the emotional content of adjectives and (3) a purely cognitive control task. Compared with the cognitive control task, emotional paradigms using auditory stimuli evoked an EPN component with a distinct peak after 170 ms (EPN 170). Interestingly, subjects with high scores in the personality trait extraversion showed significantly higher EPN amplitudes for emotional paradigms (syllables and words) than introverted subjects.

Epicocconone, a sensitive and specific fluorescent dye for in situ quantification of extracellular proteins within bacterial biofilms.

PubMed

Randrianjatovo, I; Girbal-Neuhauser, E; Marcato-Romain, C-E

2015-06-01

Biofilms are ecosystems of closely associated bacteria encapsulated in an extracellular matrix mainly composed of polysaccharides and proteins. A novel approach was developed for in situ quantification of extracellular proteins (ePNs) in various bacterial biofilms using epicocconone, a natural, fluorescent compound that binds amine residues of proteins. Six commercial proteins were tested for their reaction with epicocconone, and bovine serum albumin (BSA) was selected for assay optimization. The optimized protocol, performed as a microassay, allowed protein amounts as low as 0.7 μg to as high as 50 μg per well to be detected. Addition of monosaccharides or polysaccharides (glucose, dextran or alginate) to the standard BSA solutions (0 to 250 μg ml(-1)) showed little or no sugar interference up to 2000 μg ml(-1), thus providing an assessment of the specificity of epicocconone for proteins. The optimized protocol was then applied to three different biofilms, and in situ quantification of ePN showed contrasted protein amounts of 22.1 ± 3.1, 38.3 ± 7.1 and 0.3 ± 0.1 μg equivalent BSA of proteins for 48-h biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Bacillus licheniformis and Weissella confusa, respectively. Possible interference due to global matrix compounds on the in situ quantification of proteins was also investigated by applying the standard addition method (SAM). Low error percentages were obtained, indicating a correct quantification of both the ePN and the added proteins. For the first time, a specific and sensitive assay has been developed for in situ determination of ePN produced by bacterial cells. This advance should lead to an accurate, rapid tool for further protein labelling and microscopic observation of the extracellular matrix of biofilms.

Effects of storage temperature on survival and infectivity of three indigenous entomopathogenic nematodes strains (Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae) from Meghalaya, India.

PubMed

Lalramliana; Yadav, Arun K

2016-12-01

Three locally isolated strains of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs), viz. Heterorhabditis indica , Steinernema thermophilum and Steinernema glaseri , from Meghalaya, India were characterized in terms of storage temperature and survival and infectivity of their infective juveniles (IJs). The survival and infectivity of nematode IJs was studied at, 5 ± 2 and 25 ± 2 °C, for a period of 120 days, using deionized water as storage medium. The viability of nematode IJs was checked by mobility criterion at different storage periods, while the infectivity of nematode IJs was ascertained on the basis of establishment of IJs, using Galleria mellonella larva mortality tests in petridishes. The results of this study revealed that storage temperature markedly affects the survival as well as the establishment of nematode IJs of the three EPN species. At 5 °C, comparatively higher rate of IJ's survival (i.e. 74-86 %) was observed for 15 days of storage, but the same reduced drastically to 28-32 % after 30 days of storage for H. indica and S. thermophilum . On the other hand, at 25 °C, the survival of nematode IJs was observed till 120 days for all the three studied EPNs. In case of S. thermophilum and S. glaseri , higher rate of IJs survival (>75 %) was observed respectively at 15 and 30 days of observation. The study also showed that the establishment of IJs of the three EPN species declines with increase in storage periods, at both the test temperatures. In general, the nematodes stored at 25 °C showed comparatively better establishment than those stored at 5 °C. Among the three EPN studied, the establishment of S. glaseri was comparatively better than the rest of the species at both the temperatures and for different storage durations. In conclusion, our study adds further valuable information about the effect of storage temperature on survival and infectivity of three indigenous EPN species of Meghalaya, India which appears to be promising biocontrol agents of local insect pests.

Effects of valence and arousal on written word recognition: time course and ERP correlates.

PubMed

Citron, Francesca M M; Weekes, Brendan S; Ferstl, Evelyn C

2013-01-15

Models of affect assume a two-dimensional framework, composed of emotional valence and arousal. Although neuroimaging evidence supports a neuro-functional distinction of their effects during single word processing, electrophysiological studies have not yet compared the effects of arousal within the same category of valence (positive and negative). Here we investigate effects of arousal and valence on written lexical decision. Amplitude differences between emotion and neutral words were seen in the early posterior negativity (EPN), the late positive complex and in a sustained slow positivity. In addition, trends towards interactive effects of valence and arousal were observed in the EPN, showing larger amplitude for positive, high-arousal and negative, low-arousal words. The results provide initial evidence for interactions between arousal and valence during processing of positive words and highlight the importance of both variables in studies of emotional stimulus processing. Crown Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Monitoring of stability of ASG-EUPOS network coordinates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Figurski, M.; Szafranek, K.; Wrona, M.

2009-04-01

ASG-EUPOS (Active Geodetic Network - European Position Determination System) is the national system of precise satellite positioning in Poland, which increases a density of regional and global GNSS networks and is widely used by public administration, national institutions, entrepreneurs and citizens (especially surveyors). In near future ASG-EUPOS is to take role of main national network. Control of proper activity of stations and realization of ETRS'89 is a necessity. User of the system needs to be sure that observations quality and coordinates accuracy are high enough. Coordinates of IGS (International GNSS Service) and EPN (European Permanent Network) stations are precisely determined and any changes are monitored all the time. Observations are verified before they are archived in regional and global databases. The same applies to ASG-EUPOS. This paper concerns standardization of GNSS observations from different stations (uniform adjustment), examination of solutions correctness according to IGS and EPN standards and stability of solutions and sites activity

Coherence of neuronal firing of the entopeduncular nucleus with motor cortex oscillatory activity in the 6-OHDA rat model of Parkinson's disease with levodopa-induced dyskinesias.

PubMed

Jin, Xingxing; Schwabe, Kerstin; Krauss, Joachim K; Alam, Mesbah

2016-04-01

The pathophysiological mechanisms leading to dyskinesias in Parkinson's disease (PD) after long-term treatment with levodopa remain unclear. This study investigates the neuronal firing characteristics of the entopeduncular nucleus (EPN), the rat equivalent of the human globus pallidus internus and output nucleus of the basal ganglia, and its coherence with the motor cortex (MCx) field potentials in the unilateral 6-OHDA rat model of PD with and without levodopa-induced dyskinesias (LID). 6-hydroxydopamine-lesioned hemiparkinsonian (HP) rats, 6-OHDA-lesioned HP rats with LID (HP-LID) rats, and naïve controls were used for recording of single-unit activity under urethane (1.4 g/kg, i.p) anesthesia in the EPN "on" and "off" levodopa. Over the MCx, the electrocorticogram output was recorded. Analysis of single-unit activity in the EPN showed enhanced firing rates, burst activity, and irregularity compared to naïve controls, which did not differ between drug-naïve HP and HP-LID rats. Analysis of EPN spike coherence and phase-locked ratio with MCx field potentials showed a shift of low (12-19 Hz) and high (19-30 Hz) beta oscillatory activity between HP and HP-LID groups. EPN theta phase-locked ratio was only enhanced in HP-LID compared to HP rats. Overall, levodopa injection had no stronger effect in HP-LID rats than in HP rats. Altered coherence and changes in the phase lock ratio of spike and local field potentials in the beta range may play a role for the development of LID.

Screening of the Antimicrobial Activity against Drug Resistant Bacteria of Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus Associated with Entomopathogenic Nematodes from Mae Wong National Park, Thailand

PubMed Central

Muangpat, Paramaporn; Yooyangket, Temsiri; Fukruksa, Chamaiporn; Suwannaroj, Manawat; Yimthin, Thatcha; Sitthisak, Sutthirat; Chantratita, Narisara; Vitta, Apichat; Tobias, Nicholas J.; Bode, Helge B.; Thanwisai, Aunchalee

2017-01-01

Photorhabdus and Xenorhabdus are symbiotic with entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) of the genera Heterorhabditis and Steinernema, respectively. These bacteria produce several secondary metabolites including antimicrobial compounds. The objectives of this study were to isolate and identify EPNs and their symbiotic bacteria from Mae Wong National Park, Thailand and to evaluate the antibacterial activities of symbiont extracts against drug resistant bacteria. A total of 550 soil samples from 110 sites were collected between August 2014 and July 2015. A total of EPN isolates were obtained through baiting and White trap methods, which yielded 21 Heterorhabditis and 3 Steinernema isolates. Based on molecular identification and phylogenetic analysis, the most common species found in the present study was P. luminescens subsp. akhurstii associated with H. indica. Notably, two species of EPNs, H. zealandica and S. kushidai, and two species of symbiotic bacteria, X. japonica and P. temperata subsp. temperata represented new recorded organisms in Thailand. Furthermore, the association between P. temperata subsp. temperata and H. zealandica has not previously been reported worldwide. Disk diffusion, minimal inhibitory concentration, and minimal bactericidal concentration analyses demonstrated that the crude compound extracted by ethyl acetate from P. temperata subsp. temperata could inhibit the growth of up to 10 strains of drug resistant bacteria. Based on HPLC-MS analysis, compound classes in bacterial extracts were identified as GameXPeptide, xenoamicin, xenocoumacin, mevalagmapeptide phurealipids derivatives, and isopropylstilbene. Together, the results of this study provide evidence for the diversity of EPNs and their symbiotic bacteria in Mae Wong National Park, Thailand and demonstrate their novel associations. These findings also provide an important foundation for further research regarding the antimicrobial activity of Photorhabdus bacteria. PMID:28702004

An investigation on the chemotactic responses of different entomopathogenic nematode strains to mechanically damaged maize root volatile compounds.

PubMed

Laznik, Z; Trdan, S

2013-07-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) respond to a variety of stimuli when foraging. In a laboratory investigation, we tested the chemotactic responses of 8 EPN strains (Steinernema and Heterorhabditis) to three mechanically damaged maize root compounds (linalool, α-caryophyllene and β-caryophyllene). We hypothesized that the EPN directional response to the tested volatile compounds would vary among the species and volatile compound and may be related to foraging strategies. The nematodes with an intermediate foraging strategy (Steinernema feltiae) proved to be less active in their movement toward volatile compounds in a comparison with the ambushers (Steinernema carpocapsae) and cruisers (Steinernema kraussei and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora); β-caryophyllene was found to be the most attractive substance in our experiment. The results of our investigation showed that the cruisers were more attracted to β-caryophyllene than the ambushers and intermediates. The foraging strategy did not affect the movement of the IJs toward the other tested volatile compounds or the control. Our results suggest that the response to different volatile cues is more a strain-specific characteristic than a different host-searching strategy. Only S. carpocapsae strain B49 displayed an attraction to linalool, whereas S. kraussei showed a retarded reaction to β-caryophyllene and α-caryophyllene in our experiment. The EPN strains showed only a weak attraction to α-caryophyllene, suggesting that this volatile compound could not have an important role in the orientation of IJs to the damaged roots of maize plants. These results expand our knowledge of volatile compounds as the cues that may be used by EPNs for finding hosts or other aspects of navigation in the soil. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of attention manipulations on motivated attention to feared and nonfeared negative distracters in spider fear.

PubMed

Norberg, Joakim; Wiens, Stefan

2013-11-09

When people view emotional and neutral pictures, the emotional pictures capture more attention than do neutral pictures. In support, studies with event-related potentials have shown that the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP) to emotional versus neutral pictures are enhanced when pictures are attended. However, this motivated attention decreases when voluntary attention is directed away from the pictures. Most previous studies included only generally emotional pictures of either negative or positive valence. Because people with spider fear report intense fear of spiders, we examined whether directing attention away from emotional pictures at fixation decreases motivated attention less strongly for spiders than for generally negative distracters. We recorded event-related potentials from 128 channels to study whether manipulations of attention (i.e., spatial attention and perceptual load) decrease the EPN and the LPP to emotional distracters less strongly for spiders than for fear-irrelevant negative pictures in people with spider fear. Results confirmed that the EPN and the LPP to spiders (vs. neutral pictures) were particularly enhanced in participants with spider fear compared to participants without spider fear. When attention was directed away from the pictures, the EPN and the LPP to spiders (vs. neutral pictures) decreased similarly in fearful and nonfearful participants. Further, in fearful participants, the decrease in the EPN and the LPP was similar for spiders and for fear-irrelevant negative pictures. Our findings suggest that for people with spider fear, directing attention away from emotional pictures at fixation decreases motivated attention to these distracters similarly for spiders as for fear-irrelevant negative pictures. These findings imply that attention to spiders in spider fear does not exceed the level of attention expected from the spider pictures' high arousal and negative valence (i.e., their intrinsic motivated attention).

Emphysematous pyelonephritis: Our experience with conservative management in 14 cases.

PubMed

Sharma, Pramod Kumar; Sharma, Ritu; Vijay, Mukesh K; Tiwari, Punit; Goel, Amit; Kundu, Anup K

2013-07-01

Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) is a rare, severe, acute, necrotizing infection of the kidney. In this study, we present the clinical details, the management strategies, and the outcome of fourteen patients of EPN managed at our center. A retrospective analysis of the hospital records was done. A total of fourteen patients with EPN were admitted in our hospital from August 2007 to February 2011. All the patients were managed conservatively. Follow-up ranged from six months to one year. Of the fourteen patients, four belonged to class I, five to class II, four to class IIIA and one to class IIIB. All the patients had history of fever, 43% had localized flank pain while 36% had vague abdominal discomfort. Renal angle tenderness was the most common sign, seen in 86% of the patients. E. coli was the most common bacteria, which was isolated from urine in 57% of the patients. On the risk factor stratification, three patients had simultaneous presence of 2 or more risk factors (thrombocytopenia-2 patients; renal function impairment-7 patients; shock-1 patient). All the patients were initially managed with aggressive fluid and electrolyte resuscitation, control of blood sugar levels, and broad spectrum antibiotics. Intervention, in the form of percutaneous drainage or DJ stenting, was done in six patients. One patient failed to respond to this minimally invasive modality of treatment and had to undergo an open drainage. Thus, the acute episode was managed with conservative management strategies in all the patients; however, three patients underwent nephrectomy due to poorly-functioning kidney during follow-up. EPN is now being more readily diagnosed, at an early stage, making conservative management of EPN a safe, effective, and feasible option.

Emphysematous pyelonephritis: Our experience with conservative management in 14 cases

PubMed Central

Sharma, Pramod Kumar; Sharma, Ritu; Vijay, Mukesh K.; Tiwari, Punit; Goel, Amit; Kundu, Anup K.

2013-01-01

Context: Emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN) is a rare, severe, acute, necrotizing infection of the kidney. In this study, we present the clinical details, the management strategies, and the outcome of fourteen patients of EPN managed at our center. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of the hospital records was done. A total of fourteen patients with EPN were admitted in our hospital from August 2007 to February 2011. All the patients were managed conservatively. Follow-up ranged from six months to one year. Results: Of the fourteen patients, four belonged to class I, five to class II, four to class IIIA and one to class IIIB. All the patients had history of fever, 43% had localized flank pain while 36% had vague abdominal discomfort. Renal angle tenderness was the most common sign, seen in 86% of the patients. E. coli was the most common bacteria, which was isolated from urine in 57% of the patients. On the risk factor stratification, three patients had simultaneous presence of 2 or more risk factors (thrombocytopenia-2 patients; renal function impairment-7 patients; shock-1 patient). All the patients were initially managed with aggressive fluid and electrolyte resuscitation, control of blood sugar levels, and broad spectrum antibiotics. Intervention, in the form of percutaneous drainage or DJ stenting, was done in six patients. One patient failed to respond to this minimally invasive modality of treatment and had to undergo an open drainage. Thus, the acute episode was managed with conservative management strategies in all the patients; however, three patients underwent nephrectomy due to poorly-functioning kidney during follow-up. Conclusions: EPN is now being more readily diagnosed, at an early stage, making conservative management of EPN a safe, effective, and feasible option. PMID:24049377

A neuropeptide modulates sensory perception in the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema carpocapsae.

PubMed

Morris, Robert; Wilson, Leonie; Sturrock, Matthew; Warnock, Neil D; Carrizo, Daniel; Cox, Deborah; Maule, Aaron G; Dalzell, Johnathan J

2017-03-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) employ a sophisticated chemosensory apparatus to detect potential hosts. Understanding the molecular basis of relevant host-finding behaviours could facilitate improved EPN biocontrol approaches, and could lend insight to similar behaviours in economically important mammalian parasites. FMRFamide-like peptides are enriched and conserved across the Phylum Nematoda, and have been linked with motor and sensory function, including dispersal and aggregating behaviours in the free living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The RNA interference (RNAi) pathway of Steinernema carpocapsae was characterised in silico, and employed to knockdown the expression of the FMRFamide-like peptide 21 (GLGPRPLRFamide) gene (flp-21) in S. carpocapsae infective juveniles; a first instance of RNAi in this genus, and a first in an infective juvenile of any EPN species. Our data show that 5 mg/ml dsRNA and 50 mM serotonin triggers statistically significant flp-21 knockdown (-84%***) over a 48 h timecourse, which inhibits host-finding (chemosensory), dispersal, hyperactive nictation and jumping behaviours. However, whilst 1 mg/ml dsRNA and 50 mM serotonin also triggers statistically significant flp-21 knockdown (-51%**) over a 48 h timecourse, it does not trigger the null sensory phenotypes; statistically significant target knockdown can still lead to false negative results, necessitating appropriate experimental design. SPME GC-MS volatile profiles of two EPN hosts, Galleria mellonella and Tenebrio molitor reveal an array of shared and unique compounds; these differences had no impact on null flp-21 RNAi phenotypes for the behaviours assayed. Localisation of flp-21 / FLP-21 to paired anterior neurons by whole mount in situ hybridisation and immunocytochemistry corroborates the RNAi data, further suggesting a role in sensory modulation. These data can underpin efforts to study these behaviours in other economically important parasites, and could facilitate molecular approaches to EPN strain improvement for biocontrol.

Berberine nanoparticles with enhanced in vitro bioavailability: characterization and antimicrobial activity

PubMed Central

Faidah, Hani S; Khurram, Muhammad; Amin, Muhammad Usman; Haseeb, Abdul; Kakar, Maria

2018-01-01

Background Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid widely used in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine to treat illnesses such as hypertension and inflammatory conditions, and as an anticancer and hepato-protective agent. Berberine has low oral bioavailability due to poor aqueous solubility and insufficient dissolution rate, which can reduce the efficacy of drugs taken orally. In this study, evaporative precipitation of nanosuspension (EPN) and anti-solvent precipitation with a syringe pump (APSP) were used to address the problems of solubility, dissolution rate and bioavailability of berberine. Methods Semi-crystalline nanoparticles (NPs) of 90–110 nm diameter for APSP and 65–75 nm diameter for EPN were prepared and then characterized using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray powder diffractometry (XRD). Thereafter, drug content solubility and dissolution studies were undertaken. Berberine and its NPs were evaluated for their antibacterial activity. Results The results indicate that the NPs have significantly increased solubility and dissolution rate due to conversion of the crystalline structure to a semi-crystalline form. Conclusion Berberine NPs produced by both APSP and EPN methods have shown promising activities against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, and yeasts, with NPs prepared through the EPN method showing superior results compared to those made with the APSP method and the unprocessed drug. PMID:29491706

Snake pictures draw more early attention than spider pictures in non-phobic women: evidence from event-related brain potentials.

PubMed

Van Strien, J W; Eijlers, R; Franken, I H A; Huijding, J

2014-02-01

Snakes were probably the first predators of mammals and may have been important agents of evolutionary changes in the primate visual system allowing rapid visual detection of fearful stimuli (Isbell, 2006). By means of early and late attention-related brain potentials, we examined the hypothesis that more early visual attention is automatically allocated to snakes than to spiders. To measure the early posterior negativity (EPN), 24 healthy, non-phobic women watched the random rapid serial presentation of 600 snake pictures, 600 spider pictures, and 600 bird pictures (three pictures per second). To measure the late positive potential (LPP), they also watched similar pictures (30 pictures per stimulus category) in a non-speeded presentation. The EPN amplitude was largest for snake pictures, intermediate for spider pictures and smallest for bird pictures. The LPP was significantly larger for both snake and spider pictures when compared to bird pictures. Interestingly, spider fear (as measured by a questionnaire) was associated with EPN amplitude for spider pictures, whereas snake fear was not associated with EPN amplitude for snake pictures. The results suggest that ancestral priorities modulate the early capture of visual attention and that early attention to snakes is more innate and independent of reported fear. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Berberine nanoparticles with enhanced in vitro bioavailability: characterization and antimicrobial activity.

PubMed

Sahibzada, Muhammad Umar Khayam; Sadiq, Abdul; Faidah, Hani S; Khurram, Muhammad; Amin, Muhammad Usman; Haseeb, Abdul; Kakar, Maria

2018-01-01

Berberine is an isoquinoline alkaloid widely used in Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine to treat illnesses such as hypertension and inflammatory conditions, and as an anticancer and hepato-protective agent. Berberine has low oral bioavailability due to poor aqueous solubility and insufficient dissolution rate, which can reduce the efficacy of drugs taken orally. In this study, evaporative precipitation of nanosuspension (EPN) and anti-solvent precipitation with a syringe pump (APSP) were used to address the problems of solubility, dissolution rate and bioavailability of berberine. Semi-crystalline nanoparticles (NPs) of 90-110 nm diameter for APSP and 65-75 nm diameter for EPN were prepared and then characterized using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray powder diffractometry (XRD). Thereafter, drug content solubility and dissolution studies were undertaken. Berberine and its NPs were evaluated for their antibacterial activity. The results indicate that the NPs have significantly increased solubility and dissolution rate due to conversion of the crystalline structure to a semi-crystalline form. Berberine NPs produced by both APSP and EPN methods have shown promising activities against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, and yeasts, with NPs prepared through the EPN method showing superior results compared to those made with the APSP method and the unprocessed drug.

Control of Grapholita molesta (Busck, 1916) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) with entomopathogenic nematodes (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae, Steinernematidae) in peach orchards.

PubMed

de Carvalho Barbosa Negrisoli, Carla Ruth; Negrisoli, Aldomario Santo; Garcia, Mauro Silveira; Dolinski, Claudia; Bernardi, Daniel

2013-10-01

Oriental fruit moth Grapholita molesta (Busck, 1916) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) is considered a major pest in temperate fruit trees, such as peach and apple. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are regarded as viable for pest management control due to their efficiency against tortricid in these trees. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of native EPNs from Rio Grande do Sul state against pre-pupae of G. molesta under laboratory and field conditions. In the laboratory, pre-pupae of G. molesta were placed in corrugated cardboard sheets inside glass tubes and exposed to 17 different EPNs strains at concentrations of 6, 12, 24, 48 and 60 IJs/cm(2) and maintained at 25 °C, 70 ± 10% RH and photophase of 16 h. Insect mortality was recorded 72 h after inoculation of EPNs. Steinernema rarum RS69 and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora RS33 were the most virulent strains and selected for field application (LC95 of 70.5 and 53.8 IJs/cm(2), respectively). Both strains were highly efficient under field conditions when applied in aqueous suspension directed to larvae on peach tree trunk, causing mortality of 94 and 97.0%, respectively. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effect of immersion time on efficacy of entomopathogenic nematodes against engorged females of Cattle Fever Tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Six species of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) were tested for their effects on virulence and reproductive parameters of engorged females of the cattle fever tick, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus (Deutch strain) using an adult immersion test. The treatments included nematode in the genus Stein...

Steinernema feltiae Intraspecific Variability: Infection Dynamics and Sex-Ratio.

PubMed

Campos-Herrera, Raquel; Gutiérrez, Carmen

2014-03-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) from the Heterorhabditidae and Steinernematidae families are well-known biocontrol agents against numerous insect pests. The infective juveniles (IJs) are naturally occurring in the soil and their success in locating and penetrating the host will be affected by extrinsic/intrinsic factors that modulate their foraging behavior. Characterizing key traits in the infection dynamics of EPNs is critical for establishing differentiating species abilities to complete their life cycles and hence, their long-term persistence, in different habitats. We hypothesized that phenotypic variation in traits related to infection dynamics might occur in populations belonging to the same species. To assess these intraspecific differences, we evaluated the infection dynamics of 14 populations of Steinernema feltiae in two experiments measuring penetration and migration in sand column. Intraspecific variability was observed in the percentage larval mortality, time to kill the insect, penetration rate, and sex-ratio in both experiments (P < 0.01). Larval mortality and nematode penetration percentage were lower in migration experiments than in penetration ones in most of the cases. The sex-ratio was significantly biased toward female-development dominance (P < 0.05). When the populations were grouped by habitat of recovery (natural areas, crop edge, and agricultural groves), nematodes isolated in natural areas exhibited less larval mortality and penetration rates than those from some types of agricultural associated soils, suggesting a possible effect of the habitat on the phenotypic plasticity. This study reinforces the importance of considering intraspecific variability when general biological and ecological questions are addressed using EPNs.

Steinernema feltiae Intraspecific Variability: Infection Dynamics and Sex-Ratio

PubMed Central

Campos-Herrera, Raquel; Gutiérrez, Carmen

2014-01-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) from the Heterorhabditidae and Steinernematidae families are well-known biocontrol agents against numerous insect pests. The infective juveniles (IJs) are naturally occurring in the soil and their success in locating and penetrating the host will be affected by extrinsic/intrinsic factors that modulate their foraging behavior. Characterizing key traits in the infection dynamics of EPNs is critical for establishing differentiating species abilities to complete their life cycles and hence, their long-term persistence, in different habitats. We hypothesized that phenotypic variation in traits related to infection dynamics might occur in populations belonging to the same species. To assess these intraspecific differences, we evaluated the infection dynamics of 14 populations of Steinernema feltiae in two experiments measuring penetration and migration in sand column. Intraspecific variability was observed in the percentage larval mortality, time to kill the insect, penetration rate, and sex-ratio in both experiments (P < 0.01). Larval mortality and nematode penetration percentage were lower in migration experiments than in penetration ones in most of the cases. The sex-ratio was significantly biased toward female-development dominance (P < 0.05). When the populations were grouped by habitat of recovery (natural areas, crop edge, and agricultural groves), nematodes isolated in natural areas exhibited less larval mortality and penetration rates than those from some types of agricultural associated soils, suggesting a possible effect of the habitat on the phenotypic plasticity. This study reinforces the importance of considering intraspecific variability when general biological and ecological questions are addressed using EPNs. PMID:24644369

Long-term increase in coherence between the basal ganglia and motor cortex after asphyxial cardiac arrest and resuscitation in developing rats.

PubMed

Aravamuthan, Bhooma R; Shoykhet, Michael

2015-10-01

The basal ganglia are vulnerable to injury during cardiac arrest. Movement disorders are a common morbidity in survivors. Yet, neuronal motor network changes post-arrest remain poorly understood. We compared function of the motor network in adult rats that, during postnatal week 3, underwent 9.5 min of asphyxial cardiac arrest (n = 9) or sham intervention (n = 8). Six months after injury, we simultaneously recorded local field potentials (LFP) from the primary motor cortex (MCx) and single neuron firing and LFP from the rat entopeduncular nucleus (EPN), which corresponds to the primate globus pallidus pars interna. Data were analyzed for firing rates, power, and coherence between MCx and EPN spike and LFP activity. Cardiac arrest survivors display chronic motor deficits. EPN firing rate is lower in cardiac arrest survivors (19.5 ± 2.4 Hz) compared with controls (27.4 ± 2.7 Hz; P < 0.05). Cardiac arrest survivors also demonstrate greater coherence between EPN single neurons and MCx LFP (3-100 Hz; P < 0.001). This increased coherence indicates abnormal synchrony in the neuronal motor network after cardiac arrest. Increased motor network synchrony is thought to be antikinetic in primary movement disorders. Characterization of motor network synchrony after cardiac arrest may help guide management of post-hypoxic movement disorders.

Implicit processing of heroin and emotional cues in abstinent heroin users: early and late event-related potential effects.

PubMed

Yang, Ling; Zhang, Jianxun; Zhao, Xin

2015-05-01

The abnormal cognitive processing of drug cues is a core characteristic of drug dependence. Previous research has suggested that the late positive potential (LPP) of heroin users is increased by heroin-related stimuli because of the attention-grabbing nature of such stimuli. The present research used a modified emotional Stroop (eStroop) task to examine whether there was an early posterior negativity (EPN) modulation to heroin cues compared with emotional or neutral stimuli in heroin dependent subjects. Fifteen former heroin users and 15 matched controls performed the eStroop task, which was composed of positive, negative, heroin-related, and neutral pictures with superimposed color squares. Participants responded to the color of the square and not to the picture while behavioral data and event-related potentials were recorded. There were no significant differences of EPN amplitudes to emotional and neutral stimuli between heroin users and controls. However, heroin users displayed increased EPN modulation for heroin cues, whereas this modulation was absent in controls. Drug-related cues acquire motivational salience and automatically capture the attention of heroin users at early processing stages, even when engaged in a non-drug-related task. The EPN to heroin cues could represent a novel electrophysiological index with clinical implications for selecting abstinent drug users who are at increased risk of relapse or to evaluate treatment interventions.

Interoperability in the Planetary Science Archive (PSA)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rios Diaz, C.

2017-09-01

The protocols and standards currently being supported by the recently released new version of the Planetary Science Archive at this time are the Planetary Data Access Protocol (PDAP), the EuroPlanet- Table Access Protocol (EPN-TAP) and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. We explore these protocols in more detail providing scientifically useful examples of their usage within the PSA.

Europlanet/IDIS: Combining Diverse Planetary Observations and Models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmidt, Walter; Capria, Maria Teresa; Chanteur, Gerard

2013-04-01

Planetary research involves a diversity of research fields from astrophysics and plasma physics to atmospheric physics, climatology, spectroscopy and surface imaging. Data from all these disciplines are collected from various space-borne platforms or telescopes, supported by modelling teams and laboratory work. In order to interpret one set of data often supporting data from different disciplines and other missions are needed while the scientist does not always have the detailed expertise to access and utilize these observations. The Integrated and Distributed Information System (IDIS) [1], developed in the framework of the Europlanet-RI project, implements a Virtual Observatory approach ([2] and [3]), where different data sets, stored in archives around the world and in different formats, are accessed, re-formatted and combined to meet the user's requirements without the need of familiarizing oneself with the different technical details. While observational astrophysical data from different observatories could already earlier be accessed via Virtual Observatories, this concept is now extended to diverse planetary data and related model data sets, spectral data bases etc. A dedicated XML-based Europlanet Data Model (EPN-DM) [4] was developed based on data models from the planetary science community and the Virtual Observatory approach. A dedicated editor simplifies the registration of new resources. As the EPN-DM is a super-set of existing data models existing archives as well as new spectroscopic or chemical data bases for the interpretation of atmospheric or surface observations, or even modeling facilities at research institutes in Europe or Russia can be easily integrated and accessed via a Table Access Protocol (EPN-TAP) [5] adapted from the corresponding protocol of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance [6] (IVOA-TAP). EPN-TAP allows to search catalogues, retrieve data and make them available through standard IVOA tools if the access to the archive is compatible with IVOA standards. For some major data archives with different standards adaptation tools are available to make the access transparent to the user. EuroPlaNet-IDIS has contributed to the definition of PDAP, the Planetary Data Access Protocol of the International Planetary Data Alliance (IPDA) [7] to access the major planetary data archives of NASA in the USA [8], ESA in Europe [9] and JAXA in Japan [10]. Acknowledgement: Europlanet-RI was funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Program, grant 228319 "Capacities Specific Programme" - Research Infrastructures Action. Reference: [1] Details to IDIS and the Europlanet-RI via Web-site: http://www.idis.europlanet-ri.eu/ [2] Demonstrator implementation for Plasma-VO AMDA: http://cdpp-amda.cesr.fr/DDHTML/index.html [3] Demonstrator implementation for the IDIS-VO: http://www.idis-dyn.europlanet-ri.eu/vodev.shtml [4] Europlanet Data Model EPN-DM: http://www.europlanet-idis.fi/documents/public_documents/EPN-DM-v2.0.pdf [5] Europlanet Table Access Protocol EPN-TAP: http://www.europlanet-idis.fi/documents/public_documents/EPN-TAPV_0.26.pdf [6] International Virtual Observatory Alliance IVOA: http://www.ivoa.net [7] International Planetary Data Alliance IPDA: http://planetarydata.org/ [8] NASA's Planetary Data System: http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/ [9] ESA's Planetary Science Archive PSA: http://www.sciops.esa.int/index.php?project=PSA [10] JAXAs Data Archive and Transmission System DARTS: http://darts.isas.jaxa.jp/

A neuropeptide modulates sensory perception in the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema carpocapsae

PubMed Central

Morris, Robert; Wilson, Leonie; Warnock, Neil D.; Maule, Aaron G.

2017-01-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) employ a sophisticated chemosensory apparatus to detect potential hosts. Understanding the molecular basis of relevant host-finding behaviours could facilitate improved EPN biocontrol approaches, and could lend insight to similar behaviours in economically important mammalian parasites. FMRFamide-like peptides are enriched and conserved across the Phylum Nematoda, and have been linked with motor and sensory function, including dispersal and aggregating behaviours in the free living nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. The RNA interference (RNAi) pathway of Steinernema carpocapsae was characterised in silico, and employed to knockdown the expression of the FMRFamide-like peptide 21 (GLGPRPLRFamide) gene (flp-21) in S. carpocapsae infective juveniles; a first instance of RNAi in this genus, and a first in an infective juvenile of any EPN species. Our data show that 5 mg/ml dsRNA and 50 mM serotonin triggers statistically significant flp-21 knockdown (-84%***) over a 48 h timecourse, which inhibits host-finding (chemosensory), dispersal, hyperactive nictation and jumping behaviours. However, whilst 1 mg/ml dsRNA and 50 mM serotonin also triggers statistically significant flp-21 knockdown (-51%**) over a 48 h timecourse, it does not trigger the null sensory phenotypes; statistically significant target knockdown can still lead to false negative results, necessitating appropriate experimental design. SPME GC-MS volatile profiles of two EPN hosts, Galleria mellonella and Tenebrio molitor reveal an array of shared and unique compounds; these differences had no impact on null flp-21 RNAi phenotypes for the behaviours assayed. Localisation of flp-21 / FLP-21 to paired anterior neurons by whole mount in situ hybridisation and immunocytochemistry corroborates the RNAi data, further suggesting a role in sensory modulation. These data can underpin efforts to study these behaviours in other economically important parasites, and could facilitate molecular approaches to EPN strain improvement for biocontrol. PMID:28253355

Effects of attention manipulations on motivated attention to feared and nonfeared negative distracters in spider fear

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background When people view emotional and neutral pictures, the emotional pictures capture more attention than do neutral pictures. In support, studies with event-related potentials have shown that the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP) to emotional versus neutral pictures are enhanced when pictures are attended. However, this motivated attention decreases when voluntary attention is directed away from the pictures. Most previous studies included only generally emotional pictures of either negative or positive valence. Because people with spider fear report intense fear of spiders, we examined whether directing attention away from emotional pictures at fixation decreases motivated attention less strongly for spiders than for generally negative distracters. Results We recorded event-related potentials from 128 channels to study whether manipulations of attention (i.e., spatial attention and perceptual load) decrease the EPN and the LPP to emotional distracters less strongly for spiders than for fear-irrelevant negative pictures in people with spider fear. Results confirmed that the EPN and the LPP to spiders (vs. neutral pictures) were particularly enhanced in participants with spider fear compared to participants without spider fear. When attention was directed away from the pictures, the EPN and the LPP to spiders (vs. neutral pictures) decreased similarly in fearful and nonfearful participants. Further, in fearful participants, the decrease in the EPN and the LPP was similar for spiders and for fear-irrelevant negative pictures. Conclusions Our findings suggest that for people with spider fear, directing attention away from emotional pictures at fixation decreases motivated attention to these distracters similarly for spiders as for fear-irrelevant negative pictures. These findings imply that attention to spiders in spider fear does not exceed the level of attention expected from the spider pictures’ high arousal and negative valence (i.e., their intrinsic motivated attention). PMID:24207058

Neuronal Entropy-Rate Feature of Entopeduncular Nucleus in Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease.

PubMed

Darbin, Olivier; Jin, Xingxing; Von Wrangel, Christof; Schwabe, Kerstin; Nambu, Atsushi; Naritoku, Dean K; Krauss, Joachim K; Alam, Mesbah

2016-03-01

The function of the nigro-striatal pathway on neuronal entropy in the basal ganglia (BG) output nucleus, i.e. the entopeduncular nucleus (EPN) was investigated in the unilaterally 6-hyroxydopamine (6-OHDA)-lesioned rat model of Parkinson's disease (PD). In both control subjects and subjects with 6-OHDA lesion of dopamine (DA) the nigro-striatal pathway, a histological hallmark for parkinsonism, neuronal entropy in EPN was maximal in neurons with firing rates ranging between 15 and 25 Hz. In 6-OHDA lesioned rats, neuronal entropy in the EPN was specifically higher in neurons with firing rates above 25 Hz. Our data establishes that the nigro-striatal pathway controls neuronal entropy in motor circuitry and that the parkinsonian condition is associated with abnormal relationship between firing rate and neuronal entropy in BG output nuclei. The neuronal firing rates and entropy relationship provide putative relevant electrophysiological information to investigate the sensory-motor processing in normal condition and conditions such as movement disorders.

Directed attention reduces processing of emotional distracters irrespective of valence and arousal level.

PubMed

Wiens, Stefan; Syrjänen, Elmeri

2013-09-01

Emotional stimuli tend to capture attention, and this so-called motivated attention is commonly measured using the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP). We hypothesized that voluntary, directed attention reduces motivated attention more strongly for highly than moderately arousing pleasant or unpleasant pictures. Participants were instructed to direct their attention to either a picture at fixation or the letters flanking the picture. Pictures varied substantially in arousal and valence. When the pictures were attended to, EPN and LPP increased linearly with arousal. When the letters were attended to, these linear effects decreased in the EPN for pleasant and unpleasant pictures and in the LPP for pleasant pictures. Thus, directed attention decreases processing of emotional distracters more strongly for highly than moderately arousing pleasant and unpleasant pictures. These results are consistent with the view that directed attention decreases emotion effects on sensory gain. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Alterations in neural processing of emotional faces in adolescent anorexia nervosa patients - an event-related potential study.

PubMed

Sfärlea, Anca; Greimel, Ellen; Platt, Belinda; Bartling, Jürgen; Schulte-Körne, Gerd; Dieler, Alica C

2016-09-01

The present study explored the neurophysiological correlates of perception and recognition of emotional facial expressions in adolescent anorexia nervosa (AN) patients using event-related potentials (ERPs). We included 20 adolescent girls with AN and 24 healthy girls and recorded ERPs during a passive viewing task and three active tasks requiring processing of emotional faces in varying processing depths; one of the tasks also assessed emotion recognition abilities behaviourally. Despite the absence of behavioural differences, we found that across all tasks AN patients exhibited a less pronounced early posterior negativity (EPN) in response to all facial expressions compared to controls. The EPN is an ERP component reflecting an automatic, perceptual processing stage which is modulated by the intrinsic salience of a stimulus. Hence, the less pronounced EPN in anorexic girls suggests that they might perceive other people's faces as less intrinsically relevant, i.e. as less "important" than do healthy girls. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Differential Response of a Local Population of Entomopathogenic Nematodes to Non-Native Herbivore Induced Plant Volatiles (HIPV) in the Laboratory and Field.

PubMed

Rivera, Monique J; Rodriguez-Saona, Cesar; Alborn, Hans T; Koppenhöfer, Albrecht M

2016-12-01

Recent work has shown the potential for enhanced efficacy of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) through their attraction to herbivore induced plant volatiles. However, there has been little investigation into the utilization of these attractants in systems other than in those in which they were identified. We compared (E)-β-caryophyllene and pregeijerene in the highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) agroecosystem in their ability to enhance the attraction of EPN to and efficacy against the system's herbivore, oriental beetle (Anomala orientalis). The relative attractiveness of (E)-β-caryophyllene and pregeijerene to a local isolate of the EPN species Steinernema glaseri was tested in a six-arm olfactometer in the laboratory to gather baseline values of attraction to the chemicals alone in sand substrate before field tests. A similar arrangement was used in a V. corymbosum field by placing six cages with assigned treatments and insect larvae with and without compound into the soil around the base of 10 plants. The cages were removed after 72 h, and insect baits were retrieved and assessed for EPN infection. The lab results indicate that in sand alone (E)-β-caryophyllene is significantly more attractive than pregeijerene to the local S. glaseri isolate Conversely, there was no difference in attractiveness in the field study, but rather, native S. glaseri were more attracted to cages with G. mellonella larvae, no larvae, and cages with the blank control and G. mellonella larvae.

Implementation of an EPN-TAP Service to Improve Accessibility to the Planetary Science Archive

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Macfarlane, A.; Barabarisi, I.; Docasal, R.; Rios, C.; Saiz, J.; Vallejo, F.; Martinez, S.; Arviset, C.; Besse, S.; Vallat, C.

2017-09-01

The re-engineered PSA has a focus on improved access and search-ability to ESA's planetary science data. In addition to the new web interface released in January 2017, the new PSA supports several common planetary protocols in order to increase the visibility and ways in which the data may be queried and retrieved. Work is on-going to provide an EPN-TAP service covering as wide a range of parameters as possible to facilitate the discovery of scientific data and interoperability of the archive.

Preparation of nanoparticles of poorly water-soluble antioxidant curcumin by antisolvent precipitation methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kakran, Mitali; Sahoo, Nanda Gopal; Tan, I.-Lin; Li, Lin

2012-03-01

The objective of this study was to enhance the solubility and dissolution rate of a poorly water-soluble antioxidant, curcumin, by fabricating its nanoparticles with two methods: antisolvent precipitation with a syringe pump (APSP) and evaporative precipitation of nanosuspension (EPN). For APSP, process parameters like flow rate, stirring speed, solvent to antisolvent (SAS) ratio, and drug concentration were investigated to obtain the smallest particle size. For EPN, factors like drug concentration and the SAS ratio were examined. The effects of these process parameters on the supersaturation, nucleation, and growth rate were studied and optimized to obtain the smallest particle size of curcumin by both the methods. The average particle size of the original drug was about 10-12 μm and it was decreased to a mean diameter of 330 nm for the APSP method and to 150 nm for the EPN method. Overall, decreasing the drug concentration or increasing the flow rate, stirring rate, and antisolvent amount resulted in smaller particle sizes. Differential scanning calorimetry studies suggested lower crystallinity of curcumin particles fabricated. The solubility and dissolution rates of the prepared curcumin particles were significantly higher than those the original curcumin. The antioxidant activity, studied by the DPPH free radical-scavenging assay, was greater for the curcumin nanoparticles than the original curcumin. This study demonstrated that both the methods can successfully prepare curcumin into submicro to nanoparticles. However, drug particles prepared by EPN were smaller than those by APSP and hence, showed the slightly better solubility, dissolution rate, and antioxidant activity than the latter.

Divergent thermal specialisation of two South African entomopathogenic nematodes.

PubMed

Hill, Matthew P; Malan, Antoinette P; Terblanche, John S

2015-01-01

Thermal physiology of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) is a critical aspect of field performance and fitness. Thermal limits for survival and activity, and the ability of these limits to adjust (i.e., show phenotypic flexibility) depending on recent thermal history, are generally poorly established, especially for non-model nematode species. Here we report the acute thermal limits for survival, and the thermal acclimation-related plasticity thereof for two key endemic South African EPN species, Steinernema yirgalemense and Heterorhabditis zealandica. Results including LT50 indicate S. yirgalemense (LT50 = 40.8 ± 0.3 °C) has greater high temperature tolerance than H. zealandica (LT50 = 36.7 ± 0.2 °C), but S. yirgalemense (LT50 = -2.4 ± 0 °C) has poorer low temperature tolerance in comparison to H. zealandica (LT50 = -9.7 ± 0.3 °C), suggesting these two EPN species occupy divergent thermal niches to one another. Acclimation had both negative and positive effects on temperature stress survival of both species, although the overall variation meant that many of these effects were non-significant. There was no indication of a consistent loss of plasticity with improved basal thermal tolerance for either species at upper lethal temperatures. At lower temperatures measured for H. zealandica, the 5 °C acclimation lowered survival until below -12.5 °C, where after it increased survival. Such results indicate that the thermal niche breadth of EPN species can differ significantly depending on recent thermal conditions, and should be characterized across a broad range of species to understand the evolution of thermal limits to performance and survival in this group.

Brain dynamics in spider-phobic individuals exposed to phobia-relevant and other emotional stimuli.

PubMed

Michalowski, Jaroslaw M; Melzig, Christiane A; Weike, Almut I; Stockburger, Jessica; Schupp, Harald T; Hamm, Alfons O

2009-06-01

Dense sensor event-related brain potentials were measured in participants with spider phobia and nonfearful controls during viewing of phobia-relevant spider and standard emotional (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) pictures. Irrespective of the picture content, spider phobia participants responded with larger P1 amplitudes than controls, suggesting increased vigilance in this group. Furthermore, spider phobia participants showed a significantly enlarged early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) during the encoding of phobia-relevant pictures compared to nonfearful controls. No group differences were observed for standard emotional materials indicating that these effects were specific to phobia-relevant material. Within group comparisons of the spider phobia group, though, revealed comparable EPN and LPP evoked by spider pictures and emotional (unpleasant and pleasant) picture contents. These results demonstrate a temporal unfolding in perceptual processing from unspecific vigilance (P1) to preferential responding (EPN and LPP) to phobia-relevant materials in the spider phobia group. However, at the level of early stimulus processing, these effects of increased attention seem to be related to emotional relevance of the stimulus cues rather than reflecting a fear-specific response.

Mechanism and stereochemical course at phosphorus of the reaction catalyzed by a bacterial phosphotriesterase

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lewis, V.E.; Donarski, W.J.; Wild, J.R.

The reaction mechanism for the phosphotriesterase from Pseudomonas diminuta has been examined. When paraoxon (diethyl 4-nitrophenyl phosphate) is hydrolyzed by this enzyme in oxygen-18-labeled water, the oxygen-18 label is found exclusively in the diethyl phosphate product. The absolute configurations for the (+) and (-) enantiomers of O-ethyl phenylphosphonothioic acid have been determined by X-ray diffraction structural determination of the individual crystalline 1-phenylethylamine salts. The (+) enantiomer of the free acid corresponds to the R/sub P/ configuration. The R/sub P/ enantiomer of O-ethyl phenylphosphonothioic acid has been converted to the S/sub P/ enantiomer of EPN (O-ethyl O-(4-nitrophenyl) phenylphosphonothioate). (S/sub P/)-EPN ismore » hydrolyzed by the phosphotriesterase to the S/sub P/ enantiomer of O-ethyl phenylphosphonothioic acid. The enzymatic reaction therefore proceeds with inversion of configuration. These results have been interpreted as an indication of a single in-line displacement by an activated water molecule directly at the phosphorus center of the phosphotriester substrate. (R/sub P/)-EPN is not hydrolyzed by the enzyme at an appreciable rate.« less

Evaluation of efficacy of 18 strains of entomopathogenic nematodes (Rhabditida) against Planococcus citri (Risso, 1813) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) under laboratory conditions.

PubMed

Barbosa Negrisoli, Carla Ruth de Carvalho; Negrisoli Júnior, Aldomario Santo; Botton, Marcos; Garcia, Mauro Silveira; Bernardi, Daniel

2013-07-01

Planococcus citri (Risso, 1813) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) is an important plant virus vector in grapevine crops in Brazil and other countries. The mealybug grows in roots and leaves of the grapes. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are efficient control agents against insects associated to the soil and could be applied with the same equipment used for chemical insecticides. The aim of this study was to select effective EPNs for controlling P. citri females in laboratory conditions (25±1°C, UR 60±10%). We tested 17 native [Steinernema rarum (6 strains), Steinernema glaseri, Steinernema feltiae, Steinernema riobrave, Steinernema sp., Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (7 strains)] and only one exotic strain (Steinernema carpocapsae ALL). The bioassays were done on Petri dishes infested with females of P. citri, which were sprayed with EPNs juveniles. The strain with larger pathogenicity and virulence in laboratory was H. bacteriophora RS33 (from 69.0% to 92.2% of mortality), native of Rio Grande do Sul. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The selective processing of emotional visual stimuli while detecting auditory targets: an ERP analysis.

PubMed

Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2008-09-16

Event-related potential studies revealed an early posterior negativity (EPN) for emotional compared to neutral pictures. Exploring the emotion-attention relationship, a previous study observed that a primary visual discrimination task interfered with the emotional modulation of the EPN component. To specify the locus of interference, the present study assessed the fate of selective visual emotion processing while attention is directed towards the auditory modality. While simply viewing a rapid and continuous stream of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures in one experimental condition, processing demands of a concurrent auditory target discrimination task were systematically varied in three further experimental conditions. Participants successfully performed the auditory task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components. Replicating previous results, emotional pictures were associated with a larger posterior negativity compared to neutral pictures. Of main interest, increasing demands of the auditory task did not modulate the selective processing of emotional visual stimuli. With regard to the locus of interference, selective emotion processing as indexed by the EPN does not seem to reflect shared processing resources of visual and auditory modality.

Biocontrol of ticks by entomopathogenic nematodes. Research update.

PubMed

Samish, M; Alekseev, E; Glazer, I

2000-01-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are lethal to ticks even though they do not use their normal propagation cycle within tick cadavers. The tick Boophilus annulatus was found to be far more susceptible to EPNs than Hyalomma excavatum, Rhipicephalus bursa, or Rhipicephalus sanguineus. Ticks seem to be less susceptible to nematodes when feeding on a host. Preimaginal tick stages were less susceptible to nematodes than adult ticks. The mortality rate of unfed females was highest, followed by unfed males, and engorged females. The virulence of nematodes to ticks varied greatly among different nematode strains. In most cases, the Heterorhabditis sp. strains were the most virulent strains tested in petri dishes. In buckets containing sandy soil sprayed with 50 nematodes/cm2 and engorged B. annulatus females, the LT50 of the ticks was less than five days. The addition of manure to soil or a manure extract to petri dishes reduced nematode virulence. Since ticks spend most of their life cycle in the upper humid layer of the ground, and many nematode strains share this same ecological niche, the use of EPNs for biocontrol of ticks appears promising.

Are Entomopathogenic Nematodes Effective Biological Control Agents Against the Carob Moth, Ectomyelois ceratoniae?

PubMed Central

Memari, Zahra; Karimi, Javad; Kamali, Shokoofeh; Goldansaz, Seyed Hossein; Hosseini, Mojtaba

2016-01-01

The carob moth (Ectomyelois ceratoniae) is the key pest of pomegranate, which causes a significant percentage of losses in pomegranate orchards and warehouses of Iran annually. The pest larvae are characterized by displaying a cryptic behavior within the fruit, which avoids most routine control techniques, especially chemical method. The low efficiency of traditional measurements and also the rich species diversity of natural enemies within the infested fruits highlight the necessity of exploring effective control methods, especially environmental friendly approaches. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are a group of biological control agents that actively search for the host, including those in a cryptic habitat like the carob moth larvae within infested fruits. Here, we assumed that treatment of the infested and dropped fruits with EPNs may provide new insight into the management of the carob moth. Three species of EPNs, Steinernema feltiae, S. carpocapsae, and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora were selected and used in a series of in vitro and in vivo experiments. In preliminary assays, the EPNs species were used with different concentrations of infective juveniles (IJs) (0, 1, 5, 10, 25, and 50 IJ/larvae) in 2-cm diam. plates. The mortality rates of the laboratory tests were 79.75% and 76.5% for S. feltiae and S. carpocapsae, corresponded to LC50 value of 2.02 IJ/larva for S. feltiae and 2.05 IJ/larva for S. carpocapsae. On the contrary, H. bacteriophora demonstrated low virulence on the pest larvae in petri tests with a LC50 = 426.92 IJ/larva. Hence, both Steinernema species were selected for subsequent experiments. The penetration rate for S. feltiae and S. carpocapsae into the hemocoel of the pest was 43% and 31%, respectively, and the corresponding reproduction rate was 15,452 IJ/larva for S. feltiae and 18,456 IJ/larva for S. carpocapsae. The gathered data from those in vitro tests were used for a field assay. Different concentrations (5, 10, 50, 100, and 160 IJ/cm2 of the arena) of S. feltiae and S. carpocapsae were applied in the field test. The mean mortality results from the last test were 10.89% and 26.65% for S. feltiae and S. carpocapsae, respectively. Finally, we found that these low virulence rates of the nematodes were attributed to inhibitory/repellency effects of saprophytic fungi within the infested pomegranates, a usual status of the infested fruits in autumn or winter seasons. Future work on additional EPN populations more adapted to the extreme conditions of the pomegranate production area in Iran may provide sufficient evidence to continue the further investigation on the best EPN species populations and advanced formulations with high durability. PMID:28154432

Effects of conventional and hydrogen sulfide-releasing non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in rats with stress-induced and epinephrine-induced gastric damage.

PubMed

Fomenko, Iryna; Sklyarov, Alexander; Bondarchuk, Tetyana; Biletska, Lilya; Panasyuk, Natalia; Wallace, John L

2014-12-01

Mechanisms of gastric defence under conditions of combined influence of acute stress and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are still poorly studied. The aim of this study was to explore the effects of different types of NSAIDs (naproxen, celecoxib and ATB-346) in producing experimental gastric lesions (induced by water-restraint stress (WRS) or by epinephrine (EPN) injection) and to determine the role of lipid peroxidation and the nitric oxide (NO) system in the pathogenesis of the damage. Male rats were used (eight per group) in this work. The NSAIDs were all administered at a dose 10 mg kg(-1) 30 min prior to WRS or EPN injection. Administration of naproxen to the control rats caused development of gastric lesions, whereas administration of a hydrogen sulfide (H2S)-releasing NSAID (ATB-346) or a selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor (celecoxib) did not cause gastric damage. In contrast, lipid peroxidation processes were enhanced in all groups as was the activity of NO synthase (NOS). Pretreatment with naproxen in the WRS model caused an increase in severity of damage and a decrease in NOS activity. ATB-346 displayed beneficial effects, manifested by a decrease in the area of gastric damage, but parameters of lipid peroxidation and the NOS system did not differ substantially from those in the group treated with naproxen. Administration of different NSAIDs under conditions of EPN-induced gastric damage resulted in the decrease in NOS activity and lipid peroxidation. None of the tested NSAIDs exacerbated EPN-induced gastric mucosal injury; indeed, they all reduced the extent of damage.

Screening Spanish isolates of steinernematid nematodes for use as biological control agents through laboratory and greenhouse microcosm studies.

PubMed

Campos-Herrera, Raquel; Gutiérrez, Carmen

2009-02-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are one of the best non-chemical alternatives for insect pest control, with native EPN strains that are adapted to local conditions considered to be ideal candidates for regional biological control programs. Virulence screening of 17 native Mediterranean EPN strains was performed to select the most promising strain for regional insect pest control. Steinernema feltiae (Filipjev) (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae) Rioja strain produced 7%, 91% and 33% larval mortality for the insects Agriotes sordidus (Illiger) (Coleoptera: Elateridae), Spodoptera littoralis (Boisduval) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) and Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann) (Diptera: Tephritidae), respectively, and was selected as the most promising strain. The S. feltiae Rioja strain-S. littoralis combination was considered the most suitable to develop the Rioja strain as a biocontrol agent for soil applications. The effect of soil texture on the virulence of the Rioja strain against S. littoralis was determined through dose-response experiments. The estimated LC(90) to kill larvae in two days was 220, 753 and 4178 IJs/cm(2) for soils with a clay content of 5%, 14% and 24%, respectively, which indicates that heavy soils produced negative effects on the virulence of the Rioja strain. The nematode dose corresponding to the LC(90) for soils with a 5% and 14% clay content reduced insect damage to Capsicum annuum Linnaeus (Solanales: Solanaceae) plants under greenhouse microcosm conditions. The results of this research suggest that an accurate characterization of new EPN strains to select the most suitable combination of insect, nematode and soil texture might provide valuable data to obtain successful biological control under different ecological scenarios in future field applications.

Transcatheter Closure of Patent Ductus Arteriosus in Extremely Premature Newborns: Early Results and Midterm Follow-Up.

PubMed

Zahn, Evan M; Peck, Daniel; Phillips, Alistair; Nevin, Phillip; Basaker, Kaylan; Simmons, Charles; McRae, Marion E; Early, Tracy; Garg, Ruchira

2016-12-12

The goal of this study was to describe early and midterm outcomes of extremely premature newborns (EPNs) who underwent transcatheter echocardiographically guided patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) closure. Surgical ligation of PDA in EPNs confers significant risk for procedural morbidity and adverse long-term outcomes. The Amplatzer Vascular Plug II was used in all cases. Post-ligation syndrome was defined using previously published parameters. Patients were followed at pre-specified intervals, and prospectively collected data were reviewed. Transcatheter closure was attempted in 24 EPNs (mean procedural age 30 days [range 5 to 80 days], mean procedural weight 1,249 g [range 755 to 2,380 g]) and was successful in 88%. The 3 procedural failures were related to the development of left pulmonary artery (LPA) stenosis caused by the device, and all devices were removed uneventfully. Complications included 2 instances of device malposition, resolved with device repositioning, and 1 instance of LPA stenosis, requiring an LPA stent. There were no procedural deaths, cases of post-ligation syndrome, residual PDA, or device embolization. Survival to discharge was 96% (23 of 24), with a single late death unrelated to the procedure. After a median follow-up period of 11.1 months, all patients were alive and well, with no residual PDA or evidence of LPA or aortic coarctation. This newly described technique can be performed safely with a high success rate and minimal procedural morbidity in EPNs. Early and midterm follow-up is encouraging. Future efforts should be directed toward developing specific devices for this unique application. Copyright © 2016 American College of Cardiology Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Efficacy of entomopathogenic nematodes (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae) on developmental stages of house fly, Musca domestica.

PubMed

Archana, M; D'Souza, Placid E; Patil, Jagadeesh

2017-09-01

The housefly, Musca domestica is a major domestic, medical and veterinary pest. The management of these flies reliance on insecticide, causes environmental constraints, insecticide resistance and residues in the meat, skin. Therefore one of the eco-friendly alternate methods is by using biological agents such as entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN). In the present study evaluated the survival of EPN species Steinernema feltiae , Heterorhabditis indica , S. carpocapsae , S. glaseri and S. abbasi in poultry manure and also their efficacy against different developmental stages of house fly. After exposing to poultry manure, S. feltiae showed more survival as followed by H. indica , S. carpocapsae , S. glaseri and S. abbasi in all exposition period. When the exposition period extended to 96 h, all nematode species survivability was drastically reduced. After exposing these nematodes to poultry manure at 24 h their virulence capacity against wax moth, Galleria mellonella showed all the nematode species were able cause 100% mortality. However their progeny production was significantly reduced. Fly eggs and pupae were refractory to these nematode infection. Petri dish without artificial diet assay showed that, second and 3rd-instar larvae were highly susceptible to EPNs as compared to larvae provided with artificial diet. H. indica showed high virulence capacity compared to other nematodes tested. Poultry manure assay revealed that, H. indica and S. carpocapsae caused minimal mortality where as S. feltiae , S. glaseri and S. abbasi did not cause any mortality. This may be because of poor survival and limited movement of nematodes in poultry manure which may be due to ammonia, other toxic substances in poultry manure. The decrease in larval mortality in manure suggests that biocontrol of housefly by using EPNs is unlikely.

Mannose-recognition mutant of the galactose/N-acetylgalactosamine-specific C-type lectin CEL-I engineered by site-directed mutagenesis.

PubMed

Moriuchi, Hiromi; Unno, Hideaki; Goda, Shuichiro; Tateno, Hiroaki; Hirabayashi, Jun; Hatakeyama, Tomomitsu

2015-07-01

CEL-I is a galactose/N-acetylgalactosamine-specific C-type lectin isolated from the sea cucumber Cucumaria echinata. Its carbohydrate-binding site contains a QPD (Gln-Pro-Asp) motif, which is generally recognized as the galactose specificity-determining motif in the C-type lectins. In our previous study, replacement of the QPD motif by an EPN (Glu-Pro-Asn) motif led to a weak binding affinity for mannose. Therefore, we examined the effects of an additional mutation in the carbohydrate-binding site on the specificity of the lectin. Trp105 of EPN-CEL-I was replaced by a histidine residue using site-directed mutagenesis, and the binding affinity of the resulting mutant, EPNH-CEL-I, was examined by sugar-polyamidoamine dendrimer assay, isothermal titration calorimetry, and glycoconjugate microarray analysis. Tertiary structure of the EPNH-CEL-I/mannose complex was determined by X-ray crystallographic analysis. Sugar-polyamidoamine dendrimer assay and glycoconjugate microarray analysis revealed a drastic change in the specificity of EPNH-CEL-I from galactose/N-acetylgalactosamine to mannose. The association constant of EPNH-CEL-I for mannose was determined to be 3.17×10(3) M(-1) at 25°C. Mannose specificity of EPNH-CEL-I was achieved by stabilization of the binding of mannose in a correct orientation, in which the EPN motif can form proper hydrogen bonds with 3- and 4-hydroxy groups of the bound mannose. Specificity of CEL-I can be engineered by mutating a limited number of amino acid residues in addition to the QPD/EPN motifs. Versatility of the C-type carbohydrate-recognition domain structure in the recognition of various carbohydrate chains could become a promising platform to develop novel molecular recognition proteins. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ecotoxicology of phenylphosphonothioates.

PubMed Central

Francis, B M; Hansen, L G; Fukuto, T R; Lu, P Y; Metcalf, R L

1980-01-01

The phenylphosphonothioate insecticides EPN and leptophos, and several analogs, were evaluated with respect to their delayed neurotoxic effects in hens and their environmental behavior in a terrestrial-aquatic model ecosystem. Acute toxicity to insects was highly correlated with sigma sigma of the substituted phenyl group (regression coefficient r = -0.91) while acute toxicity to mammals was slightly less well correlated (regression coefficient r = -0.71), and neurotoxicity was poorly correlated with sigma sigma (regression coefficient r = -0.35). Both EPN and leptophos were markedly more persistent and bioaccumulative in the model ecosystem than parathion. Desbromoleptophos, a contaminant and metabolite of leptophos, was seen to be a highly stable and persistent terminal residue of leptophos. PMID:6159210

The influence of organic matter content and media compaction on the dispersal of entomopathogenic nematodes with different foraging strategies.

PubMed

Kapranas, Apostolos; Maher, Abigail M D; Griffin, Christine T

2017-12-01

In laboratory experiments, we investigated how media with varying ratio of peat:sand and two levels of compaction influence dispersal success of entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) species with different foraging strategies: Steinernema carpocapsae (ambusher), Heterorhabditis downesi (cruiser) and Steinernema feltiae (intermediate). Success was measured by the numbers of nematodes moving through a 4 cm column and invading a wax moth larva. We found that both compaction and increasing peat content generally decreased EPN infective juvenile (IJ) success for all three species. Of the three species, H. downesi was the least affected by peat content, and S. carpocapsae was the most adversely influenced by compaction. In addition, sex ratios of the invading IJs of the two Steinernema species were differentially influenced by peat content, and in the case of S. feltiae, sex ratio was also affected by compaction. This indicates that dispersal of male and female IJs is differentially affected by soil parameters and that this differentiation is species-specific. In conclusion, our study shows that organic matter: sand ratio and soil compaction have a marked influence on EPN foraging behaviour with implications for harnessing them as biological pest control agents.

Evaluation of entomopathogenic nematodes and the supernatants of the in vitro culture medium of their mutualistic bacteria for the control of the root-knot nematodes Meloidogyne incognita and M. arenaria.

PubMed

Kepenekci, Ilker; Hazir, Selcuk; Lewis, Edwin E

2016-02-01

The suppressive effects of various formulations of four entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) species and the supernatants of their mutualistic bacteria on the root-knot nematodes (RKNs) Meloidogyne incognita and M. arenaria in tomato roots were evaluated. The EPNs Steinernema carpocapsae, S. feltiae, S. glaseri and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora were applied as either live infective juveniles (IJs) or infected insect cadavers. Spent medium from culturing the bacterial symbionts Xenorhabdus bovienii and Photorhabdus luminescens kayaii with the cells removed was also applied without their nematode partners. The aqueous suspensions of IJs, infected cadaver applications of EPNs and especially treatments of X. bovienii supernatant suppressed the negative impact of RKNs on tomatoes. Specific responses to treatment were reduced RKN egg masses, increased plant height and increased fresh and dry weights compared with the control where only RKNs were applied. Among the treatments tested, the plant-dipping method of X. bovienii into bacterial culture fluid may be the most practical and effective method for M. incognita and M. arenaria control. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry.

Alteration of the carbohydrate-binding specificity of a C-type lectin CEL-I mutant with an EPN carbohydrate-binding motif.

PubMed

Hatakeyama, Tomomitsu; Ishimine, Tomohiro; Baba, Tomohiro; Kimura, Masanari; Unno, Hideaki; Goda, Shuichiro

2013-07-01

CEL-I is a Gal/GalNAc-specific C-type lectin isolated from the sea cucumber Cucumaria echinata. This lectin is composed of two carbohydrate-recognition domains (CRDs) with the carbohydrate-recognition motif QPD (Gln-Pro- Asp), which is generally known to exist in galactose-specific C-type CRDs. In the present study, a mutant CEL-I with EPN (Glu-Pro-Asn) motif, which is thought to be responsible for the carbohydrate-recognition of mannose-specific Ctype CRDs, was produced in Escherichia coli, and its effects on the carbohydrate-binding specificity were examined using polyamidoamine dendrimer (PD) conjugated with carbohydrates. Although wild-type CEL-I effectively formed complexes with N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc)-PD but not with mannose-PD, the mutant CEL-I showed relatively weak but definite affinity for mannose-PD. These results indicated that the QPD and EPN motifs play a significant role in the carbohydrate-recognition mechanism of CEL-I, especially in the discrimination of galactose and mannose. Additional mutations in the recombinant CEL-I binding site may further increase its specificity for mannose, and should provide insights into designing novel carbohydrate-recognition proteins.

The endocrine-gland-derived vascular endothelial growth factor (EG-VEGF)/prokineticin 1 and 2 and receptor expression in human prostate: Up-regulation of EG-VEGF/prokineticin 1 with malignancy.

PubMed

Pasquali, Daniela; Rossi, Valentina; Staibano, Stefania; De Rosa, Gaetano; Chieffi, Paolo; Prezioso, Domenico; Mirone, Vincenzo; Mascolo, Massimo; Tramontano, Donatella; Bellastella, Antonio; Sinisi, Antonio Agostino

2006-09-01

A new family of angiogenic factors named endocrine-gland-derived vascular endothelial growth factors (EG-VEGF)/prokineticins (PK) have been recently described as predominantly expressed in steroidogenic tissues. Whether the normal and malignant epithelial prostate cells and tissues express EG-VEGF/PK1 and PK2 and their receptors is still unknown. We studied the expression of EG-VEGF/PK1 and PK2 and their receptors (PK-R1 and PK-R2) in human prostate and their involvement in cancer. Using immunohistochemistry, Western blot, and RT-PCR, we determined the expression of EG-VEGF/PK1 in normal prostate (NP) and malignant prostate tissues (PCa), in epithelial cell primary cultures from normal prostate (NPEC) and malignant prostate (CPEC) and in a panel of prostate cell lines. In NPEC, CPEC, and in EPN, a nontransformed human prostate epithelial cell line, EG-VEGF/PK1, PK2, PK-R1, and PK-R2 mRNA levels were evaluated by quantitative RT-PCR. EG-VEGF/PK1 transcript was found in PCa, in CPEC, in EPN, and in LNCaP, whereas it was detected at low level in NP and in NPEC. EG-VEGF/PK1 was absent in androgen-independent PC3 and DU-145 cell lines. Immunochemistry confirmed that EG-VEGF/PK1 protein expression was restricted to hyperplastic and malignant prostate tissues, localized in the glandular epithelial cells, and progressively increased with the prostate cancer Gleason score advancement. EG-VEGF/PK1 and PK2 were weakly expressed in NPEC and EPN. On the other hand, their transcripts were highly detected in CPEC. PK-R1 and PK-R2 were found in NPEC, EPN, and CPEC. Interestingly, CPEC showed a significantly (P < 0.05) higher expression of EG-VEGF/PK1, PK2, PK-R1, and PK-R2 compared with NPEC and EPN. We demonstrated that PKs and their receptors are expressed in human prostate and that their levels increased with prostate malignancy. It may imply that EG-VEGF/PK1 could be involved in prostate carcinogenesis, probably regulating angiogenesis. Thus, the level of EG-VEGF/PK1 could be useful for prostate cancer outcome evaluation and as a target for prostate cancer treatment in the future.

Processing of unattended, simple negative pictures resists perceptual load.

PubMed

Sand, Anders; Wiens, Stefan

2011-05-11

As researchers debate whether emotional pictures can be processed irrespective of spatial attention and perceptual load, negative and neutral pictures of simple figure-ground composition were shown at fixation and were surrounded by one, two, or three letters. When participants performed a picture discrimination task, there was evidence for motivated attention; that is, an early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) to negative versus neutral pictures. When participants performed a letter discrimination task, the EPN was unaffected whereas the LPP was reduced. Although performance decreased substantially with the number of letters (one to three), the LPP did not decrease further. Therefore, attention to simple, negative pictures at fixation seems to resist manipulations of perceptual load.

Post-Decision Wagering Affects Metacognitive Awareness of Emotional Stimuli: An Event Related Potential Study

PubMed Central

Wierzchoń, Michał; Wronka, Eligiusz; Paulewicz, Borysław; Szczepanowski, Remigiusz

2016-01-01

The present research investigated metacognitive awareness of emotional stimuli and its psychophysiological correlates. We used a backward masking task presenting participants with fearful or neutral faces. We asked participants for face discrimination and then probed their metacognitive awareness with confidence rating (CR) and post-decision wagering (PDW) scales. We also analysed psychophysiological correlates of awareness with event-related potential (ERP) components: P1, N170, early posterior negativity (EPN), and P3. We have not observed any differences between PDW and CR conditions in the emotion identification task. However, the "aware" ratings were associated with increased accuracy performance. This effect was more pronounced in PDW, especially for fearful faces, suggesting that emotional stimuli awareness may be enhanced by monetary incentives. EEG analysis showed larger N170, EPN and P3 amplitudes in aware compared to unaware trials. It also appeared that both EPN and P3 ERP components were more pronounced in the PDW condition, especially when emotional faces were presented. Taken together, our ERP findings suggest that metacognitive awareness of emotional stimuli depends on the effectiveness of both early and late visual information processing. Our study also indicates that awareness of emotional stimuli can be enhanced by the motivation induced by wagering. PMID:27490816

Post-Decision Wagering Affects Metacognitive Awareness of Emotional Stimuli: An Event Related Potential Study.

PubMed

Wierzchoń, Michał; Wronka, Eligiusz; Paulewicz, Borysław; Szczepanowski, Remigiusz

2016-01-01

The present research investigated metacognitive awareness of emotional stimuli and its psychophysiological correlates. We used a backward masking task presenting participants with fearful or neutral faces. We asked participants for face discrimination and then probed their metacognitive awareness with confidence rating (CR) and post-decision wagering (PDW) scales. We also analysed psychophysiological correlates of awareness with event-related potential (ERP) components: P1, N170, early posterior negativity (EPN), and P3. We have not observed any differences between PDW and CR conditions in the emotion identification task. However, the "aware" ratings were associated with increased accuracy performance. This effect was more pronounced in PDW, especially for fearful faces, suggesting that emotional stimuli awareness may be enhanced by monetary incentives. EEG analysis showed larger N170, EPN and P3 amplitudes in aware compared to unaware trials. It also appeared that both EPN and P3 ERP components were more pronounced in the PDW condition, especially when emotional faces were presented. Taken together, our ERP findings suggest that metacognitive awareness of emotional stimuli depends on the effectiveness of both early and late visual information processing. Our study also indicates that awareness of emotional stimuli can be enhanced by the motivation induced by wagering.

Neurophysiological Markers of Emotion Processing in Burnout Syndrome.

PubMed

Golonka, Krystyna; Mojsa-Kaja, Justyna; Popiel, Katarzyna; Marek, Tadeusz; Gawlowska, Magda

2017-01-01

The substantial body of research employing subjective measures indicates that burnout syndrome is associated with cognitive and emotional dysfunctions. The growing amount of neurophysiological and neuroimaging research helps in broadening existing knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying core burnout components (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization/cynicism) that are inextricably associated with emotional processing. In the presented EEG study, a group of 93 participants (55 women; mean age = 35.8) were selected for the burnout group or the demographically matched control group on the basis of the results of the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS). Subjects then participated in an EEG experiment using two experimental procedures: a facial recognition task and viewing of passive pictures. The study focuses on analyzing event-related potentials (ERPs): N170, VPP, EPN, and LPP, as indicators of emotional information processing. Our results show that burnout subjects, as compared to the control group, demonstrate significantly weaker response to affect-evoking stimuli, indexed by a decline in VPP amplitude to emotional faces and decreased EPN amplitude in processing emotional scenes. The analysis of N170 and LPP showed no significant between-group difference. The correlation analyses revealed that VPP and EPN, which are ERP components related to emotional processing, are associated with two core burnout symptoms: emotional exhaustion and cynicism. To our knowledge, we are one of the first research groups to use ERPs to demonstrate such a relationship between neurophysiological activity and burnout syndrome in the context of emotional processing. Thus, in conclusion we emphasized that the decreased amplitude of VPP and EPN components in the burnout group may be a neurophysiological manifestation of emotional blunting and may be considered as neurophysiological markers of emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Additionally, we did not observe a decrease in LPP, which may be considered as a marker that significantly differentiates burnout from depression.

Neurophysiological Markers of Emotion Processing in Burnout Syndrome

PubMed Central

Golonka, Krystyna; Mojsa-Kaja, Justyna; Popiel, Katarzyna; Marek, Tadeusz; Gawlowska, Magda

2017-01-01

The substantial body of research employing subjective measures indicates that burnout syndrome is associated with cognitive and emotional dysfunctions. The growing amount of neurophysiological and neuroimaging research helps in broadening existing knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying core burnout components (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization/cynicism) that are inextricably associated with emotional processing. In the presented EEG study, a group of 93 participants (55 women; mean age = 35.8) were selected for the burnout group or the demographically matched control group on the basis of the results of the Maslach Burnout Inventory – General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS). Subjects then participated in an EEG experiment using two experimental procedures: a facial recognition task and viewing of passive pictures. The study focuses on analyzing event-related potentials (ERPs): N170, VPP, EPN, and LPP, as indicators of emotional information processing. Our results show that burnout subjects, as compared to the control group, demonstrate significantly weaker response to affect-evoking stimuli, indexed by a decline in VPP amplitude to emotional faces and decreased EPN amplitude in processing emotional scenes. The analysis of N170 and LPP showed no significant between-group difference. The correlation analyses revealed that VPP and EPN, which are ERP components related to emotional processing, are associated with two core burnout symptoms: emotional exhaustion and cynicism. To our knowledge, we are one of the first research groups to use ERPs to demonstrate such a relationship between neurophysiological activity and burnout syndrome in the context of emotional processing. Thus, in conclusion we emphasized that the decreased amplitude of VPP and EPN components in the burnout group may be a neurophysiological manifestation of emotional blunting and may be considered as neurophysiological markers of emotional exhaustion and cynicism. Additionally, we did not observe a decrease in LPP, which may be considered as a marker that significantly differentiates burnout from depression. PMID:29326619

Viability and Virulence of Entomopathogenic Nematodes Exposed to Ultraviolet Radiation.

PubMed

Shapiro-Ilan, David I; Hazir, Selcuk; Lete, Luis

2015-09-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) can be highly effective biocontrol agents, but their efficacy can be reduced due to exposure to environmental stress such as from ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Our objectives were to 1) compare UV tolerance among a broad array of EPN species, and 2) investigate the relationship between reduced nematode viability (after exposure to UV) and virulence. Nematodes exposed to a UV radiation (254 nm) for 10 or 20 min were assessed separately for viability (survival) and virulence to Galleria mellonella. We compared 9 different EPN species and 15 strains: Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Baine, fl11, Oswego, and Vs strains), H. floridensis (332), H. georgiana (Kesha), H. indica (HOM1), H. megidis (UK211), Steinernema carpocapsae (All, Cxrd, DD136, and Sal strains), S. feltiae (SN), S. rarum (17C&E), and S. riobrave (355). In viability assessments, steinernematids, particularly strains of S. carpocapsae, generally exhibited superior UV tolerance compared with the heterorhabditids. However, some heterorhabditids tended to be more tolerant than others, e.g., H. megidis and H. bacteriophora (Baine) were most susceptible and H. bacteriophora (Vs) was the only heterorhabditid that did not exhibit a significant effect after 10 min of exposure. All heterorhabditids experienced reduced viability after 20 min exposure though several S. carpocapsae strains did not. In total, after 10 or 20 min exposure, the viability of seven nematode strains did not differ from their non-UV exposed controls. In virulence assays, steinernematids (particularly S. carpocapsae strains) also tended to exhibit higher UV tolerance. However, in contrast to the viability measurements, all nematodes experienced a reduction in virulence relative to their controls. Correlation analysis revealed that viability among nematode strains is not necessarily related to virulence. In conclusion, our results indicate that the impact of UV varies substantially among EPNs, and viability alone is not a sufficient measure for potential impact on biocontrol efficacy as other characters such as virulence may be severely affected even when viability remains high.

Application of the Undifferenced GNSS Precise Positioning in Determining Coordinates in National Reference Frames

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Krzan, Grzegorz; Stępniak, Katarzyna

2017-09-01

In high-accuracy positioning using GNSS, the most common solution is still relative positioning using double-difference observations of dual-frequency measurements. An increasingly popular alternative to relative positioning are undifferenced approaches, which are designed to make full use of modern satellite systems and signals. Positions referenced to global International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF2008) obtained from Precise Point Positioning (PPP) or Undifferenced (UD) network solutions have to be transformed to national (regional) reference frame, which introduces additional bases related to the transformation process. In this paper, satellite observations from two test networks using different observation time series were processed. The first test concerns the positioning accuracy from processing one year of dual-frequency GPS observations from 14 EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) stations using NAPEOS 3.3.1 software. The results were transformed into a national reference frame (PL-ETRF2000) and compared to positions from an EPN cumulative solution, which was adopted as the true coordinates. Daily observations were processed using PPP and UD multi-station solutions to determine the final accuracy resulting from satellite positioning, the transformation to national coordinate systems and Eurasian intraplate plate velocities. The second numerical test involved similar processing strategies of post-processing carried out using different observation time series (30 min., 1 hour, 2 hours, daily) and different classes of GNSS receivers. The centimeter accuracy of results presented in the national coordinate system satisfies the requirements of many surveying and engineering applications.

A Population of Projection Neurons that Inhibits the Lateral Horn but Excites the Antennal Lobe through Chemical Synapses in Drosophila

PubMed Central

Shimizu, Kazumichi; Stopfer, Mark

2017-01-01

In the insect olfactory system, odor information is transferred from the antennal lobe (AL) to higher brain areas by projection neurons (PNs) in multiple AL tracts (ALTs). In several species, one of the ALTs, the mediolateral ALT (mlALT), contains some GABAergic PNs; in the Drosophila brain, the great majority of ventral PNs (vPNs) are GABAergic and project through this tract to the lateral horn (LH). Most excitatory PNs (ePNs), project through the medial ALT (mALT) to the mushroom body (MB) and the LH. Recent studies have shown that GABAergic vPNs play inhibitory roles at their axon terminals in the LH. However, little is known about the properties and functions of vPNs at their dendritic branches in the AL. Here, we used optogenetic and patch clamp techniques to investigate the functional roles of vPNs in the AL. Surprisingly, our results show that specific activation of vPNs reliably elicits strong excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) in ePNs. Moreover, the connections between vPNs and ePNs are mediated by direct chemical synapses. Neither pulses of GABA, nor pharmagological, or genetic blockade of GABAergic transmission gave results consistent with the involvement of GABA in vPN-ePN excitatory transmission. These unexpected results suggest new roles for the vPN population in olfactory information processing. PMID:28515683

Neuroprotective effect of curcumin in arsenic-induced neurotoxicity in rats.

PubMed

Yadav, Rajesh S; Shukla, Rajendra K; Sankhwar, Madhu Lata; Patel, Devendra K; Ansari, Reyaz W; Pant, Aditya B; Islam, Fakhrul; Khanna, Vinay K

2010-09-01

Our recent studies have shown that arsenic-induced neurobehavioral toxicity is protected by curcumin by modulating oxidative stress and dopaminergic functions in rats. In addition, the neuroprotective effect of curcumin has been investigated on arsenic-induced alterations in biogenic amines, their metabolites and nitric oxide (NO), which play an important role in neurotransmission process. Decrease in the levels of dopamine (DA, 28%), norepinephrine (NE, 54%), epinephrine (EPN, 46%), serotonin (5-HT, 44%), 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC, 20%) and homovanillic acid (HVA, 31%) in corpus striatum; DA (51%), NE (22%), EPN (47%), 5-HT (25%), DOPAC (34%) and HVA (41%) in frontal cortex and DA (35%), NE (35%), EPN (29%), 5-HT (54%), DOPAC (37%) and HVA (46%) in hippocampus, observed in arsenic (sodium arsenite, 20 mg/kg body weight, p.o., 28 days) treated rats exhibited a trend of recovery in rats simultaneously treated with arsenic and curcumin (100 mg/kg body weight, p.o., 28 days). Increased levels of NO in corpus striatum (2.4-fold), frontal cortex (6.1-fold) and hippocampus (6.2-fold) in arsenic-treated rats were found decreased in rats simultaneously treated with arsenic and curcumin. It is evident that curcumin modulates levels of brain biogenic amines and NO in arsenic-exposed rats and these results further strengthen its neuroprotective efficacy. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Population of Projection Neurons that Inhibits the Lateral Horn but Excites the Antennal Lobe through Chemical Synapses in Drosophila.

PubMed

Shimizu, Kazumichi; Stopfer, Mark

2017-01-01

In the insect olfactory system, odor information is transferred from the antennal lobe (AL) to higher brain areas by projection neurons (PNs) in multiple AL tracts (ALTs). In several species, one of the ALTs, the mediolateral ALT (mlALT), contains some GABAergic PNs; in the Drosophila brain, the great majority of ventral PNs (vPNs) are GABAergic and project through this tract to the lateral horn (LH). Most excitatory PNs (ePNs), project through the medial ALT (mALT) to the mushroom body (MB) and the LH. Recent studies have shown that GABAergic vPNs play inhibitory roles at their axon terminals in the LH. However, little is known about the properties and functions of vPNs at their dendritic branches in the AL. Here, we used optogenetic and patch clamp techniques to investigate the functional roles of vPNs in the AL. Surprisingly, our results show that specific activation of vPNs reliably elicits strong excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) in ePNs. Moreover, the connections between vPNs and ePNs are mediated by direct chemical synapses. Neither pulses of GABA, nor pharmagological, or genetic blockade of GABAergic transmission gave results consistent with the involvement of GABA in vPN-ePN excitatory transmission. These unexpected results suggest new roles for the vPN population in olfactory information processing.

Coastal Vertical Land motion in the German Bight

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Becker, Matthias; Fenoglio, Luciana; Reckeweg, Florian

2017-04-01

In the framework of the ESA Sea Level Climate Change Initiative (CCI) we analyse a set of GNSS equipped tide gauges at the German Bight. Main goals are the determination of tropospheric zenith delay corrections for altimetric observations, precise coordinates in ITRF2008 and vertical land motion (VLM) rates of the tide gauge stations. These are to be used for georeferencing the tide gauges and the correction of tide gauge observations for VLM. The set of stations includes 38 GNSS stations. 19 stations are in the German Bight, where 15 of them belong to the Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde, 3 to EUREF and 1 to GREF. These stations are collocated with tide gauges (TGs). The other 19 GNSS stations in the network belong to EUREF, IGS and GREF. We analyse data in the time span from 2008 till the end of 2016 with the Bernese PPP processing approach. Data are partly rather noisy and disturbed by offsets and data gaps at the coastal TG sites. Special effort is therefore put into a proper estimation of the VLM. We use FODITS (Ostini2012), HECTOR (Bos et al, 2013), CATS (Williams, 2003) and the MIDAS approach of Blewitt (2016) to robustly derive rates and realistic error estimates. The results are compared to those published by the European Permanent Network (EPN), ITRF and the Système d'Observation du Niveau des Eaux Littorales (SONEL) for common stations. Vertical motion is small in general, at the -1 to -2 mm/yr level for most coastal stations. A comparison of the standard deviations of the velocity differences to EPN with the mean values of the estimated velocity standard deviations for our solution shows a very good agreement of the estimated velocities and their standard deviations with the reference solution from EPN. In the comparison with results by SONEL the standard deviation of the differences is slightly higher. The discrepancies may arise from differences in the time span analyzed and gaps, offsets and data preprocessing. The combined estimation of functional and stochastic parameters is rather sensitive to the characteristics of the time series and thus the estimated velocity also depends on the applied stochastic model and on the selected parameters. The GPS vertical land motion rates are finally compared to the difference between sea level rates measured by co-located altimetry and by tide gauge station data, which gives another estimation of VLM.

GNSS Network time series analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Normand, M.; Balodis, J.; Janpaule, I.; Haritonova, D.

2012-12-01

Time series of GNSS station results of both the EUPOS®-Riga and LatPos networks have been developed at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation (University of Latvia) using Bernese v.5.0 software. The base stations were selected among the EPN and IGS stations in surroundings of Latvia at the distances up to 700 km. The results of time series are analysed and coordinate velocity vectors have been determined. The background of the map of tectonic faults helps to interpret the GNSS station coordinate velocity vector behaviour in proper environment. The outlying situations recognized. The question still aroused on the nature of the some of outlying situations. The dependence from various influences has been tested.

Attention and emotion: an ERP analysis of facilitated emotional stimulus processing.

PubMed

Schupp, Harald T; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2003-06-11

Recent event-related potential studies observed an early posterior negativity (EPN) reflecting facilitated processing of emotional images. The present study explored if the facilitated processing of emotional pictures is sustained while subjects perform an explicit non-emotional attention task. EEG was recorded from 129 channels while subjects viewed a rapid continuous stream of images containing emotional pictures as well as task-related checkerboard images. As expected, explicit selective attention to target images elicited large P3 waves. Interestingly, emotional stimuli guided stimulus-driven selective encoding as reflected by augmented EPN amplitudes to emotional stimuli, in particular to stimuli of evolutionary significance (erotic contents, mutilations, and threat). These data demonstrate the selective encoding of emotional stimuli while top-down attentional control was directed towards non-emotional target stimuli.

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex.

PubMed

Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2007-02-22

Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (approximately 150-300 ms poststimulus). The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b). Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task-relevant stimuli. The present data suggest that interference of emotion processing by competing task demands is a more general phenomenon extending to the domain of feature-based attention. Furthermore, the results are inconsistent with the notion of effortlessness, i.e., early emotion discrimination despite concurrent task demands. These findings implicate to assess the presumed automatic nature of emotion processing at the level of specific aspects rather than considering automaticity as an all-or-none phenomenon.

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex

PubMed Central

Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2007-01-01

Background Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (~150–300 ms poststimulus). The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Results Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b). Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. Conclusion The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task-relevant stimuli. The present data suggest that interference of emotion processing by competing task demands is a more general phenomenon extending to the domain of feature-based attention. Furthermore, the results are inconsistent with the notion of effortlessness, i.e., early emotion discrimination despite concurrent task demands. These findings implicate to assess the presumed automatic nature of emotion processing at the level of specific aspects rather than considering automaticity as an all-or-none phenomenon. PMID:17316444

Nanoparticles for the delivery of zoledronic acid to prostate cancer cells: A comparative analysis through time lapse video-microscopy technique

PubMed Central

Schiraldi, Chiara; Zappavigna, Silvia; D' Agostino, Antonella; Porto, Stefania; Gaito, Ornella; Lusa, Sara; Lamberti, Monica; De Rosa, Mario; De Rosa, Giuseppe; Caraglia, Michele

2014-01-01

Time-lapse live cell imaging is a powerful tool for studying the responses of cells to drugs. Zoledronic acid (ZOL) is the most potent aminobiphosphonate able to induce cell growth inhibition at very low concentrations. The lack of clear evidence of ZOL-induced anti-cancer effects is likely due to its unfavorable pharmacokinetic profile. The use of nanotechnology-based formulations allows overcoming these limitations in ZOL pharmaco-distribution. Recently, stealth liposomes (LIPOs) and new self-assembly PEGylated nanoparticles (NPs) encapsulating ZOL were developed. Both the delivery systems showed promising anticancer activity in vitro and in vivo. In this work, we investigated the cytostatic effect of these novel formulations (LIPOs and NPs) compared with free ZOL on 2 different prostate cancer cell lines, PC 3 and DU 145 and on prostate epithelial primary cells EPN using time lapse video-microscopy (TLVM). In PC3 cells, free ZOL showed a significant anti-proliferative effect but this effect was lower than that induced by LIPOs and NPs encapsulating ZOL; moreover, LIPO-ZOL was more potent in inducing growth inhibition than NP-ZOL. On the other hand, LIPO-ZOL slightly enhanced the free ZOL activity on growth inhibition of DU 145, while the anti-proliferative effect of NP-ZOL was not statistically relevant. These novel formulations did not induce anti-proliferative effects on EPN cells. Finally, we evaluated cytotoxic effects on DU145 where, LIPO-ZOL induced the highest cytotoxicity compared with NP-ZOL and free ZOL. In conclusion, ZOL can be transformed in a powerful anticancer agent, if administered with nanotechnology-based formulations without damaging the healthy tissues. PMID:25482949

Isolation of entomopathogenic nematodes in an apple orchard in Southern Brazil and its virulence to Anastrepha fraterculus (Diptera: Tephritidae) larvae, under laboratory conditions.

PubMed

Foelkel, E; Voss, M; Monteiro, L B; Nishimura, G

2017-03-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) are a promising alternative to integrated control in many fruit pests. Few studies were made on the relationship of Anastrepha fraterculus natural population with native EPNs population and other biotic and abiotic factors. The aim of this work was to verify the occurrence of endemic nematodes in an apple orchard, concerning environmental conditions and technical procedure, and access isolates virulence to A. fraterculus larvae. The experiment was conducted during a year taking monthly soil samples from an apple orchard, with and without fallen fruits just above the soil. Samples were baited with Tenebrium molitor and A. fraterculus larvae in laboratory. Canopy and fallen fruits were sampled to access the pest infestation. Seventy three EPN isolates were captured, in 23.2% soil samples, more with T. molitor than with A. fraterculus baits. From the 20 isolates tested against A. fraterculus, only five were pathogenic, and they were identified as Oscheius sp. The nematodes were captured during all seasons in a similar frequency. Soil and weather conditions, presence of fruit over the orchard soil, and A. fraterculus pupae in the fruits had no significant influence on the capture. As a conclusion, nematodes of the genera Oscheius are found in an apple orchard of Porto Amazonas constantly along the year, independently of fluctuations in A. fraterculus population, climate conditions and presence of fruit over the soil. Some of the isolates are pathogenic to A. fraterculus.

Percutaneous drainage and/or nephrectomy in the treatment of emphysematous pyelonephritis.

PubMed

Mydlo, Jack H; Maybee, Gabrielle J; Ali-Khan, Mustafa M

2003-01-01

To assess the current and past literature relating to the differential treatment of emphysematous pyelonephritis (EPN). Some of the newer literature suggests percutaneous drainage (PCD), as compared to the standard nephrectomy, as a better modality. Since these two may complement each other, we sought to seek indications when to perform each treatment. Medline and MD Consult were used for our journal review. Ten articles, ranging from 1980 to 2000, were chosen, which covered 162 patients. The criteria for selecting these articles were study size (n < 3 were excluded) and non-overlapping of patient information. Patient data was then used to certain risks of the various treatment modalities. Due to the lack of randomization of the studies, it is difficult to say whether PCD is superior to nephrectomy or not. It appears to be that each treatment may complement each other, and that treatment should be individualized based on the severity of the EPN and the medical condition of the patient. PCD though appears to be acceptable for use in the initial phases of the disease. However, long-term data is lacking to corroborate the overall benefit of PCD compared to nephrectomy. PCD could be utilized initially in some cases of EPN if certain conditions exist. This treatment may complement nephrectomy if the need exists, and therefore, treatment may be staged. Truly randomized studies need to be done to determine if one treatment is better than the other, and provide documented long-term follow-up of these patients.

Does the Slow-Growth, High-Mortality Hypothesis Apply Below Ground?

PubMed

Hourston, James E; Bennett, Alison E; Johnson, Scott N; Gange, Alan C

2016-01-01

Belowground tri-trophic study systems present a challenging environment in which to study plant-herbivore-natural enemy interactions. For this reason, belowground examples are rarely available for testing general ecological theories. To redress this imbalance, we present, for the first time, data on a belowground tri-trophic system to test the slow growth, high mortality hypothesis. We investigated whether the differing performance of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) in controlling the common pest black vine weevil Otiorhynchus sulcatus could be linked to differently resistant cultivars of the red raspberry Rubus idaeus. The O. sulcatus larvae recovered from R. idaeus plants showed significantly slower growth and higher mortality on the Glen Rosa cultivar, relative to the more commercially favored Glen Ample cultivar creating a convenient system for testing this hypothesis. Heterorhabditis megidis was found to be less effective at controlling O. sulcatus than Steinernema kraussei, but conformed to the hypothesis. However, S. kraussei maintained high levels of O. sulcatus mortality regardless of how larval growth was influenced by R. idaeus cultivar. We link this to direct effects that S. kraussei had on reducing O. sulcatus larval mass, indicating potential sub-lethal effects of S. kraussei, which the slow-growth, high-mortality hypothesis does not account for. Possible origins of these sub-lethal effects of EPN infection and how they may impact on a hypothesis designed and tested with aboveground predator and parasitoid systems are discussed.

GNSS station displacement analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haritonova, Diana; Balodis, Janis; Janpaule, Inese; Normand, Madara

2013-04-01

Time series of GNSS station results of both the EUPOS®-Riga and LatPos networks have been developed at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation (University of Latvia). The reference stations from EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) in surroundings of Latvia have been used and Bernese GPS Software, Version 5.0, in both static and kinematic modes was applied. The standard data sets were taken from IGS data base. The results of time series have been analysed and distinctive behaviour of daily and subdaily movements of EUPOS®-Riga and LatPos stations was identified. The reasons of dependence of GNSS station coordinate distribution on possible external factors such as seismic activity of some areas of Latvia and periodic processes were given.

Investigating the effect of respiratory bodily threat on the processing of emotional pictures.

PubMed

Juravle, Georgiana; Stoeckel, Maria Cornelia; Rose, Michael; Gamer, Matthias; Büchel, Christian; Wieser, Matthias Johannes; von Leupoldt, Andreas

2014-12-01

It has been demonstrated that emotions can substantially impact the perception and neural processing of breathlessness, but little is known about the reverse interaction. Here, we examined the impact of breathlessness on emotional picture processing. The continuous EEG was recorded while volunteers viewed positive/neutral/negative emotional pictures under conditions of resistive-load-induced breathlessness, auditory noise, and an unloaded baseline. Breathlessness attenuated P1 and early posterior negativity (EPN) ERP amplitudes, irrespective of picture valence. Moreover, as expected, larger amplitudes for positive and negative pictures relative to neutral pictures were found for EPN and the late positive potential (LPP) ERPs, which were not affected by breathlessness. The results suggest that breathlessness impacts on the early attention-related neural processing of picture stimuli without influencing the later cognitive processing of emotional contents. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Does scavenging extend the host range of entomopathogenic nematodes (Nematoda: Steinernematidae)?

PubMed

Půza, Vladimír; Mrácek, Zdenĕk

2010-05-01

Living and freeze-killed natural and laboratory hosts, with different susceptibility to entomopathogenic nematodes, were exposed to the larvae of Steinernema affine and Steinernema kraussei in two different experimental arenas (Eppendorf tubes, Petri dishes), and the success of the colonisation and eventual progeny production were observed. Both nematodes were able to colonise both living and dead larvae of Galleria mellonella (Lepidoptera) and adult Blatella germanica (Blattodea) even though the progeny production in dead hosts was lower on average. Living carabid beetles, Poecilus cupreus, and elaterid larvae (Coleoptera) were resistant to the infection, however, both nematodes were able to colonise and multiply in several dead P. cupreus and in a majority of dead elaterid larvae. By scavenging, EPNs can utilise cadavers of insects that are naturally resistant to EPN infection, and so broaden their host range. (c) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Epsin Family Member 3 and Ribosome-Related Genes Are Associated with Late Metastasis in Estrogen Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer and Long-Term Survival in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Using a Genome-Wide Identification and Validation Strategy.

PubMed

Hellwig, Birte; Madjar, Katrin; Edlund, Karolina; Marchan, Rosemarie; Cadenas, Cristina; Heimes, Anne-Sophie; Almstedt, Katrin; Lebrecht, Antje; Sicking, Isabel; Battista, Marco J; Micke, Patrick; Schmidt, Marcus; Hengstler, Jan G; Rahnenführer, Jörg

2016-01-01

In breast cancer, gene signatures that predict the risk of metastasis after surgical tumor resection are mainly indicative of early events. The purpose of this study was to identify genes linked to metastatic recurrence more than three years after surgery. Affymetrix HG U133A and Plus 2.0 array datasets with information on metastasis-free, disease-free or overall survival were accessed via public repositories. Time restricted Cox regression models were used to identify genes associated with metastasis during or after the first three years post-surgery (early- and late-type genes). A sequential validation study design, with two non-adjuvantly treated discovery cohorts (n = 409) and one validation cohort (n = 169) was applied and identified genes were further evaluated in tamoxifen-treated breast cancer patients (n = 923), as well as in patients with non-small cell lung (n = 1779), colon (n = 893) and ovarian (n = 922) cancer. Ten late- and 243 early-type genes were identified in adjuvantly untreated breast cancer. Adjustment to clinicopathological factors and an established proliferation-related signature markedly reduced the number of early-type genes to 16, whereas nine late-type genes still remained significant. These nine genes were associated with metastasis-free survival (MFS) also in a non-time restricted model, but not in the early period alone, stressing that their prognostic impact was primarily based on MFS more than three years after surgery. Four of the ten late-type genes, the ribosome-related factors EIF4B, RPL5, RPL3, and the tumor angiogenesis modifier EPN3 were significantly associated with MFS in the late period also in a meta-analysis of tamoxifen-treated breast cancer cohorts. In contrast, only one late-type gene (EPN3) showed consistent survival associations in more than one cohort in the other cancer types, being associated with worse outcome in two non-small cell lung cancer cohorts. No late-type gene was validated in ovarian and colon cancer. Ribosome-related genes were associated with decreased risk of late metastasis in both adjuvantly untreated and tamoxifen-treated breast cancer patients. In contrast, high expression of epsin (EPN3) was associated with increased risk of late metastasis. This is of clinical relevance considering the well-understood role of epsins in tumor angiogenesis and the ongoing development of epsin antagonizing therapies.

Prognostic impact of peakVO2-changes in stable CHF on chronic beta-blocker treatment.

PubMed

Frankenstein, L; Nelles, M; Hallerbach, M; Dukic, D; Fluegel, A; Schellberg, D; Katus, H A; Remppis, A; Zugck, C

2007-11-15

Peak oxygen uptake (pVO2) is used for risk stratification in chronic heart failure (CHF), but little is known about the prognostic impact of pVO2-changes in patients on chronic beta-blocker (BBL) therapy. We therefore prospectively evaluated individual pVO2-changes at a 6-month interval in patients all receiving BBL. 194 patients with stable CHF on stable medication were included (V1) and underwent clinical evaluation and exercise testing. Testing was repeated (V2) at 5.7+/-1.5 months after V1 and patients were followed >12 months after V2. Death or hospitalisation due to cardiac reasons was the predefined EP (EPP, end-point positive; n=62; EPN, end-point negative; n=113). Initial characteristics did not differ between EPP and EPN. Multivariate cox regression analysis revealed that change of pVO2 (EPP: -0.6+/-2.6 ml/kg min; EPN: +2.5+/-3.3 ml/kg min; p<0.001) was independent to pVO2, LVEF, NTproBNP and NYHA at V2 for prediction of the combined end-point during follow-up. An increase of pVO2 by 10% was identified as an adequate cut-off value for risk stratification and ROC-analysis showed the significant incremental prognostic value of the determination of pVO2 changes in combination with pVO2. Serial measurements of pVO2 yield additional information for risk stratification in clinically homogenous CHF patients receiving BBL. This is the first study demonstrating this fact within a narrow predefined interval with all patients on BBL.

Entomopathogenic nematodes for the control of the codling moth (Cydia pomonella L.) in field and laboratory trials.

PubMed

Odendaal, D; Addison, M F; Malan, A P

2016-09-01

Three commercially available entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) strains (Steinernema feltiae and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora Hb1 and Hb2) and two local species (S. jeffreyense and S. yirgalemense) were evaluated for the control of the codling moth (Cydia pomonella). In field spray trials, the use of S. jeffreyense resulted in the most effective control (67%), followed by H. bacteriophora (Hb1) (42%) and S. yirgalemense (41%). Laboratory bioassays using spray application in simulated field conditions indicate S. feltiae to be the most virulent (67%), followed by S. yirgalemense (58%). A laboratory comparison of the infection and penetration rate of the different strains showed that, at 14°C, all EPN strains resulted in slower codling moth mortality than they did at 25°C. After 48 h, 98% mortality was recorded for all species involved. However, the washed codling moth larvae, cool-treated (at 14°C) with S. feltiae or S. yirgalemense, resulted in 100% mortality 24 h later at room temperature, whereas codling moth larvae treated with the two H. bacteriophora strains resulted in 68% and 54% control, respectively. At 14°C, S. feltiae had the highest average penetration rate of 20 IJs/larva, followed by S. yirgalemense, with 14 IJs/larva. At 25°C, S. yirgalemense had the highest penetration rate, with 39 IJs/larva, followed by S. feltiae, with 9 IJs/larva. This study highlights the biocontrol potential of S. jeffreyense, as well as confirming that S. feltiae is a cold-active nematode, whereas the other three EPN isolates tested prefer warmer temperatures.

Racial bias in empathy: Do we process dark- and fair-colored hands in pain differently? An EEG study.

PubMed

Fabi, Sarah; Leuthold, Hartmut

2018-06-01

The aim of this study was to identify racial bias influences on empathic processing from early stimulus encoding, over categorization until late motor processing stages by comparing brain responses (electroencephalogram) to pictures of fair- and dark-colored hands in painful or neutral daily-life situations. Participants performed a pain judgment task and a skin color judgment task. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) substantiated former findings of automatic empathic influences on stimulus encoding, reflected by the early posterior negativity (EPN), and late controlled influences on the stimulus categorization, as reflected by the late posterior positivity (P3b). Concerning the racial bias in empathy (RBE) effect, more positive amplitudes in the 280-340 ms time window over frontocentral electrodes in the painful than the neutral condition for fair- but not dark-colored hands speak for an early influence of racial bias. This was further supported by correlations with empathic concern scores for fair- but not dark-colored stimuli. Additionally, P3b amplitude differences between fair- and dark-colored hands to painful stimuli increased with the implicit racial attitude of participants, suggesting that the categorization stage is not completely immune to racial bias. Regarding the motor processing stages, power change values in the upper beta-band (19-30 Hz) revealed for painful compared to neutral stimuli larger facilitation of sensorimotor activity before the response and larger inhibition after the response, independent of skin color. In conclusion, present findings speak for an influence of the RBE on early perceptual encoding but also on the late categorization stage that depends on the participant's implicit attitude towards racial outgroups. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of spray volume on the deposition, viability and infectivity of entomopathogenic nematodes in a foliar spray on vegetables.

PubMed

Brusselman, Eva; Beck, Bert; Pollet, Sabien; Temmerman, Femke; Spanoghe, Pieter; Moens, Maurice; Nuyttens, David

2012-10-01

Spray volume can influence the amount of free water on the leaf surface and subsequently the ability of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) to move. In this study, an investigation was made of the effect of spray volume (548, 730 and 1095 L ha(-1) ) on the deposition, viability and infectivity of EPNs against Galleria mellonella on savoy cabbage, cauliflower and leek. Increasing spray volume decreased nematode deposition on 7.1 cm2 leek leaf discs at a 15° angle with the spray nozzle. Although the number of living nematodes observed on leek after 240 min of exposure was not significantly different between the low-volume application (548 L ha(-1) ) and the high-volume application (1095 L ha(-1) ), a greater infectivity was obtained in the latter application. The higher number of droplets deposited on the leek discs in the high-volume application may have stimulated nematode movement. No significant effect of spray volume was observed on the relative deposition of Steinernema carpocapsae on the bottom side of cauliflower and savoy cabbage leaf discs. In spite of the low S. carpocapsae deposition on the bottom side of the savoy cabbage discs, high infectivity was obtained against G. mellonella. Using the lowest spray volume on savoy cabbage, infectivity decreased with increasing exposure time, while infectivity was not affected by exposure time when a spray volume of 730 L ha(-1) or more was used. Spray volume is an important application parameter, as it affects nematode infectivity. Future research should investigate the effect of spray volume in the field and its influence on the effect of adjuvants. Copyright © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry.

New Insight into the Management of the Tomato Leaf Miner, Tuta absoluta (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae) with Entomopathogenic Nematodes.

PubMed

Kamali, Shokoofeh; Karimi, Javad; Koppenhöfer, Albrecht M

2018-02-09

The tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), is a serious threat to tomato production in the world. Due to serious issues with insecticide resistance, there is a dire need for alternative control methods. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) have potential for the biological control of T. absoluta. In the laboratory, we examined the effect of temperature, soil type, and exposure time on the efficacy of the EPN species Steinernema carpocapsae (Nematoda: Steinernematidae) and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Nematoda: Heterorhabditidae) against last-instar T. absoluta larvae. Both species caused high mortality in loamy sand (89%) and coco peat (93%) but not in sandy loam (17%). H. bacteriophora caused 92-96% mortality at 19, 25, and 31°C; S. carpocapsae caused 89-91% mortality at 25 and 31°C but only 76% at 19°C. Both species caused similar mortality levels after 65-min exposure; thereafter, mortality increased only with S. carpocapsae reaching high levels even at a low concentration. Both species infected larvae within leaf galleries. When applied to whole large tomato plants in the greenhouse, both species provided similar control levels (48-51%) at high pest densities. Both species could be incorporated as an effective alternative to synthetic insecticides into T. absoluta management programs in greenhouse tomato production. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Occurrence and distribution of Heterorhabditid populations in the Hawaiian Islands

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

A survey of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) in the Hawaiian Islands recovered Heterorhabditis indica and previously undescribed Heterorhabditis species. Using Galleria bait, morbid larvae were recovered from 187 of the 275 samples collected within 100 m of the ocean. Entomopathogenic nematodes were...

Insect cadaver applications: pros and cons

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Application of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) formulated as insect cadavers has become an alternative to aqueous application for the control of agricultural pests. In this approach, the infected insect host cadaver is applied directly to the target site and pest suppression is achieved by the inf...

Are event-related potentials to dynamic facial expressions of emotion related to individual differences in the accuracy of processing facial expressions and identity?

PubMed

Recio, Guillermo; Wilhelm, Oliver; Sommer, Werner; Hildebrandt, Andrea

2017-04-01

Despite a wealth of knowledge about the neural mechanisms behind emotional facial expression processing, little is known about how they relate to individual differences in social cognition abilities. We studied individual differences in the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by dynamic facial expressions. First, we assessed the latent structure of the ERPs, reflecting structural face processing in the N170, and the allocation of processing resources and reflexive attention to emotionally salient stimuli, in the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive complex (LPC). Then we estimated brain-behavior relationships between the ERP factors and behavioral indicators of facial identity and emotion-processing abilities. Structural models revealed that the participants who formed faster structural representations of neutral faces (i.e., shorter N170 latencies) performed better at face perception (r = -.51) and memory (r = -.42). The N170 amplitude was not related to individual differences in face cognition or emotion processing. The latent EPN factor correlated with emotion perception (r = .47) and memory (r = .32), and also with face perception abilities (r = .41). Interestingly, the latent factor representing the difference in EPN amplitudes between the two neutral control conditions (chewing and blinking movements) also correlated with emotion perception (r = .51), highlighting the importance of tracking facial changes in the perception of emotional facial expressions. The LPC factor for negative expressions correlated with the memory for emotional facial expressions. The links revealed between the latency and strength of activations of brain systems and individual differences in processing socio-emotional information provide new insights into the brain mechanisms involved in social communication.

Pathogenicity of Two Species of Entomopathogenic Nematodes Against the Greenhouse Whitefly, Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), in Laboratory and Greenhouse Experiments.

PubMed

Rezaei, Nastaran; Karimi, Javad; Hosseini, Mojtaba; Goldani, Morteza; Campos-Herrera, Raquel

2015-03-01

The greenhouse whitefly Trialeurodes vaporariorum (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) is a polyphagous pest in greenhouse crops. The efficacy of two entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN), Steinernema feltiae and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, as biological control agents against T. vaporariorum was evaluated using two model crops typical of vegetable greenhouse productions: cucumber and pepper. Laboratory tests evaluated adults and second nymphal instars for pest susceptibility to different EPN species at different concentrations of infective juveniles (IJ; 0, 25, 50, 100, 150, 200, and 250 IJ per cm(2)); subsequent greenhouse trials against second nymphal instars on cucumber and pepper plants evaluated more natural conditions. Concentrations were applied in combination with Triton X-100 (0.1% v/v), an adjuvant for increasing nematode activity. In laboratory studies, both life stages were susceptible to infection by the two nematode species, but S. feltiae recorded a lower LC50 than H. bacteriophora for both insect stages. Similarly, in greenhouse experiments, S. feltiae required lower concentrations of IJ than H. bacteriophora to reach the same mortality in nymphs. In greenhouse trials, a significant difference was observed in the triple interaction among nematode species × concentration × plant. Furthermore, the highest mortality rate of the second nymphal instars of the T. vaporariorum was obtained from the application of S. feltiae concentrated to 250 IJ/cm(2) on cucumber (49 ± 1.23%). The general mortality caused by nematodes was significantly higher in cucumber than in pepper. These promising results support further investigation for the optimization of the best EPN species/concentration in combination with insecticides or adjuvants to reach a profitable control of this greenhouse pest.

Multifaceted effects of host plants on entomopathogenic nematodes.

PubMed

Hazir, Selcuk; Shapiro-Ilan, David I; Hazir, Canan; Leite, Luis G; Cakmak, Ibrahim; Olson, Dawn

2016-03-01

The success of parasites can be impacted by multi-trophic interactions. Tritrophic interactions have been observed in parasite-herbivore-host plant systems. Here we investigate aspects of multi-trophic interactions in a system involving an entomopathogenic nematode (EPN), its insect host, and host plant. Novel issues investigated include the impact of tritrophic interactions on nematode foraging behavior, the ability of EPNs to overcome negative tritrophic effects through genetic selection, and interactions with a fourth trophic level (nematode predators). We tested infectivity of the nematode, Steinernema riobrave, to corn earworm larvae (Helicoverpa zea) in three host plants, tobacco, eggplant and tomato. Tobacco reduced nematode virulence and reproduction relative to tomato and eggplant. However, successive selection (5 passages) overcame the deficiency; selected nematodes no longer exhibited reductions in phenotypic traits. Despite the loss in virulence and reproduction nematodes, first passage S. riobrave was more attracted to frass from insects fed tobacco than insects fed on other host plants. Therefore, we hypothesized the reduced virulence and reproduction in S. riobrave infecting tobacco fed insects would be based on a self-medicating tradeoff, such as deterring predation. We tested this hypothesis by assessing predatory success of the mite Sancassania polyphyllae and the springtail Sinella curviseta on nematodes reared on tobacco-fed larvae versus those fed on greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, tomato fed larvae, or eggplant fed larvae. No advantage was observed in nematodes derived from tobacco fed larvae. In conclusion, our results indicated that insect-host plant diet has an important effect on nematode foraging, infectivity and reproduction. However, negative host plant effects, might be overcome through directed selection. We propose that host plant species should be considered when designing biocontrol programs using EPNs. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Event-related potentials of self-face recognition in children with pervasive developmental disorders.

PubMed

Gunji, Atsuko; Inagaki, Masumi; Inoue, Yuki; Takeshima, Yasuyuki; Kaga, Makiko

2009-02-01

Patients with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) often have difficulty reading facial expressions and deciphering their implied meaning. We focused on semantic encoding related to face cognition to investigate event-related potentials (ERPs) to the subject's own face and familiar faces in children with and without PDD. Eight children with PDD (seven boys and one girl; aged 10.8+/-2.9 years; one left-handed) and nine age-matched typically developing children (four boys and five girls; aged 11.3+/-2.3 years; one left-handed) participated in this study. The stimuli consisted of three face images (self, familiar, and unfamiliar faces), one scrambled face image, and one object image (e.g., cup) with gray scale. We confirmed three major components: N170 and early posterior negativity (EPN) in the occipito-temporal regions (T5 and T6) and P300 in the parietal region (Pz). An enhanced N170 was observed as a face-specific response in all subjects. However, semantic encoding of each face might be unrelated to N170 because the amplitude and latency were not significantly different among the face conditions. On the other hand, an additional component after N170, EPN which was calculated in each subtracted waveform (self vs. familiar and familiar vs. unfamiliar), indicated self-awareness and familiarity with respect to face cognition in the control adults and children. Furthermore, the P300 amplitude in the control adults was significantly greater in the self-face condition than in the familiar-face condition. However, no significant differences in the EPN and P300 components were observed among the self-, familiar-, and unfamiliar-face conditions in the PDD children. The results suggest a deficit of semantic encoding of faces in children with PDD, which may be implicated in their delay in social communication.

Below-ground chemical ecology and IPM

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

The phasing out of methyl bromide as a soil fumigant has led to a need for new technologies to manage below-ground plant pests and a sustainable approach would be to utilize semiochemicals comparable to above-ground IPM. Soil-dwelling beneficial entomopathogenic (EPNs) (Steinernema spp. and Heteror...

Dynamics of belowground diffusion and degradation of plant volatiles

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

It is well established that above ground herbivory induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) attract natural enemies of the herbivores. We now know that also roots can release HIPVs and that these compounds attract beneficial organisms such as entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs). Unlike their aboveground counte...

Who is afraid of the invisible snake? Subjective visual awareness modulates posterior brain activity for evolutionarily threatening stimuli.

PubMed

Grassini, Simone; Holm, Suvi K; Railo, Henry; Koivisto, Mika

2016-12-01

Snakes were probably one of the earliest predators of primates, and snake images produce specific behavioral and electrophysiological reactions in humans. Pictures of snakes evoke enhanced activity over the occipital cortex, indexed by the "early posterior negativity" (EPN), as compared with pictures of other dangerous or non-dangerous animals. The present study investigated the possibility that the response to snake images is independent from visual awareness. The observers watched images of threatening and non-threatening animals presented in random order during rapid serial visual presentation. Four different masking conditions were used to manipulate awareness of the images. Electrophysiological results showed that the EPN was larger for snake images than for the other images employed in the unmasked condition. However, the difference disappeared when awareness of the stimuli decreased. Behavioral results on the effects of awareness did not show any advantage for snake images. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Characterization of the gut bacterial community in Manduca sexta and effect of antibiotics on bacterial diversity and nematode reproduction.

PubMed

van der Hoeven, Ransome; Betrabet, Geeta; Forst, Steven

2008-09-01

The tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta, is a model lepidopteran insect used to study the pathogenic and mutualistic phases of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) and their bacterial symbionts. While intestinal microbial communities could potentially compete with the EPN and its bacterial partner for nutrient resources of the insect, the microbial gut community had not been characterized previously. Here, we show that the midgut of M. sexta raised on an artificial diet contained mostly Gram-positive cocci and coryneforms including Staphylococcus, Pediococcus, Micrococcus and Corynebacterium. Major perturbation in the gut community was observed on addition of antibiotics to the diet. Paenibacillus and several Proteobacteria such as Methylobacterium, Sphingomonas and Acinetobacter were primary genera identified under these conditions. Furthermore, the reproduction of the nematode Steinernema carpocapsae was less efficient, and the level of nematode colonization by its symbiont Xenorhabdus nematophila reduced, in insects reared on a diet containing antibiotics. The effect of antibiotics and perturbation of gut microbiota on nematode reproduction is discussed.

Subterranean, herbivore-induced plant volatile increases biological control activity of multiple beneficial nematode species in distinct habitats

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

While the role of herbivore-induced volatiles in plant-herbivore-natural enemy interactions is well documented aboveground, new evidence suggests that belowground volatile emissions can protect plants by attracting entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs). However, due to methodological limitations, no stu...

Survey of entomopathogenic nematodes from the families Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae (Nematoda: Rhabditida) in Colima, Mexico

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

A survey of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) in the Families Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae was conducted on the coast of the State of Colima, Mexico, to determine their occurrence, recovery frequency, and predominant plant species in disturbed and undisturbed habitats. Nineteen soil samples...

A Mouse Ependymoma Model Provides Molecular Insights into Tumor Formation.

PubMed

Pajtler, Kristian W; Pfister, Stefan M

2018-06-26

Ozawa et al. present a murine tumor model resembling the most frequent molecular group of human supratentorial ependymoma, ST-EPN-RELA. Their model shows RELA-fusion-based de novo ependymoma tumorigenesis in the forebrain derived from neural stem cells. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Epitrochoid Power-law Nozzle Concept for Reducing Launch Architecture Propulsion Costs

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-11-16

19a. NAME OF RESPONSIBLE PERSON Mr. Roy Hilton a. REPORT Unclassified b. ABSTRACT Unclassified c. THIS PAGE Unclassified SAR 15 19b...ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Mr. Paulson thanks his colleagues at AFRURZS for their input during the development of the EPN concept, in particular Messrs. Jason

Analysis of Zenith Tropospheric Delay above Europe based on long time series derived from the EPN data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baldysz, Zofia; Nykiel, Grzegorz; Figurski, Mariusz; Szafranek, Karolina; Kroszczynski, Krzysztof; Araszkiewicz, Andrzej

2015-04-01

In recent years, the GNSS system began to play an increasingly important role in the research related to the climate monitoring. Based on the GPS system, which has the longest operational capability in comparison with other systems, and a common computational strategy applied to all observations, long and homogeneous ZTD (Zenith Tropospheric Delay) time series were derived. This paper presents results of analysis of 16-year ZTD time series obtained from the EPN (EUREF Permanent Network) reprocessing performed by the Military University of Technology. To maintain the uniformity of data, analyzed period of time (1998-2013) is exactly the same for all stations - observations carried out before 1998 were removed from time series and observations processed using different strategy were recalculated according to the MUT LAC approach. For all 16-year time series (59 stations) Lomb-Scargle periodograms were created to obtain information about the oscillations in ZTD time series. Due to strong annual oscillations which disturb the character of oscillations with smaller amplitude and thus hinder their investigation, Lomb-Scargle periodograms for time series with the deleted annual oscillations were created in order to verify presence of semi-annual, ter-annual and quarto-annual oscillations. Linear trend and seasonal components were estimated using LSE (Least Square Estimation) and Mann-Kendall trend test were used to confirm the presence of linear trend designated by LSE method. In order to verify the effect of the length of time series on the estimated size of the linear trend, comparison between two different length of ZTD time series was performed. To carry out a comparative analysis, 30 stations which have been operating since 1996 were selected. For these stations two periods of time were analyzed: shortened 16-year (1998-2013) and full 18-year (1996-2013). For some stations an additional two years of observations have significant impact on changing the size of linear trend - only for 4 stations the size of linear trend was exactly the same for two periods of time. In one case, the nature of the trend has changed from negative (16-year time series) for positive (18-year time series). The average value of a linear trends for 16-year time series is 1,5 mm/decade, but their spatial distribution is not uniform. The average value of linear trends for all 18-year time series is 2,0 mm/decade, with better spatial distribution and smaller discrepancies.

EPN Chemical ecology and new techniques for below ground sampling and analyses of volatile semiochemicals

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

It is well established that herbivory induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) attract natural enemies of the herbivores. Utilizing this plant response has become a fundamental part of above ground IPM programs. We now know that also roots can release HIPVs and that these compounds attract beneficial organis...

U.S. EPA, Pesticide Product Label, TRIANGLE EPN-5EC, 12/12/1983

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

2011-04-14

... 1.1"'11\\1011. I'JIlt"j', Wi)dlill': ihi· IJr{Jdu~ t 1'1,111 'Jilt)ll, 10 "i ... h .,lId \\, .. jJdlil,·. ... 11"1'1.\\11\\' til 1 (JIlt ('lltl~t1l' ~Id.\\y,'r. Ht'IJIIi '\\Pl'ill .. 11 iun-.. ...

78 FR 2682 - National Cancer Institute; Notice of Meeting

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-14

... 552b(c)(6), Title 5 U.S.C., as amended. The grant applications and the discussions could disclose... hoc Subcommittee on Global Cancer Research. Open: February 7, 2013, 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Agenda... Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, 6130 Executive Boulevard, EPN/7025...

Exposure to insecticides of brushland wildlife within the Lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas, USA

USGS Publications Warehouse

Custer, T.W.; Mitchell, C.A.

1987-01-01

Brushland wildlife within the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas were studied following applications of eleven insecticides to nearby sugarcane or cotton fields. During the study no wildlife were found dead. Mean brain acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity of great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) and mourning doves (Zenaida macroura) was significantly lower than controls following application of some organophosphorous insecticides. Brain AChE activity varied significantly among chemicals, days after exposure and application rates. Mean brain AChE activity of white-winged doves (Zenaida asiatica) and three small mammal species was not significantly different than their respective controls following application of insecticides. Mean brain AChE activity of grackles was inhibited significantly more than white-winged doves after application of Bolstar, EPN-methyl parathion, and Azodrin and significantly more than that of mourning doves after applications of Bolstar and EPN-methyl parathion. Our data indicate that there were no adverse effects on most brushland wildlife. Exposure was probably dependent upon use of the agricultural fields as feeding or resting sites and only grackles and mourning doves were regularly present in the fields.

Exposure to insecticides of brushland wildlife within the lower Rio Grande valley Texas USA

USGS Publications Warehouse

Custer, T.W.; Mitchell, C.A.

1987-01-01

Brushland wildlife within the Lower Rio Grande Valley of south Texas were studied following applications of eleven insecticides to nearby sugarcane or cotton fields. During the study no wildlife were found dead. Mean brain acetycholinesterase (AChE) activity of great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) and mourning doves (Zenaida microura) was significantly lower than controls following application of some organophosphorus insecticides. Brain AChE activity varied significantly among chemicals, days after exposure and lactin rates. Mean brain AChE activity of white-winged doves (Zenaida asiatica) and three small mammals species was not significantly different than their respective control following application of the insecticides. Mean brain AChE activity of grackles was inhibited significantly more than white-winged doves after application of Bolstar, EPN-methyl parathion, and Azodrin and significantly more than that of mourning doves after applications of Bolstar and EPN-methyl parathion. Our data indicate that there were no adverse effects on most brushland wildlife. Exposure was probably dependent upon use of the agricultural fields as feeding or resting site and only grackles and mourning doves were regularly present in the fields.

An enantiomer-based virtual screening approach: Discovery of chiral organophosphates as acetyl cholinesterase inhibitors.

PubMed

Zhang, Aiqian; Mu, Yunsong; Wu, Fengchang

2017-04-01

Chiral organophosphates (OPs) have been used widely around the world, very little is known about binding mechanisms with biological macromolecules. An in-depth understanding of the stereo selectivity of human AChE and discovering bioactive enantiomers of OPs can decrease health risks of these chiral chemicals. In the present study, a flexible molecular docking approach was conducted to investigate different binding modes of twelve phosphorus enantiomers. A pharmacophore model was then developed on basis of the bioactive conformations of these compounds. After virtual screening, twenty-four potential bioactive compounds were found, of which three compounds (Ethyl p-nitrophenyl phenylphosphonate (EPN), 1-naphthaleneacetic anhydride and N,4-dimethyl-N-phenyl-benzenesulfonamide) were tested by use of different in vitro assays. S-isomer of EPN was also found to exhibit greater inhibitory activity towards human AChE than the corresponding R-isomer. These findings affirm that stereochemistry plays a crucial role in virtual screening, and provide a new insight into designing safer organ phosphorus pesticides on human health. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Additive effects of affective arousal and top-down attention on the event-related brain responses to human bodies.

PubMed

Hietanen, Jari K; Kirjavainen, Ilkka; Nummenmaa, Lauri

2014-12-01

The early visual event-related 'N170 response' is sensitive to human body configuration and it is enhanced to nude versus clothed bodies. We tested whether the N170 response as well as later EPN and P3/LPP responses to nude bodies reflect the effect of increased arousal elicited by these stimuli, or top-down allocation of object-based attention to the nude bodies. Participants saw pictures of clothed and nude bodies and faces. In each block, participants were asked to direct their attention towards stimuli from a specified target category while ignoring others. Object-based attention did not modulate the N170 amplitudes towards attended stimuli; instead N170 response was larger to nude bodies compared to stimuli from other categories. Top-down attention and affective arousal had additive effects on the EPN and P3/LPP responses reflecting later processing stages. We conclude that nude human bodies have a privileged status in the visual processing system due to the affective arousal they trigger. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Investigation of the 16-year and 18-year ZTD Time Series Derived from GPS Data Processing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bałdysz, Zofia; Nykiel, Grzegorz; Figurski, Mariusz; Szafranek, Karolina; KroszczyńSki, Krzysztof

2015-08-01

The GPS system can play an important role in activities related to the monitoring of climate. Long time series, coherent strategy, and very high quality of tropospheric parameter Zenith Tropospheric Delay (ZTD) estimated on the basis of GPS data analysis allows to investigate its usefulness for climate research as a direct GPS product. This paper presents results of analysis of 16-year time series derived from EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) reprocessing performed by the Military University of Technology. For 58 stations Lomb-Scargle periodograms were performed in order to obtain information about the oscillations in ZTD time series. Seasonal components and linear trend were estimated using Least Square Estimation (LSE) and Mann—Kendall trend test was used to confirm the presence of a linear trend designated by LSE method. In order to verify the impact of the length of time series on trend value, comparison between 16 and 18 years were performed.

Isolation and identification of entomopathogenic nematodes from citrus orchards in South Africa and their biocontrol potential against false codling moth.

PubMed

Malan, Antoinette P; Knoetze, Rinus; Moore, Sean D

2011-10-01

A survey was conducted to determine the diversity and frequency of endemic entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) in citrus orchards in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa. The main aim of the survey was to obtain nematodes as biological control agents against false codling moth (FCM), Thaumatotibia leucotreta, a key pest of citrus in South Africa. From a total of 202 samples, 35 (17%) tested positive for the presence of EPN. Of these, four isolates (11%) were found to be steinernematids, while 31 (89%) were heterorhabditids. Sequencing and characterisation of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region was used to identify all nematode isolates to species level. Morphometrics, morphology and biology of the infective juvenile (IJ) and the first-generation male were used to support molecular identification and characterisation. The Steinernema spp. identified were Steinernema khoisanae, Steinernema yirgalemense and Steinernema citrae. This is the first report of S. yirgalemense in South Africa, while for S. citrae it is the second new steinernematid to be identified from South Africa. Heterorhabditis species identified include Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, Heterorhabditis zealandica and an unknown species of Heterorhabditis. Laboratory bioassays, using 24-well bioassay disks, have shown isolates of all six species found during the survey, to be highly virulent against the last instar of FCM larvae. S. yirgalemense, at a concentration of 50IJs/FCM larva caused 100% mortality and 74% at a concentration of 200IJs/pupa. Using a sand bioassay, S. yirgalemense gave 93% control of cocooned pupae and emerging moths at a concentration of 20IJs/cm(2). This is the first report on the potential use of EPN to control the soil-borne life stages of FCM, which includes larvae, pupae and emerging moths. It was shown that emerging moths were infected with nematodes, which may aid in control and dispersal. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

XML-based information system for planetary sciences

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Carraro, F.; Fonte, S.; Turrini, D.

2009-04-01

EuroPlaNet (EPN in the following) has been developed by the planetological community under the "Sixth Framework Programme" (FP6 in the following), the European programme devoted to the improvement of the European research efforts through the creation of an internal market for science and technology. The goal of the EPN programme is the creation of a European network aimed to the diffusion of data produced by space missions dedicated to the study of the Solar System. A special place within the EPN programme is that of I.D.I.S. (Integrated and Distributed Information Service). The main goal of IDIS is to offer to the planetary science community a user-friendly access to the data and information produced by the various types of research activities, i.e. Earth-based observations, space observations, modeling, theory and laboratory experiments. During the FP6 programme IDIS development consisted in the creation of a series of thematic nodes, each of them specialized in a specific scientific domain, and a technical coordination node. The four thematic nodes are the Atmosphere node, the Plasma node, the Interiors & Surfaces node and the Small Bodies & Dust node. The main task of the nodes have been the building up of selected scientific cases related with the scientific domain of each node. The second work done by EPN nodes have been the creation of a catalogue of resources related to their main scientific theme. Both these efforts have been used as the basis for the development of the main IDIS goal, i.e. the integrated distributed service. An XML-based data model have been developed to describe resources using meta-data and to store the meta-data within an XML-based database called eXist. A search engine has been then developed in order to allow users to search resources within the database. Users can select the resource type and can insert one or more values or can choose a value among those present in a list, depending on selected resource. The system searches for all the resources containing the inserted values within the resources descriptions. An important facility of the IDIS search system is the multi-node search capability. This is due to the capacity of eXist to make queries on remote databases. This allows the system to show all resources which satisfy the search criteria on local node and to show how many resources are found on remote nodes, giving also a link to open the results page on remote nodes. During FP7 the development of the IDIS system will have the main goal to make the service Virtual Observatory compliant.

Nonuniform Effects of Reinstatement within the Time Window

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galluccio, Llissa; Rovee-Collier, Carolyn

2006-01-01

A time window is a limited period after an event initially occurs in which additional information can be integrated with the memory of that event. It shuts when the memory is forgotten. The time window hypothesis holds that the impact of a manipulation at different points within the time window is nonuniform. In two operant conditioning…

Due-Window Assignment Scheduling with Variable Job Processing Times

PubMed Central

Wu, Yu-Bin

2015-01-01

We consider a common due-window assignment scheduling problem jobs with variable job processing times on a single machine, where the processing time of a job is a function of its position in a sequence (i.e., learning effect) or its starting time (i.e., deteriorating effect). The problem is to determine the optimal due-windows, and the processing sequence simultaneously to minimize a cost function includes earliness, tardiness, the window location, window size, and weighted number of tardy jobs. We prove that the problem can be solved in polynomial time. PMID:25918745

Differential response of a local population of entomopathogenic nematodes to non-native herbivore induced plant volatiles (HIPV) in the laboratory and field

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Recent work has shown the potential for enhanced efficacy of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) through their attraction to herbivore induced plant volatiles. However, there has been little investigation into the utilization of these attractants in systems other than in those in which the compounds we...

Early Prefrontal Brain Responses to the Hedonic Quality of Emotional Words – A Simultaneous EEG and MEG Study

PubMed Central

Keuper, Kati; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Rehbein, Maimu A.; Eden, Annuschka S.; Laeger, Inga; Junghöfer, Markus; Zwanzger, Peter; Dobel, Christian

2013-01-01

The hedonic meaning of words affects word recognition, as shown by behavioral, functional imaging, and event-related potential (ERP) studies. However, the spatiotemporal dynamics and cognitive functions behind are elusive, partly due to methodological limitations of previous studies. Here, we account for these difficulties by computing combined electro-magnetoencephalographic (EEG/MEG) source localization techniques. Participants covertly read emotionally high-arousing positive and negative nouns, while EEG and MEG were recorded simultaneously. Combined EEG/MEG current-density reconstructions for the P1 (80–120 ms), P2 (150–190 ms) and EPN component (200–300 ms) were computed using realistic individual head models, with a cortical constraint. Relative to negative words, the P1 to positive words predominantly involved language-related structures (left middle temporal and inferior frontal regions), and posterior structures related to directed attention (occipital and parietal regions). Effects shifted to the right hemisphere in the P2 component. By contrast, negative words received more activation in the P1 time-range only, recruiting prefrontal regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Effects in the EPN were not statistically significant. These findings show that different neuronal networks are active when positive versus negative words are processed. We account for these effects in terms of an “emotional tagging” of word forms during language acquisition. These tags then give rise to different processing strategies, including enhanced lexical processing of positive words and a very fast language-independent alert response to negative words. The valence-specific recruitment of different networks might underlie fast adaptive responses to both approach- and withdrawal-related stimuli, be they acquired or biological. PMID:23940642

47 CFR 15.323 - Specific requirements for devices operating in the 1920-1930 MHz sub-band.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

...] (c) Devices must incorporate a mechanism for monitoring the time and spectrum windows that its... transmission, devices must monitor the combined time and spectrum windows in which they intend to transmit for... windows without further monitoring. However, occupation of the same combined time and spectrum windows by...

Face-to-face: Perceived personal relevance amplifies face processing

PubMed Central

Pittig, Andre; Schupp, Harald T.; Alpers, Georg W.

2017-01-01

Abstract The human face conveys emotional and social information, but it is not well understood how these two aspects influence face perception. In order to model a group situation, two faces displaying happy, neutral or angry expressions were presented. Importantly, faces were either facing the observer, or they were presented in profile view directed towards, or looking away from each other. In Experiment 1 (n = 64), face pairs were rated regarding perceived relevance, wish-to-interact, and displayed interactivity, as well as valence and arousal. All variables revealed main effects of facial expression (emotional > neutral), face orientation (facing observer > towards > away) and interactions showed that evaluation of emotional faces strongly varies with their orientation. Experiment 2 (n = 33) examined the temporal dynamics of perceptual-attentional processing of these face constellations with event-related potentials. Processing of emotional and neutral faces differed significantly in N170 amplitudes, early posterior negativity (EPN), and sustained positive potentials. Importantly, selective emotional face processing varied as a function of face orientation, indicating early emotion-specific (N170, EPN) and late threat-specific effects (LPP, sustained positivity). Taken together, perceived personal relevance to the observer—conveyed by facial expression and face direction—amplifies emotional face processing within triadic group situations. PMID:28158672

Modeling the resilience of critical infrastructure: the role of network dependencies.

PubMed

Guidotti, Roberto; Chmielewski, Hana; Unnikrishnan, Vipin; Gardoni, Paolo; McAllister, Therese; van de Lindt, John

2016-01-01

Water and wastewater network, electric power network, transportation network, communication network, and information technology network are among the critical infrastructure in our communities; their disruption during and after hazard events greatly affects communities' well-being, economic security, social welfare, and public health. In addition, a disruption in one network may cause disruption to other networks and lead to their reduced functionality. This paper presents a unified theoretical methodology for the modeling of dependent/interdependent infrastructure networks and incorporates it in a six-step probabilistic procedure to assess their resilience. Both the methodology and the procedure are general, can be applied to any infrastructure network and hazard, and can model different types of dependencies between networks. As an illustration, the paper models the direct effects of seismic events on the functionality of a potable water distribution network and the cascading effects of the damage of the electric power network (EPN) on the potable water distribution network (WN). The results quantify the loss of functionality and delay in the recovery process due to dependency of the WN on the EPN. The results show the importance of capturing the dependency between networks in modeling the resilience of critical infrastructure.

Modeling the resilience of critical infrastructure: the role of network dependencies

PubMed Central

Guidotti, Roberto; Chmielewski, Hana; Unnikrishnan, Vipin; Gardoni, Paolo; McAllister, Therese; van de Lindt, John

2017-01-01

Water and wastewater network, electric power network, transportation network, communication network, and information technology network are among the critical infrastructure in our communities; their disruption during and after hazard events greatly affects communities’ well-being, economic security, social welfare, and public health. In addition, a disruption in one network may cause disruption to other networks and lead to their reduced functionality. This paper presents a unified theoretical methodology for the modeling of dependent/interdependent infrastructure networks and incorporates it in a six-step probabilistic procedure to assess their resilience. Both the methodology and the procedure are general, can be applied to any infrastructure network and hazard, and can model different types of dependencies between networks. As an illustration, the paper models the direct effects of seismic events on the functionality of a potable water distribution network and the cascading effects of the damage of the electric power network (EPN) on the potable water distribution network (WN). The results quantify the loss of functionality and delay in the recovery process due to dependency of the WN on the EPN. The results show the importance of capturing the dependency between networks in modeling the resilience of critical infrastructure. PMID:28825037

Passing faces: sequence-dependent variations in the perceptual processing of emotional faces.

PubMed

Karl, Christian; Hewig, Johannes; Osinsky, Roman

2016-10-01

There is broad evidence that contextual factors influence the processing of emotional facial expressions. Yet temporal-dynamic aspects, inter alia how face processing is influenced by the specific order of neutral and emotional facial expressions, have been largely neglected. To shed light on this topic, we recorded electroencephalogram from 168 healthy participants while they performed a gender-discrimination task with angry and neutral faces. Our event-related potential (ERP) analyses revealed a strong emotional modulation of the N170 component, indicating that the basic visual encoding and emotional analysis of a facial stimulus happen, at least partially, in parallel. While the N170 and the late positive potential (LPP; 400-600 ms) were only modestly affected by the sequence of preceding faces, we observed a strong influence of face sequences on the early posterior negativity (EPN; 200-300 ms). Finally, the differing response patterns of the EPN and LPP indicate that these two ERPs represent distinct processes during face analysis: while the former seems to represent the integration of contextual information in the perception of a current face, the latter appears to represent the net emotional interpretation of a current face.

Single-machine common/slack due window assignment problems with linear decreasing processing times

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Xingong; Lin, Win-Chin; Wu, Wen-Hsiang; Wu, Chin-Chia

2017-08-01

This paper studies linear non-increasing processing times and the common/slack due window assignment problems on a single machine, where the actual processing time of a job is a linear non-increasing function of its starting time. The aim is to minimize the sum of the earliness cost, tardiness cost, due window location and due window size. Some optimality results are discussed for the common/slack due window assignment problems and two O(n log n) time algorithms are presented to solve the two problems. Finally, two examples are provided to illustrate the correctness of the corresponding algorithms.

An Analysis of Peer-Reviewed Scores and Impact Factors with Different Citation Time Windows: A Case Study of 28 Ophthalmologic Journals

PubMed Central

Liu, Xue-Li; Gai, Shuang-Shuang; Zhang, Shi-Le; Wang, Pu

2015-01-01

Background An important attribute of the traditional impact factor was the controversial 2-year citation window. So far, several scholars have proposed using different citation time windows for evaluating journals. However, there is no confirmation whether a longer citation time window would be better. How did the journal evaluation effects of 3IF, 4IF, and 6IF comparing with 2IF and 5IF? In order to understand these questions, we made a comparative study of impact factors with different citation time windows with the peer-reviewed scores of ophthalmologic journals indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database. Methods The peer-reviewed scores of 28 ophthalmologic journals were obtained through a self-designed survey questionnaire. Impact factors with different citation time windows (including 2IF, 3IF, 4IF, 5IF, and 6IF) of 28 ophthalmologic journals were computed and compared in accordance with each impact factor’s definition and formula, using the citation analysis function of the Web of Science (WoS) database. An analysis of the correlation between impact factors with different citation time windows and peer-reviewed scores was carried out. Results Although impact factor values with different citation time windows were different, there was a high level of correlation between them when it came to evaluating journals. In the current study, for ophthalmologic journals’ impact factors with different time windows in 2013, 3IF and 4IF seemed the ideal ranges for comparison, when assessed in relation to peer-reviewed scores. In addition, the 3-year and 4-year windows were quite consistent with the cited peak age of documents published by ophthalmologic journals. Research Limitations Our study is based on ophthalmology journals and we only analyze the impact factors with different citation time window in 2013, so it has yet to be ascertained whether other disciplines (especially those with a later cited peak) or other years would follow the same or similar patterns. Originality/ Value We designed the survey questionnaire ourselves, specifically to assess the real influence of journals. We used peer-reviewed scores to judge the journal evaluation effect of impact factors with different citation time windows. The main purpose of this study was to help researchers better understand the role of impact factors with different citation time windows in journal evaluation. PMID:26295157

An Analysis of Peer-Reviewed Scores and Impact Factors with Different Citation Time Windows: A Case Study of 28 Ophthalmologic Journals.

PubMed

Liu, Xue-Li; Gai, Shuang-Shuang; Zhang, Shi-Le; Wang, Pu

2015-01-01

An important attribute of the traditional impact factor was the controversial 2-year citation window. So far, several scholars have proposed using different citation time windows for evaluating journals. However, there is no confirmation whether a longer citation time window would be better. How did the journal evaluation effects of 3IF, 4IF, and 6IF comparing with 2IF and 5IF? In order to understand these questions, we made a comparative study of impact factors with different citation time windows with the peer-reviewed scores of ophthalmologic journals indexed by Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database. The peer-reviewed scores of 28 ophthalmologic journals were obtained through a self-designed survey questionnaire. Impact factors with different citation time windows (including 2IF, 3IF, 4IF, 5IF, and 6IF) of 28 ophthalmologic journals were computed and compared in accordance with each impact factor's definition and formula, using the citation analysis function of the Web of Science (WoS) database. An analysis of the correlation between impact factors with different citation time windows and peer-reviewed scores was carried out. Although impact factor values with different citation time windows were different, there was a high level of correlation between them when it came to evaluating journals. In the current study, for ophthalmologic journals' impact factors with different time windows in 2013, 3IF and 4IF seemed the ideal ranges for comparison, when assessed in relation to peer-reviewed scores. In addition, the 3-year and 4-year windows were quite consistent with the cited peak age of documents published by ophthalmologic journals. Our study is based on ophthalmology journals and we only analyze the impact factors with different citation time window in 2013, so it has yet to be ascertained whether other disciplines (especially those with a later cited peak) or other years would follow the same or similar patterns. We designed the survey questionnaire ourselves, specifically to assess the real influence of journals. We used peer-reviewed scores to judge the journal evaluation effect of impact factors with different citation time windows. The main purpose of this study was to help researchers better understand the role of impact factors with different citation time windows in journal evaluation.

Predicting progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia using neuropsychological data: a supervised learning approach using time windows.

PubMed

Pereira, Telma; Lemos, Luís; Cardoso, Sandra; Silva, Dina; Rodrigues, Ana; Santana, Isabel; de Mendonça, Alexandre; Guerreiro, Manuela; Madeira, Sara C

2017-07-19

Predicting progression from a stage of Mild Cognitive Impairment to dementia is a major pursuit in current research. It is broadly accepted that cognition declines with a continuum between MCI and dementia. As such, cohorts of MCI patients are usually heterogeneous, containing patients at different stages of the neurodegenerative process. This hampers the prognostic task. Nevertheless, when learning prognostic models, most studies use the entire cohort of MCI patients regardless of their disease stages. In this paper, we propose a Time Windows approach to predict conversion to dementia, learning with patients stratified using time windows, thus fine-tuning the prognosis regarding the time to conversion. In the proposed Time Windows approach, we grouped patients based on the clinical information of whether they converted (converter MCI) or remained MCI (stable MCI) within a specific time window. We tested time windows of 2, 3, 4 and 5 years. We developed a prognostic model for each time window using clinical and neuropsychological data and compared this approach with the commonly used in the literature, where all patients are used to learn the models, named as First Last approach. This enables to move from the traditional question "Will a MCI patient convert to dementia somewhere in the future" to the question "Will a MCI patient convert to dementia in a specific time window". The proposed Time Windows approach outperformed the First Last approach. The results showed that we can predict conversion to dementia as early as 5 years before the event with an AUC of 0.88 in the cross-validation set and 0.76 in an independent validation set. Prognostic models using time windows have higher performance when predicting progression from MCI to dementia, when compared to the prognostic approach commonly used in the literature. Furthermore, the proposed Time Windows approach is more relevant from a clinical point of view, predicting conversion within a temporal interval rather than sometime in the future and allowing clinicians to timely adjust treatments and clinical appointments.

GNSS Network Time Series Analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Balodis, J.; Janpaule, I.; Haritonova, D.; Normand, M.; Silabriedis, G.; Zarinjsh, A.; Zvirgzds, J.

2012-04-01

Time series of GNSS station results of both the EUPOS®-RIGA and LATPOS networks has been developed at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation (University of Latvia) using Bernese v.5.0 software. The base stations were selected among the EPN and IGS stations in surroundings of Latvia. In various day solutions the base station selection has been miscellaneous. Most frequently 5 - 8 base stations were selected from a set of stations {BOR1, JOEN, JOZE, MDVJ, METS, POLV, PULK, RIGA, TORA, VAAS, VISO, VLNS}. The rejection of "bad base stations" was performed by Bernese software depending on the quality of proper station data in proper day. This caused a reason of miscellaneous base station selection in various days. The results of time series are analysed. The question aroused on the nature of some outlying situations. The seasonal effect of the behaviour of the network has been identified when distance and elevation changes between stations has been analysed. The dependence from various influences has been recognised.

Training loads and injury risk in Australian football-differing acute: chronic workload ratios influence match injury risk.

PubMed

Carey, David L; Blanch, Peter; Ong, Kok-Leong; Crossley, Kay M; Crow, Justin; Morris, Meg E

2017-08-01

(1) To investigate whether a daily acute:chronic workload ratio informs injury risk in Australian football players; (2) to identify which combination of workload variable, acute and chronic time window best explains injury likelihood. Workload and injury data were collected from 53 athletes over 2 seasons in a professional Australian football club. Acute:chronic workload ratios were calculated daily for each athlete, and modelled against non-contact injury likelihood using a quadratic relationship. 6 workload variables, 8 acute time windows (2-9 days) and 7 chronic time windows (14-35 days) were considered (336 combinations). Each parameter combination was compared for injury likelihood fit (using R 2 ). The ratio of moderate speed running workload (18-24 km/h) in the previous 3 days (acute time window) compared with the previous 21 days (chronic time window) best explained the injury likelihood in matches (R 2 =0.79) and in the immediate 2 or 5 days following matches (R 2 =0.76-0.82). The 3:21 acute:chronic workload ratio discriminated between high-risk and low-risk athletes (relative risk=1.98-2.43). Using the previous 6 days to calculate the acute workload time window yielded similar results. The choice of acute time window significantly influenced model performance and appeared to reflect the competition and training schedule. Daily workload ratios can inform injury risk in Australian football. Clinicians and conditioning coaches should consider the sport-specific schedule of competition and training when choosing acute and chronic time windows. For Australian football, the ratio of moderate speed running in a 3-day or 6-day acute time window and a 21-day chronic time window best explained injury risk. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/.

Training loads and injury risk in Australian football—differing acute: chronic workload ratios influence match injury risk

PubMed Central

Carey, David L; Blanch, Peter; Ong, Kok-Leong; Crossley, Kay M; Crow, Justin; Morris, Meg E

2017-01-01

Aims (1) To investigate whether a daily acute:chronic workload ratio informs injury risk in Australian football players; (2) to identify which combination of workload variable, acute and chronic time window best explains injury likelihood. Methods Workload and injury data were collected from 53 athletes over 2 seasons in a professional Australian football club. Acute:chronic workload ratios were calculated daily for each athlete, and modelled against non-contact injury likelihood using a quadratic relationship. 6 workload variables, 8 acute time windows (2–9 days) and 7 chronic time windows (14–35 days) were considered (336 combinations). Each parameter combination was compared for injury likelihood fit (using R2). Results The ratio of moderate speed running workload (18–24 km/h) in the previous 3 days (acute time window) compared with the previous 21 days (chronic time window) best explained the injury likelihood in matches (R2=0.79) and in the immediate 2 or 5 days following matches (R2=0.76–0.82). The 3:21 acute:chronic workload ratio discriminated between high-risk and low-risk athletes (relative risk=1.98–2.43). Using the previous 6 days to calculate the acute workload time window yielded similar results. The choice of acute time window significantly influenced model performance and appeared to reflect the competition and training schedule. Conclusions Daily workload ratios can inform injury risk in Australian football. Clinicians and conditioning coaches should consider the sport-specific schedule of competition and training when choosing acute and chronic time windows. For Australian football, the ratio of moderate speed running in a 3-day or 6-day acute time window and a 21-day chronic time window best explained injury risk. PMID:27789430

Time-marching multi-grid seismic tomography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tong, P.; Yang, D.; Liu, Q.

2016-12-01

From the classic ray-based traveltime tomography to the state-of-the-art full waveform inversion, because of the nonlinearity of seismic inverse problems, a good starting model is essential for preventing the convergence of the objective function toward local minima. With a focus on building high-accuracy starting models, we propose the so-called time-marching multi-grid seismic tomography method in this study. The new seismic tomography scheme consists of a temporal time-marching approach and a spatial multi-grid strategy. We first divide the recording period of seismic data into a series of time windows. Sequentially, the subsurface properties in each time window are iteratively updated starting from the final model of the previous time window. There are at least two advantages of the time-marching approach: (1) the information included in the seismic data of previous time windows has been explored to build the starting models of later time windows; (2) seismic data of later time windows could provide extra information to refine the subsurface images. Within each time window, we use a multi-grid method to decompose the scale of the inverse problem. Specifically, the unknowns of the inverse problem are sampled on a coarse mesh to capture the macro-scale structure of the subsurface at the beginning. Because of the low dimensionality, it is much easier to reach the global minimum on a coarse mesh. After that, finer meshes are introduced to recover the micro-scale properties. That is to say, the subsurface model is iteratively updated on multi-grid in every time window. We expect that high-accuracy starting models should be generated for the second and later time windows. We will test this time-marching multi-grid method by using our newly developed eikonal-based traveltime tomography software package tomoQuake. Real application results in the 2016 Kumamoto earthquake (Mw 7.0) region in Japan will be demonstrated.

Environmental Assessment: Fort Greely Installation, Fort Greely, Alaska

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-04-18

Products ineffective. Actions taken to remove products from Mosquito Repelling the marketplace. Endrin Most uses cancelled. EPN Mosquito larvicide products...Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966, as amended. The ICRMP includes chapters on the following topics: "* Geographic Overview of the Fort Greely Region...34* Prehistoric and Historic Overview of the Fort Greely Area "* Legal Foundation and Methodology for the ICRMP "* Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for

Combined Field Inoculations of Pseudomonas Bacteria, Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, and Entomopathogenic Nematodes and their Effects on Wheat Performance

PubMed Central

Imperiali, Nicola; Chiriboga, Xavier; Schlaeppi, Klaus; Fesselet, Marie; Villacrés, Daniela; Jaffuel, Geoffrey; Bender, S. Franz; Dennert, Francesca; Blanco-Pérez, Ruben; van der Heijden, Marcel G. A.; Maurhofer, Monika; Mascher, Fabio; Turlings, Ted C. J.; Keel, Christoph J.; Campos-Herrera, Raquel

2017-01-01

In agricultural ecosystems, pest insects, pathogens, and reduced soil fertility pose major challenges to crop productivity and are responsible for significant yield losses worldwide. Management of belowground pests and diseases remains particularly challenging due to the complex nature of the soil and the limited reach of conventional agrochemicals. Boosting the presence of beneficial rhizosphere organisms is a potentially sustainable alternative and may help to optimize crop health and productivity. Field application of single beneficial soil organisms has shown satisfactory results under optimal conditions. This might be further enhanced by combining multiple beneficial soil organisms, but this remains poorly investigated. Here, we inoculated wheat plots with combinations of three beneficial soil organisms that have different rhizosphere functions and studied their effects on crop performance. Plant beneficial Pseudomonas bacteria, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN), were inoculated individually or in combinations at seeding, and their effects on plant performance were evaluated throughout the season. We used traditional and molecular identification tools to monitor their persistence over the cropping season in augmented and control treatments, and to estimate the possible displacement of native populations. In three separate trials, beneficial soil organisms were successfully introduced into the native populations and readily survived the field conditions. Various Pseudomonas, mycorrhiza, and nematode treatments improved plant health and productivity, while their combinations provided no significant additive or synergistic benefits compared to when applied alone. EPN application temporarily displaced some of the native EPN, but had no significant long-term effect on the associated food web. The strongest positive effect on wheat survival was observed for Pseudomonas and AMF during a season with heavy natural infestation by the frit fly, Oscinella frit, a major pest of cereals. Hence, beneficial impacts differed between the beneficial soil organisms and were most evident for plants under biotic stress. Overall, our findings indicate that in wheat production under the test conditions the three beneficial soil organisms can establish nicely and are compatible, but their combined application provides no additional benefits. Further studies are required, also in other cropping systems, to fine-tune the functional interactions among beneficial soil organisms, crops, and the environment. PMID:29163562

Combined Field Inoculations of Pseudomonas Bacteria, Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, and Entomopathogenic Nematodes and their Effects on Wheat Performance.

PubMed

Imperiali, Nicola; Chiriboga, Xavier; Schlaeppi, Klaus; Fesselet, Marie; Villacrés, Daniela; Jaffuel, Geoffrey; Bender, S Franz; Dennert, Francesca; Blanco-Pérez, Ruben; van der Heijden, Marcel G A; Maurhofer, Monika; Mascher, Fabio; Turlings, Ted C J; Keel, Christoph J; Campos-Herrera, Raquel

2017-01-01

In agricultural ecosystems, pest insects, pathogens, and reduced soil fertility pose major challenges to crop productivity and are responsible for significant yield losses worldwide. Management of belowground pests and diseases remains particularly challenging due to the complex nature of the soil and the limited reach of conventional agrochemicals. Boosting the presence of beneficial rhizosphere organisms is a potentially sustainable alternative and may help to optimize crop health and productivity. Field application of single beneficial soil organisms has shown satisfactory results under optimal conditions. This might be further enhanced by combining multiple beneficial soil organisms, but this remains poorly investigated. Here, we inoculated wheat plots with combinations of three beneficial soil organisms that have different rhizosphere functions and studied their effects on crop performance. Plant beneficial Pseudomonas bacteria, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), and entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN), were inoculated individually or in combinations at seeding, and their effects on plant performance were evaluated throughout the season. We used traditional and molecular identification tools to monitor their persistence over the cropping season in augmented and control treatments, and to estimate the possible displacement of native populations. In three separate trials, beneficial soil organisms were successfully introduced into the native populations and readily survived the field conditions. Various Pseudomonas , mycorrhiza, and nematode treatments improved plant health and productivity, while their combinations provided no significant additive or synergistic benefits compared to when applied alone. EPN application temporarily displaced some of the native EPN, but had no significant long-term effect on the associated food web. The strongest positive effect on wheat survival was observed for Pseudomonas and AMF during a season with heavy natural infestation by the frit fly, Oscinella frit , a major pest of cereals. Hence, beneficial impacts differed between the beneficial soil organisms and were most evident for plants under biotic stress. Overall, our findings indicate that in wheat production under the test conditions the three beneficial soil organisms can establish nicely and are compatible, but their combined application provides no additional benefits. Further studies are required, also in other cropping systems, to fine-tune the functional interactions among beneficial soil organisms, crops, and the environment.

Using ALFA for high throughput, distributed data transmission in the ALICE O2 system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wegrzynek, A.; ALICE Collaboration

2017-10-01

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is a heavy-ion detector designed to study the physics of strongly interacting matter (the Quark-Gluon Plasma at the CERN LHC (Large Hadron Collider). ALICE has been successfully collecting physics data in Run 2 since spring 2015. In parallel, preparations for a major upgrade of the computing system, called O2 (Online-Offline), scheduled for the Long Shutdown 2 in 2019-2020, are being made. One of the major requirements of the system is the capacity to transport data between so-called FLPs (First Level Processors), equipped with readout cards, and the EPNs (Event Processing Node), performing data aggregation, frame building and partial reconstruction. It is foreseen to have 268 FLPs dispatching data to 1500 EPNs with an average output of 20 Gb/s each. In overall, the O2 processing system will operate at terabits per second of throughput while handling millions of concurrent connections. The ALFA framework will standardize and handle software related tasks such as readout, data transport, frame building, calibration, online reconstruction and more in the upgraded computing system. ALFA supports two data transport libraries: ZeroMQ and nanomsg. This paper discusses the efficiency of ALFA in terms of high throughput data transport. The tests were performed with multiple FLPs pushing data to multiple EPNs. The transfer was done using push-pull communication patterns and two socket configurations: bind, connect. The set of benchmarks was prepared to get the most performant results on each hardware setup. The paper presents the measurement process and final results - data throughput combined with computing resources usage as a function of block size. The high number of nodes and connections in the final set up may cause race conditions that can lead to uneven load balancing and poor scalability. The performed tests allow us to validate whether the traffic is distributed evenly over all receivers. It also measures the behaviour of the network in saturation and evaluates scalability from a 1-to-1 to a N-to-M solution.

Computing an optimal time window of audiovisual integration in focused attention tasks: illustrated by studies on effect of age and prior knowledge.

PubMed

Colonius, Hans; Diederich, Adele

2011-07-01

The concept of a "time window of integration" holds that information from different sensory modalities must not be perceived too far apart in time in order to be integrated into a multisensory perceptual event. Empirical estimates of window width differ widely, however, ranging from 40 to 600 ms depending on context and experimental paradigm. Searching for theoretical derivation of window width, Colonius and Diederich (Front Integr Neurosci 2010) developed a decision-theoretic framework using a decision rule that is based on the prior probability of a common source, the likelihood of temporal disparities between the unimodal signals, and the payoff for making right or wrong decisions. Here, this framework is extended to the focused attention task where subjects are asked to respond to signals from a target modality only. Evoking the framework of the time-window-of-integration (TWIN) model, an explicit expression for optimal window width is obtained. The approach is probed on two published focused attention studies. The first is a saccadic reaction time study assessing the efficiency with which multisensory integration varies as a function of aging. Although the window widths for young and older adults differ by nearly 200 ms, presumably due to their different peripheral processing speeds, neither of them deviates significantly from the optimal values. In the second study, head saccadic reactions times to a perfectly aligned audiovisual stimulus pair had been shown to depend on the prior probability of spatial alignment. Intriguingly, they reflected the magnitude of the time-window widths predicted by our decision-theoretic framework, i.e., a larger time window is associated with a higher prior probability.

Effect of partial covering of the visitor viewing area window on positioning and orientation of zoo orangutans: A preference test.

PubMed

Bloomfield, Rachel C; Gillespie, Graeme R; Kerswell, Keven J; Butler, Kym L; Hemsworth, Paul H

2015-01-01

The window of the visitor viewing area adjacent to an animal platform in an orangutan enclosure was altered to produce three viewing treatments in a randomized controlled experiment. These treatments were window uncovered, left side of the window covered or right side of the window covered. Observations were conducted on the orangutans present on the platform, and on their location (left or right side), and orientation (towards or away from the window) while on the platform. The partial covering of the window had little effect on the proportion of time orangutans spent on the viewing platform, or on the direction they faced when on the platform. When the orangutans were facing towards the window, and the right side was uncovered, irrespective of whether the left side was covered, they spent about three quarters of the time on the right side, suggesting a preference for the right side of the platform. However, when the right side was covered and the left side uncovered, the animals facing towards the window spent only about a quarter of the time on the right side, that is, they spent more time on the uncovered side. The results suggest that the orangutans have a preference to position themselves to face the window of the visitor viewing area. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

NRT Atmospheric Water Vapour Retrieval on the Area of Poland at IGG WUELS AC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaplon, Jan; Bosy, Jaroslaw; Sierny, Jan; Hadas, Tomasz; Rohm, Witold; Wilgan, Karina; Ryczywolski, Marcin; Oruba, Artur; Kroszczynski, Krzysztof

2013-04-01

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are designed for positioning, navigation and amongst other possible applications it can also be used to derive information about the state of the atmosphere. Continuous observations from GNSS receivers provide an excellent tool for studying the neutral atmosphere, currently in near real-time. The Near Real-Time (NRT) neutral atmosphere and water vapour distribution models are currently obtained with high resolution from Ground Base Augmentation Systems (GBAS), where reference stations are equipped with GNSS and meteorological sensors. The Poland territory is covered by dense network of GNSS stations in the frame of GBAS system called ASG-EUPOS (www.asgeupos.pl). This system was established in year 2008 by the Head Office of Geodesy and Cartography in the frame of the EUPOS project (www.eupos.org) for providing positioning services. The GNSS data are available from 130 reference stations located in Poland and neighbour countries. The ground meteorological observations in the area of Poland and neighbour countries are available from ASG-EUPOS stations included in EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) stations, airports meteorological stations (METAR messages stations), and stations managed by national Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (SYNOP messages stations). Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformatics (IGG) of Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences had created permanent NRT service of ZTD (Zenith Total Delay) estimation for the area of Poland from GPS observations called IGGHZG. The first part of the paper presents the methodology of NRT GNSS data processing for ASG-EUPOS stations for ZTD estimation and its comparison to the results coming from EPN ACs and Military University of Technology in Warsaw AC (MUT AC). Second part covers the procedure of IWV (atmospheric Integrated Water Vapour content) estimation at IGG from IGGHZG product and ZHD (Zenith Hydrostatic Delay) derived from Saastamoinen formula (1972) and meteorological observations from ASG-EUPOS stations, SYNOP (synoptic stations network) and METAR (airport meteorological stations). Paper presents comparison of IWV with the results from NWP (Numerical Weather Prediction) models HIRLAM (via EGVAPII - http://egvap.dmi.dk) and COAMPS (via MUT AC) as well.

A general method to determine sampling windows for nonlinear mixed effects models with an application to population pharmacokinetic studies.

PubMed

Foo, Lee Kien; McGree, James; Duffull, Stephen

2012-01-01

Optimal design methods have been proposed to determine the best sampling times when sparse blood sampling is required in clinical pharmacokinetic studies. However, the optimal blood sampling time points may not be feasible in clinical practice. Sampling windows, a time interval for blood sample collection, have been proposed to provide flexibility in blood sampling times while preserving efficient parameter estimation. Because of the complexity of the population pharmacokinetic models, which are generally nonlinear mixed effects models, there is no analytical solution available to determine sampling windows. We propose a method for determination of sampling windows based on MCMC sampling techniques. The proposed method attains a stationary distribution rapidly and provides time-sensitive windows around the optimal design points. The proposed method is applicable to determine sampling windows for any nonlinear mixed effects model although our work focuses on an application to population pharmacokinetic models. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Modulation of immune responses of Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Insecta: Coleoptera) induced by the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema carpocapsae (Nematoda: Rhabditida).

PubMed

Mastore, Maristella; Arizza, Vincenzo; Manachini, Barbara; Brivio, Maurizio F

2015-12-01

Aim of this study was to investigate relationships between the red palm weevil (RPW) Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier) and the entomopathogenic nematode Steinernema carpocapsae (EPN); particularly, the work was focused on the immune response of the insect host in naive larvae and after infection with the EPN. Two main immunological processes have been addressed: the activity and modulation of host prophenoloxidase-phenoloxidase (proPO) system, involved in melanization of not-self and hemocytes recognition processes responsible for not-self encapsulation. Moreover, immune depressive and immune evasive strategies of the parasite have been investigated. Our results suggest that RPW possess an efficient immune system, however in the early phase of infection, S. carpocapsae induces a strong inhibition of the host proPO system. In addition, host cell-mediated mechanisms of encapsulation, are completely avoided by the parasite, the elusive strategies of S. carpocapsae seem to be related to the structure of its body-surface, since induced alterations of the parasite cuticle resulted in the loss of its mimetic properties. S. carpocapsae before the release of its symbiotic bacteria, depress and elude RPW immune defenses, with the aim to arrange a favorable environment for its bacteria responsible of the septicemic death of the insect target. © 2014 Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of the tensile behavior of a thermosetting polymer.

PubMed

Yang, Shaorui; Qu, Jianmin

2014-07-01

Using a previously developed coarse-grained model, we conducted large-scale (∼ 85 × 85 × 85 nm(3)) molecular dynamics simulations of uniaxial-strain deformation to study the tensile behavior of an epoxy molding compound, epoxy phenol novolacs (EPN) bisphenol A (BPA). Under the uniaxial-strain deformation, the material is found to exhibit cavity nucleation and growth, followed by stretching of the ligaments separated by the cavities, until the ultimate failure through ligament scissions. The nucleation sites of cavities are rather random and the subsequent cavity growth accounts for much (87%) of the volumetric change during the uniaxial-strain deformation. Ultimate failure of the materials occurs when the cavity volume fraction reaches ∼ 60%. During the entire deformation process, polymer strands in the network are continuously extended to their linear states and broken in the postyielding strain hardening stage. When most of the strands are stretched to their taut configurations, rapid scission of a large number of strands occurs within a small strain increment, which eventually leads to fracture. Finally, through extensive numerical simulations of various loading conditions in addition to uniaxial strain, we find that yielding of the EPN-BPA can be described by the pressure-modified von Mises yield criterion.

Microbial control of arthropod pests of tropical tree fruits.

PubMed

Dolinski, Claudia; Lacey, Lawrence A

2007-01-01

A multitude of insects and mites attack fruit crops throughout the tropics. The traditional method for controlling most of these pests is the application of chemical pesticides. Growing concern on the negative environmental effects has encouraged the development of alternatives. Inundatively and inoculatively applied microbial control agents (virus, bacteria, fungi, and entomopathogenic nematodes) have been developed as alternative control methods of a wide variety of arthropods including tropical fruit pests. The majority of the research and applications in tropical fruit agroecosystems has been conducted in citrus, banana, coconut, and mango. Successful microbial control initiatives of citrus pests and mites have been reported. Microbial control of arthropod pests of banana includes banana weevil, Cosmopolites sordidus Germar (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) (with EPNs and fungi) among others Oryctes rhinoceros (L.) is one of the most important pests of coconut and one of the most successful uses of non-occluded virus for classical biological control. Key pests of mango that have been controlled with microbial control agents include fruit flies (Diptera: Tephritidae) (with EPNs and fungi), and other pests. Also successful is the microbial control of arthropod pests of guava, papaya and pineapple. The challenge towards a broader application of entomopathogens is the development of successful combinations of entomopathogens, predators, and parasitoids along with other interventions to produce effective and sustainable pest management.

Social and emotional relevance in face processing: happy faces of future interaction partners enhance the late positive potential

PubMed Central

Bublatzky, Florian; Gerdes, Antje B. M.; White, Andrew J.; Riemer, Martin; Alpers, Georg W.

2014-01-01

Human face perception is modulated by both emotional valence and social relevance, but their interaction has rarely been examined. Event-related brain potentials (ERP) to happy, neutral, and angry facial expressions with different degrees of social relevance were recorded. To implement a social anticipation task, relevance was manipulated by presenting faces of two specific actors as future interaction partners (socially relevant), whereas two other face actors remained non-relevant. In a further control task all stimuli were presented without specific relevance instructions (passive viewing). Face stimuli of four actors (2 women, from the KDEF) were randomly presented for 1s to 26 participants (16 female). Results showed an augmented N170, early posterior negativity (EPN), and late positive potential (LPP) for emotional in contrast to neutral facial expressions. Of particular interest, face processing varied as a function of experimental tasks. Whereas task effects were observed for P1 and EPN regardless of instructed relevance, LPP amplitudes were modulated by emotional facial expression and relevance manipulation. The LPP was specifically enhanced for happy facial expressions of the anticipated future interaction partners. This underscores that social relevance can impact face processing already at an early stage of visual processing. These findings are discussed within the framework of motivated attention and face processing theories. PMID:25076881

Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of the tensile behavior of a thermosetting polymer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Shaorui; Qu, Jianmin

2014-07-01

Using a previously developed coarse-grained model, we conducted large-scale (˜85×85×85nm3) molecular dynamics simulations of uniaxial-strain deformation to study the tensile behavior of an epoxy molding compound, epoxy phenol novolacs (EPN) bisphenol A (BPA). Under the uniaxial-strain deformation, the material is found to exhibit cavity nucleation and growth, followed by stretching of the ligaments separated by the cavities, until the ultimate failure through ligament scissions. The nucleation sites of cavities are rather random and the subsequent cavity growth accounts for much (87%) of the volumetric change during the uniaxial-strain deformation. Ultimate failure of the materials occurs when the cavity volume fraction reaches ˜60%. During the entire deformation process, polymer strands in the network are continuously extended to their linear states and broken in the postyielding strain hardening stage. When most of the strands are stretched to their taut configurations, rapid scission of a large number of strands occurs within a small strain increment, which eventually leads to fracture. Finally, through extensive numerical simulations of various loading conditions in addition to uniaxial strain, we find that yielding of the EPN-BPA can be described by the pressure-modified von Mises yield criterion.

Differential effects of face-realism and emotion on event-related brain potentials and their implications for the uncanny valley theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schindler, Sebastian; Zell, Eduard; Botsch, Mario; Kissler, Johanna

2017-03-01

Cartoon characters are omnipresent in popular media. While few studies have scientifically investigated their processing, in computer graphics, efforts are made to increase realism. Yet, close approximations of reality have been suggested to evoke sometimes a feeling of eeriness, the “uncanny valley” effect. Here, we used high-density electroencephalography to investigate brain responses to professionally stylized happy, angry, and neutral character faces. We employed six face-stylization levels varying from abstract to realistic and investigated the N170, early posterior negativity (EPN), and late positive potential (LPP) event-related components. The face-specific N170 showed a u-shaped modulation, with stronger reactions towards both most abstract and most realistic compared to medium-stylized faces. For abstract faces, N170 was generated more occipitally than for real faces, implying stronger reliance on structural processing. Although emotional faces elicited highest amplitudes on both N170 and EPN, on the N170 realism and expression interacted. Finally, LPP increased linearly with face realism, reflecting activity increase in visual and parietal cortex for more realistic faces. Results reveal differential effects of face stylization on distinct face processing stages and suggest a perceptual basis to the uncanny valley hypothesis. They are discussed in relation to face perception, media design, and computer graphics.

Differential effects of face-realism and emotion on event-related brain potentials and their implications for the uncanny valley theory

PubMed Central

Schindler, Sebastian; Zell, Eduard; Botsch, Mario; Kissler, Johanna

2017-01-01

Cartoon characters are omnipresent in popular media. While few studies have scientifically investigated their processing, in computer graphics, efforts are made to increase realism. Yet, close approximations of reality have been suggested to evoke sometimes a feeling of eeriness, the “uncanny valley” effect. Here, we used high-density electroencephalography to investigate brain responses to professionally stylized happy, angry, and neutral character faces. We employed six face-stylization levels varying from abstract to realistic and investigated the N170, early posterior negativity (EPN), and late positive potential (LPP) event-related components. The face-specific N170 showed a u-shaped modulation, with stronger reactions towards both most abstract and most realistic compared to medium-stylized faces. For abstract faces, N170 was generated more occipitally than for real faces, implying stronger reliance on structural processing. Although emotional faces elicited highest amplitudes on both N170 and EPN, on the N170 realism and expression interacted. Finally, LPP increased linearly with face realism, reflecting activity increase in visual and parietal cortex for more realistic faces. Results reveal differential effects of face stylization on distinct face processing stages and suggest a perceptual basis to the uncanny valley hypothesis. They are discussed in relation to face perception, media design, and computer graphics. PMID:28332557

Face-to-face: Perceived personal relevance amplifies face processing.

PubMed

Bublatzky, Florian; Pittig, Andre; Schupp, Harald T; Alpers, Georg W

2017-05-01

The human face conveys emotional and social information, but it is not well understood how these two aspects influence face perception. In order to model a group situation, two faces displaying happy, neutral or angry expressions were presented. Importantly, faces were either facing the observer, or they were presented in profile view directed towards, or looking away from each other. In Experiment 1 (n = 64), face pairs were rated regarding perceived relevance, wish-to-interact, and displayed interactivity, as well as valence and arousal. All variables revealed main effects of facial expression (emotional > neutral), face orientation (facing observer > towards > away) and interactions showed that evaluation of emotional faces strongly varies with their orientation. Experiment 2 (n = 33) examined the temporal dynamics of perceptual-attentional processing of these face constellations with event-related potentials. Processing of emotional and neutral faces differed significantly in N170 amplitudes, early posterior negativity (EPN), and sustained positive potentials. Importantly, selective emotional face processing varied as a function of face orientation, indicating early emotion-specific (N170, EPN) and late threat-specific effects (LPP, sustained positivity). Taken together, perceived personal relevance to the observer-conveyed by facial expression and face direction-amplifies emotional face processing within triadic group situations. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

Multidisciplinary and multisectoral coalitions as catalysts for action against antimicrobial resistance: Implementation experiences at national and regional levels.

PubMed

Joshi, Mohan P; Chintu, Chifumbe; Mpundu, Mirfin; Kibuule, Dan; Hazemba, Oliver; Andualem, Tenaw; Embrey, Martha; Phulu, Bayobuya; Gerba, Heran

2018-03-20

The multi-faceted complexities of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) require consistent action, a multidisciplinary approach, and long-term political commitment. Building coalitions can amplify stakeholder efforts to carry out effective AMR prevention and control strategies. We have developed and implemented an approach to help local stakeholders kick-start the coalition-building process. The five-step process is to (1) mobilise support, (2) understand the local situation, (3) develop an action plan, (4) implement the plan, and (5) monitor and evaluate. We first piloted the approach in Zambia in 2004, then used the lessons learned to expand it for use in Ethiopia and Namibia and to the regional level through the Ecumenical Pharmaceutical Network [EPN]. Call-to-action declarations and workshops helped promote a shared vision, resulting in the development of national AMR action plans, revision of university curricula to incorporate relevant topics, infection control activities, engagement with journalists from various mass media outlets, and strengthening of drug quality assurance systems. Our experience with the coalition-building approach in Ethiopia, Namibia, Zambia, and with the EPN shows that coalitions can form in a variety of ways with many different stakeholders, including government, academia, and faith-based organisations, to organise actions to preserve the effectiveness of existing antimicrobials and contain AMR.

Pathogen recognition of a novel C-type lectin from Marsupenaeus japonicus reveals the divergent sugar-binding specificity of QAP motif.

PubMed

Alenton, Rod Russel R; Koiwai, Keiichiro; Miyaguchi, Kohei; Kondo, Hidehiro; Hirono, Ikuo

2017-04-04

C-type lectins (CTLs) are calcium-dependent carbohydrate-binding proteins known to assist the innate immune system as pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). The binding specificity of CTLs lies in the motif of their carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD), the tripeptide motifs EPN and QPD bind to mannose and galactose, respectively. However, variants of these motifs were discovered including a QAP sequence reported in shrimp believed to have the same carbohydrate specificity as QPD. Here, we characterized a novel C-type lectin (MjGCTL) possessing a CRD with a QAP motif. The recombinant MjGCTL has a calcium-dependent agglutinating capability against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, and its sugar specificity did not involve either mannose or galactose. In an encapsulation assay, agarose beads coated with rMjGCTL were immediately encapsulated from 0 h followed by melanization at 4 h post-incubation with hemocytes. These results confirm that MjGCTL functions as a classical CTL. The structure of QAP motif and carbohydrate-specificity of rMjGCTL was found to be different to both EPN and QPD, suggesting that QAP is a new motif. Furthermore, MjGCTL acts as a PRR binding to hemocytes to activate their adherent state and initiate encapsulation.

Pathogen recognition of a novel C-type lectin from Marsupenaeus japonicus reveals the divergent sugar-binding specificity of QAP motif

PubMed Central

Alenton, Rod Russel R.; Koiwai, Keiichiro; Miyaguchi, Kohei; Kondo, Hidehiro; Hirono, Ikuo

2017-01-01

C-type lectins (CTLs) are calcium-dependent carbohydrate-binding proteins known to assist the innate immune system as pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). The binding specificity of CTLs lies in the motif of their carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD), the tripeptide motifs EPN and QPD bind to mannose and galactose, respectively. However, variants of these motifs were discovered including a QAP sequence reported in shrimp believed to have the same carbohydrate specificity as QPD. Here, we characterized a novel C-type lectin (MjGCTL) possessing a CRD with a QAP motif. The recombinant MjGCTL has a calcium-dependent agglutinating capability against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria, and its sugar specificity did not involve either mannose or galactose. In an encapsulation assay, agarose beads coated with rMjGCTL were immediately encapsulated from 0 h followed by melanization at 4 h post-incubation with hemocytes. These results confirm that MjGCTL functions as a classical CTL. The structure of QAP motif and carbohydrate-specificity of rMjGCTL was found to be different to both EPN and QPD, suggesting that QAP is a new motif. Furthermore, MjGCTL acts as a PRR binding to hemocytes to activate their adherent state and initiate encapsulation. PMID:28374848

Cross-modal integration of polyphonic characters in Chinese audio-visual sentences: a MVPA study based on functional connectivity.

PubMed

Zhang, Zhengyi; Zhang, Gaoyan; Zhang, Yuanyuan; Liu, Hong; Xu, Junhai; Liu, Baolin

2017-12-01

This study aimed to investigate the functional connectivity in the brain during the cross-modal integration of polyphonic characters in Chinese audio-visual sentences. The visual sentences were all semantically reasonable and the audible pronunciations of the polyphonic characters in corresponding sentences contexts varied in four conditions. To measure the functional connectivity, correlation, coherence and phase synchronization index (PSI) were used, and then multivariate pattern analysis was performed to detect the consensus functional connectivity patterns. These analyses were confined in the time windows of three event-related potential components of P200, N400 and late positive shift (LPS) to investigate the dynamic changes of the connectivity patterns at different cognitive stages. We found that when differentiating the polyphonic characters with abnormal pronunciations from that with the appreciate ones in audio-visual sentences, significant classification results were obtained based on the coherence in the time window of the P200 component, the correlation in the time window of the N400 component and the coherence and PSI in the time window the LPS component. Moreover, the spatial distributions in these time windows were also different, with the recruitment of frontal sites in the time window of the P200 component, the frontal-central-parietal regions in the time window of the N400 component and the central-parietal sites in the time window of the LPS component. These findings demonstrate that the functional interaction mechanisms are different at different stages of audio-visual integration of polyphonic characters.

A multimodal logistics service network design with time windows and environmental concerns

PubMed Central

Zhang, Dezhi; He, Runzhong; Wang, Zhongwei

2017-01-01

The design of a multimodal logistics service network with customer service time windows and environmental costs is an important and challenging issue. Accordingly, this work established a model to minimize the total cost of multimodal logistics service network design with time windows and environmental concerns. The proposed model incorporates CO2 emission costs to determine the optimal transportation mode combinations and investment selections for transfer nodes, which consider transport cost, transport time, carbon emission, and logistics service time window constraints. Furthermore, genetic and heuristic algorithms are proposed to set up the abovementioned optimal model. A numerical example is provided to validate the model and the abovementioned two algorithms. Then, comparisons of the performance of the two algorithms are provided. Finally, this work investigates the effects of the logistics service time windows and CO2 emission taxes on the optimal solution. Several important management insights are obtained. PMID:28934272

A multimodal logistics service network design with time windows and environmental concerns.

PubMed

Zhang, Dezhi; He, Runzhong; Li, Shuangyan; Wang, Zhongwei

2017-01-01

The design of a multimodal logistics service network with customer service time windows and environmental costs is an important and challenging issue. Accordingly, this work established a model to minimize the total cost of multimodal logistics service network design with time windows and environmental concerns. The proposed model incorporates CO2 emission costs to determine the optimal transportation mode combinations and investment selections for transfer nodes, which consider transport cost, transport time, carbon emission, and logistics service time window constraints. Furthermore, genetic and heuristic algorithms are proposed to set up the abovementioned optimal model. A numerical example is provided to validate the model and the abovementioned two algorithms. Then, comparisons of the performance of the two algorithms are provided. Finally, this work investigates the effects of the logistics service time windows and CO2 emission taxes on the optimal solution. Several important management insights are obtained.

Iterated local search algorithm for solving the orienteering problem with soft time windows.

PubMed

Aghezzaf, Brahim; Fahim, Hassan El

2016-01-01

In this paper we study the orienteering problem with time windows (OPTW) and the impact of relaxing the time windows on the profit collected by the vehicle. The way of relaxing time windows adopted in the orienteering problem with soft time windows (OPSTW) that we study in this research is a late service relaxation that allows linearly penalized late services to customers. We solve this problem heuristically by considering a hybrid iterated local search. The results of the computational study show that the proposed approach is able to achieve promising solutions on the OPTW test instances available in the literature, one new best solution is found. On the newly generated test instances of the OPSTW, the results show that the profit collected by the OPSTW is better than the profit collected by the OPTW.

Crustal movements in Europe observed with EUROPE and IVS-T2 VLBI networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zubko, N.; Poutanen, M.

2011-07-01

The comparative analysis of the EUROPE and IVS-T2 geodetic VLBI sessions has been performed. The main purpose of both campaigns is to observe and accurately determine the VLBI station coordinates and their time evolution. In this analysis our interest is to understand the influence of network configuration on the estimated parameters and, also, how much the results of these two campaigns are consistent. We have used the VieVS software developing at Vienna University of Technology to analyze the EUROPE and IVS-T2 sessions of 2002-2009. We have analyzed the difference of crustal movements obtained with these two networks and the effect of network configuration and station selection. The EPN (EUREF permanent GNSS Network) and IGS (International GNSS Service) networks can be used to compare the results.

A note on windowing for the waveform relaxation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Zhang, Hong

1994-01-01

The technique of windowing has been often used in the implementation of the waveform relaxations for solving ODE's or time dependent PDE's. Its efficiency depends upon problem stiffness and operator splitting. Using model problems, the estimates for window length and convergence rate are derived. The electiveness of windowing is then investigated for non-stiff and stiff cases respectively. lt concludes that for the former, windowing is highly recommended when a large discrepancy exists between the convergence rate on a time interval and the ones on its subintervals. For the latter, windowing does not provide any computational advantage if machine features are disregarded. The discussion is supported by experimental results.

THE SPITZER-WISE SURVEY OF THE ECLIPTIC POLES

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jarrett, T. H.; Masci, F.; Cutri, R. M.

2011-07-10

We have carried out a survey of the north and south ecliptic poles, EP-N and EP-S, respectively, with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The primary objective was to cross-calibrate WISE with the Spitzer and Midcourse Space Experiment (MSX) photometric systems by developing a set of calibration stars that are common to these infrared missions. The ecliptic poles were continuous viewing zones for WISE due to its polar-crossing orbit, making these areas ideal for both absolute and internal calibrations. The Spitzer IRAC and MIPS imaging survey covers a complete area of 0.40 deg{sup 2} formore » the EP-N and 1.28 deg{sup 2} for the EP-S. WISE observed the whole sky in four mid-infrared bands, 3.4, 4.6, 12, and 22 {mu}m, during its eight-month cryogenic mission, including several hundred ecliptic polar passages; here we report on the highest coverage depths achieved by WISE, an area of {approx}1.5 deg{sup 2} for both poles. Located close to the center of the EP-N, the Sy-2 galaxy NGC 6552 conveniently functions as a standard calibrator to measure the red response of the 22 {mu}m channel of WISE. Observations from Spitzer-IRAC/MIPS/IRS-LL and WISE show that the galaxy has a strong red color in the mid-infrared due to star-formation and the presence of an active galactic nucleus (AGN), while over a baseline >1 year the mid-IR photometry of NGC 6552 is shown to vary at a level less than 2%. Combining NGC 6552 with the standard calibrator stars, the achieved photometric accuracy of the WISE calibration, relative to the Spitzer and MSX systems, is 2.4%, 2.8%, 4.5%, and 5.7% for W1 (3.4 {mu}m), W2 (4.6 {mu}m), W3 (12 {mu}m), and W4 (22 {mu}m), respectively. The WISE photometry is internally stable to better than 0.1% over the cryogenic lifetime of the mission. The secondary objective of the Spitzer-WISE Survey was to explore the poles at greater flux-level depths, exploiting the higher angular resolution Spitzer observations and the exceptionally deep (in total coverage) WISE observations that potentially reach down to the confusion limit of the survey. The rich Spitzer and WISE data sets were used to study the Galactic and extragalactic populations through source counts, color-magnitude and color-color diagrams. As an example of what the data sets facilitate, we have separated stars from galaxies, delineated normal galaxies from power-law-dominated AGNs, and reported on the different fractions of extragalactic populations. In the EP-N, we find an AGN source density of {approx}260 deg{sup -2} to a 12 {mu}m depth of 115 {mu}Jy, representing 15% of the total extragalactic population to this depth, similar to what has been observed for low-luminosity AGNs in other fields.« less

Night-time naturally ventilated offices: Statistical simulations of window-use patterns from field monitoring

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yun, Geun Young; Steemers, Koen

2010-07-15

This paper investigates occupant behaviour of window-use in night-time naturally ventilated offices on the basis of a pilot field study, conducted during the summers of 2006 and 2007 in Cambridge, UK, and then demonstrates the effects of employing night-time ventilation on indoor thermal conditions using predictive models of occupant window-use. A longitudinal field study shows that occupants make good use of night-time natural ventilation strategies when provided with openings that allow secure ventilation, and that there is a noticeable time of day effect in window-use patterns (i.e. increased probability of action on arrival and departure). We develop logistic models ofmore » window-use for night-time naturally ventilated offices, which are subsequently applied to a behaviour algorithm, including Markov chains and Monte Carlo methods. The simulations using the behaviour algorithm demonstrate a good agreement with the observational data of window-use, and reveal how building design and occupant behaviour collectively affect the thermal performance of offices. They illustrate that the provision of secure ventilation leads to more frequent use of the window, and thus contributes significantly to the achievement of a comfortable indoor environment during the daytime occupied period. For example, the maximum temperature for a night-time ventilated office is found to be 3 C below the predicted value for a daytime-only ventilated office. (author)« less

A Numerical Study of the Thermal Characteristics of an Air Cavity Formed by Window Sashes in a Double Window

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Jae-sik; Oh, Eun-Joo; Bae, Min-Jung; Song, Doo-Sam

2017-12-01

Given that the Korean government is implementing what has been termed the energy standards and labelling program for windows, window companies will be required to assign window ratings based on the experimental results of their product. Because this has added to the cost and time required for laboratory tests by window companies, the simulation system for the thermal performance of windows has been prepared to compensate for time and cost burdens. In Korea, a simulator is usually used to calculate the thermal performance of a window through WINDOW/THERM, complying with ISO 15099. For a single window, the simulation results are similar to experimental results. A double window is also calculated using the same method, but the calculation results for this type of window are unreliable. ISO 15099 should not recommend the calculation of the thermal properties of an air cavity between window sashes in a double window. This causes a difference between simulation and experimental results pertaining to the thermal performance of a double window. In this paper, the thermal properties of air cavities between window sashes in a double window are analyzed through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations with the results compared to calculation results certified by ISO 15099. The surface temperature of the air cavity analyzed by CFD is compared to the experimental temperatures. These results show that an appropriate calculation method for an air cavity between window sashes in a double window should be established for reliable thermal performance results for a double window.

Process Flow Features as a Host-Based Event Knowledge Representation

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-06-14

an executing process during a window of time called a process flow. Process flows are calculated from key process data structures extracted from...for Cluster 98. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.9. Davies- Boldin Dunn Index Sliding Window 5 on Windows 7...82 4.10. Davies- Boldin Dunn Index Sliding Window 10 on Windows 7 . 83 4.11. Davies- Boldin Dunn Index Sliding Window 20 on Windows 7 . 83 ix List of

The anterior and posterior pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus are involved in behavior and neuronal activity of the cuneiform and entopeduncular nuclei.

PubMed

Jin, X; Schwabe, K; Krauss, J K; Alam, M

2016-05-13

Loss of cholinergic neurons in the mesencephalic locomotor region, comprising the pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) and the cuneiform nucleus (CnF), is related to gait disturbances in late stage Parkinson's disease (PD). We investigate the effect of anterior or posterior cholinergic lesions of the PPN on gait-related motor behavior, and on neuronal network activity of the PPN area and basal ganglia (BG) motor loop in rats. Anterior PPN lesions, posterior PPN lesions or sham lesions were induced by stereotaxic microinjection of the cholinergic toxin AF64-A or vehicle in male Sprague-Dawley rats. First, locomotor activity (open field), postural disturbances (Rotarod) and gait asymmetry (treadmill test) were assessed. Thereafter, single-unit and oscillatory activities were measured in the non-lesioned area of the PPN, the CnF and the entopeduncular nucleus (EPN), the BG output region, with microelectrodes under urethane anesthesia. Additionally, ECoG was recorded in the motor cortex. Injection of AF64-A into the anterior and posterior PPN decreased cholinergic cell counts as compared to naive controls (P<0.001) but also destroyed non-cholinergic cells. Only anterior PPN lesions decreased the front limb swing time of gait in the treadmill test, while not affecting other gait-related parameters tested. Main electrophysiological findings were that anterior PPN lesions increased the firing activity in the CnF (P<0.001). Further, lesions of either PPN region decreased the coherence of alpha (8-12 Hz) band between CnF and motor cortex (MCx), and increased the beta (12-30 Hz) oscillatory synchronization between EPN and the MCx. Lesions of the PPN in rats had complex effects on oscillatory neuronal activity of the CnF and the BG network, which may contribute to the understanding of the pathophysiology of gait disturbance in PD. Copyright © 2016 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Is Latency to Test Deadline a Predictor of Student Test Performance?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Landrum, R. Eric; Gurung, Regan A. R.

2013-01-01

When students are given a period or window of time to take an exam, is taking an exam earlier in the window (high latency to deadline) related to test scores? In Study 1, students (n = 236) were given windows of time to take online each of 13 quizzes and 4 exams. In Study 2, students (n = 251) similarly took 4 exams online within a test window. In…

Sliding-window analysis tracks fluctuations in amygdala functional connectivity associated with physiological arousal and vigilance during fear conditioning.

PubMed

Baczkowski, Blazej M; Johnstone, Tom; Walter, Henrik; Erk, Susanne; Veer, Ilya M

2017-06-01

We evaluated whether sliding-window analysis can reveal functionally relevant brain network dynamics during a well-established fear conditioning paradigm. To this end, we tested if fMRI fluctuations in amygdala functional connectivity (FC) can be related to task-induced changes in physiological arousal and vigilance, as reflected in the skin conductance level (SCL). Thirty-two healthy individuals participated in the study. For the sliding-window analysis we used windows that were shifted by one volume at a time. Amygdala FC was calculated for each of these windows. Simultaneously acquired SCL time series were averaged over time frames that corresponded to the sliding-window FC analysis, which were subsequently regressed against the whole-brain seed-based amygdala sliding-window FC using the GLM. Surrogate time series were generated to test whether connectivity dynamics could have occurred by chance. In addition, results were contrasted against static amygdala FC and sliding-window FC of the primary visual cortex, which was chosen as a control seed, while a physio-physiological interaction (PPI) was performed as cross-validation. During periods of increased SCL, the left amygdala became more strongly coupled with the bilateral insula and anterior cingulate cortex, core areas of the salience network. The sliding-window analysis yielded a connectivity pattern that was unlikely to have occurred by chance, was spatially distinct from static amygdala FC and from sliding-window FC of the primary visual cortex, but was highly comparable to that of the PPI analysis. We conclude that sliding-window analysis can reveal functionally relevant fluctuations in connectivity in the context of an externally cued task. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Computed Tomography Window Blending: Feasibility in Thoracic Trauma.

PubMed

Mandell, Jacob C; Wortman, Jeremy R; Rocha, Tatiana C; Folio, Les R; Andriole, Katherine P; Khurana, Bharti

2018-02-07

This study aims to demonstrate the feasibility of processing computed tomography (CT) images with a custom window blending algorithm that combines soft-tissue, bone, and lung window settings into a single image; to compare the time for interpretation of chest CT for thoracic trauma with window blending and conventional window settings; and to assess diagnostic performance of both techniques. Adobe Photoshop was scripted to process axial DICOM images from retrospective contrast-enhanced chest CTs performed for trauma with a window-blending algorithm. Two emergency radiologists independently interpreted the axial images from 103 chest CTs with both blended and conventional windows. Interpretation time and diagnostic performance were compared with Wilcoxon signed-rank test and McNemar test, respectively. Agreement with Nexus CT Chest injury severity was assessed with the weighted kappa statistic. A total of 13,295 images were processed without error. Interpretation was faster with window blending, resulting in a 20.3% time saving (P < .001), with no difference in diagnostic performance, within the power of the study to detect a difference in sensitivity of 5% as determined by post hoc power analysis. The sensitivity of the window-blended cases was 82.7%, compared to 81.6% for conventional windows. The specificity of the window-blended cases was 93.1%, compared to 90.5% for conventional windows. All injuries of major clinical significance (per Nexus CT Chest criteria) were correctly identified in all reading sessions, and all negative cases were correctly classified. All readers demonstrated near-perfect agreement with injury severity classification with both window settings. In this pilot study utilizing retrospective data, window blending allows faster preliminary interpretation of axial chest CT performed for trauma, with no significant difference in diagnostic performance compared to conventional window settings. Future studies would be required to assess the utility of window blending in clinical practice. Copyright © 2018 The Association of University Radiologists. All rights reserved.

Earth's Surface Displacements from the GPS Time Series

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haritonova, D.; Balodis, J.; Janpaule, I.; Morozova, K.

2015-11-01

The GPS observations of both Latvian permanent GNSS networks - EUPOS®-Riga and LatPos, have been collected for a period of 8 years - from 2007 to 2014. Local surface displacements have been derived from the obtained coordinate time series eliminating different impact sources. The Bernese software is used for data processing. The EUREF Permanent Network (EPN) stations in the surroundings of Latvia are selected as fiducial stations. The results have shown a positive tendency of vertical displacements in the western part of Latvia - station heights are increasing, and negative velocities are observed in the central and eastern parts. Station vertical velocities are ranging in diapason of 4 mm/year. In the case of horizontal displacements, site velocities are up to 1 mm/year and mostly oriented to the south. The comparison of the obtained results with data from the deformation model NKG_RF03vel has been made. Additionally, the purpose of this study is to analyse GPS time series obtained using two different data processing strategies: Precise Point Positioning (PPP) and estimation of station coordinates relatively to the positions of fiducial stations also known as Differential GNSS.

Letter-sound processing deficits in children with developmental dyslexia: An ERP study.

PubMed

Moll, Kristina; Hasko, Sandra; Groth, Katharina; Bartling, Jürgen; Schulte-Körne, Gerd

2016-04-01

The time course during letter-sound processing was investigated in children with developmental dyslexia (DD) and typically developing (TD) children using electroencephalography. Thirty-eight children with DD and 25 TD children participated in a visual-auditory oddball paradigm. Event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by standard and deviant stimuli in an early (100-190 ms) and late (560-750 ms) time window were analysed. In the early time window, ERPs elicited by the deviant stimulus were delayed and less left lateralized over fronto-temporal electrodes for children with DD compared to TD children. In the late time window, children with DD showed higher amplitudes extending more over right frontal electrodes. Longer latencies in the early time window and stronger right hemispheric activation in the late time window were associated with slower reading and naming speed. Additionally, stronger right hemispheric activation in the late time window correlated with poorer phonological awareness skills. Deficits in early stages of letter-sound processing influence later more explicit cognitive processes during letter-sound processing. Identifying the neurophysiological correlates of letter-sound processing and their relation to reading related skills provides insight into the degree of automaticity during letter-sound processing beyond behavioural measures of letter-sound-knowledge. Copyright © 2016 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lagged kernel machine regression for identifying time windows of susceptibility to exposures of complex mixtures.

PubMed

Liu, Shelley H; Bobb, Jennifer F; Lee, Kyu Ha; Gennings, Chris; Claus Henn, Birgit; Bellinger, David; Austin, Christine; Schnaas, Lourdes; Tellez-Rojo, Martha M; Hu, Howard; Wright, Robert O; Arora, Manish; Coull, Brent A

2018-07-01

The impact of neurotoxic chemical mixtures on children's health is a critical public health concern. It is well known that during early life, toxic exposures may impact cognitive function during critical time intervals of increased vulnerability, known as windows of susceptibility. Knowledge on time windows of susceptibility can help inform treatment and prevention strategies, as chemical mixtures may affect a developmental process that is operating at a specific life phase. There are several statistical challenges in estimating the health effects of time-varying exposures to multi-pollutant mixtures, such as: multi-collinearity among the exposures both within time points and across time points, and complex exposure-response relationships. To address these concerns, we develop a flexible statistical method, called lagged kernel machine regression (LKMR). LKMR identifies critical exposure windows of chemical mixtures, and accounts for complex non-linear and non-additive effects of the mixture at any given exposure window. Specifically, LKMR estimates how the effects of a mixture of exposures change with the exposure time window using a Bayesian formulation of a grouped, fused lasso penalty within a kernel machine regression (KMR) framework. A simulation study demonstrates the performance of LKMR under realistic exposure-response scenarios, and demonstrates large gains over approaches that consider each time window separately, particularly when serial correlation among the time-varying exposures is high. Furthermore, LKMR demonstrates gains over another approach that inputs all time-specific chemical concentrations together into a single KMR. We apply LKMR to estimate associations between neurodevelopment and metal mixtures in Early Life Exposures in Mexico and Neurotoxicology, a prospective cohort study of child health in Mexico City.

A test of multiple correlation temporal window characteristic of non-Markov processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arecchi, F. T.; Farini, A.; Megna, N.

2016-03-01

We introduce a sensitive test of memory effects in successive events. The test consists of a combination K of binary correlations at successive times. K decays monotonically from K = 1 for uncorrelated events as a Markov process. For a monotonic memory fading, K<1 always. Here we report evidence of a K>1 temporal window in cognitive tasks consisting of the visual identification of the front face of the Necker cube after a previous presentation of the same. We speculate that memory effects provide a temporal window with K>1 and this experiment could be a possible first step towards a better comprehension of this phenomenon. The K>1 behaviour is maximal at an inter-measurement time τ around 2s with inter-subject differences. The K>1 persists over a time window of 1s around τ; outside this window the K<1 behaviour is recovered. The universal occurrence of a K>1 window in pairs of successive perceptions suggests that, at variance with single visual stimuli eliciting a suitable response, a pair of stimuli shortly separated in time displays mutual correlations.

Empathy, Pain and Attention: Cues that Predict Pain Stimulation to the Partner and the Self Capture Visual Attention

PubMed Central

Wu, Lingdan; Kirmse, Ursula; Flaisch, Tobias; Boiandina, Ganna; Kenter, Anna; Schupp, Harald T.

2017-01-01

Empathy motivates helping and cooperative behaviors and plays an important role in social interactions and personal communication. The present research examined the hypothesis that a state of empathy guides attention towards stimuli significant to others in a similar way as to stimuli relevant to the self. Sixteen couples in romantic partnerships were examined in a pain-related empathy paradigm including an anticipation phase and a stimulation phase. Abstract visual symbols (i.e., arrows and flashes) signaled the delivery of a Pain or Nopain stimulus to the partner or the self while dense sensor event-related potentials (ERPs) were simultaneously recorded from both persons. During the anticipation phase, stimuli predicting Pain compared to Nopain stimuli to the partner elicited a larger early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP), which were similar in topography and latency to the EPN and LPP modulations elicited by stimuli signaling pain for the self. Noteworthy, using abstract cue symbols to cue Pain and Nopain stimuli suggests that these effects are not driven by perceptual features. The findings demonstrate that symbolic stimuli relevant for the partner capture attention, which implies a state of empathy to the pain of the partner. From a broader perspective, states of empathy appear to regulate attention processing according to the perceived needs and goals of the partner. PMID:28979199

Microbial control of phytophagous invertebrate pests in South Africa: Current status and future prospects.

PubMed

Hatting, Justin L; Moore, Sean D; Malan, Antoinette P

2018-02-07

Invertebrate pests pose a significant threat to food security on the African continent. In response, South Africa has become one of the largest importers of chemical pesticides in sub-Saharan Africa, with several hundred active ingredients registered. To address the over-reliance on such chemicals, the South African Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) has eliminated or restricted several pesticides since the late 1970s. The recent launch of the South African National Bio-Economy Strategy and establishment of the South African Bioproducts Organisation (SABO), together with new guidelines for registration of biopesticides in 2015, also support this endeavour. Concurrently, entomopathogen-related research and bioproduct development has increased over the past decade. Currently, 31 products (seven manufactured locally) are registered under the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act 36 of 1947. Commercially important microbes include Beauveria bassiana (Cordycipitaceae), Metarhizium anisopliae (Clavicipitaceae), Cydia pomonella granulovirus, Cryptophlebia leucotreta granulovirus, Helicoverpa armigera nucleopolyhedrovirus (Baculoviridae) and Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki and B. thuringiensis subsp. aizawai (Bacillaceae). Both parasitic and entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) show potential for development as bioinsecticides with one commercial EPN product, based on Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Heterorhabditidae), registered under the Act. Rapid scientific progression, supported by a favourable legislative environment, should facilitate further advances in microbial control of phytophagous invertebrate pests in South Africa. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Acute toxicity of four anticholinesterase insecticides to American kestrels, eastern screech-owls and northern bobwhites

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wiemeyer, Stanley N.; Sparling, D.W.

1991-01-01

American kestrels (Falco sparverius), eastern screech-owls (Otus asio), and northern bobwhites (Colinus virginianus) were given single acute oral doses of four widely diverse anticholinesterase pesticides: EPN, fenthion, carbofuran, and monocrotophos. LD50s, based on birds that died within 5 d of dosage, were computed for each chemical in each species. Sex differences in the sensitivity of northern bobwhites in reproductive condition were examined. American kestrels were highly sensitive to all chemicals tested (LD50s 0.6--4.0 mg/kg). Eastern screech-owls were highly tolerant to EPN (LD50 274 mg/kg) but sensitive to the remaining chemicals (LD50s 1.5-3.9 mg/kg). Northern bobwhites were highly sensitive to monocrotophos (LD50 0.8 mg/kg) and less sensitive to the remaining chemicals (LD50s 4.6--31 mg/kg). Female bobwhites (LD50 3.1 mg/kg) were more sensitive to fenthion than males (LD50 7.0 mg/kg). Mean percent depression of brain cho[inesterase (ChE) of birds that died on the day of dosing exceeded 65% for all chemicals in all species. The response of one species to a given pesticide should not be used to predict the sensitivity of other species to the same pesticide. The need for research on several topics is discussed

Efficient constraint handling in electromagnetism-like algorithm for traveling salesman problem with time windows.

PubMed

Yurtkuran, Alkın; Emel, Erdal

2014-01-01

The traveling salesman problem with time windows (TSPTW) is a variant of the traveling salesman problem in which each customer should be visited within a given time window. In this paper, we propose an electromagnetism-like algorithm (EMA) that uses a new constraint handling technique to minimize the travel cost in TSPTW problems. The EMA utilizes the attraction-repulsion mechanism between charged particles in a multidimensional space for global optimization. This paper investigates the problem-specific constraint handling capability of the EMA framework using a new variable bounding strategy, in which real-coded particle's boundary constraints associated with the corresponding time windows of customers, is introduced and combined with the penalty approach to eliminate infeasibilities regarding time window violations. The performance of the proposed algorithm and the effectiveness of the constraint handling technique have been studied extensively, comparing it to that of state-of-the-art metaheuristics using several sets of benchmark problems reported in the literature. The results of the numerical experiments show that the EMA generates feasible and near-optimal results within shorter computational times compared to the test algorithms.

Efficient Constraint Handling in Electromagnetism-Like Algorithm for Traveling Salesman Problem with Time Windows

PubMed Central

Yurtkuran, Alkın

2014-01-01

The traveling salesman problem with time windows (TSPTW) is a variant of the traveling salesman problem in which each customer should be visited within a given time window. In this paper, we propose an electromagnetism-like algorithm (EMA) that uses a new constraint handling technique to minimize the travel cost in TSPTW problems. The EMA utilizes the attraction-repulsion mechanism between charged particles in a multidimensional space for global optimization. This paper investigates the problem-specific constraint handling capability of the EMA framework using a new variable bounding strategy, in which real-coded particle's boundary constraints associated with the corresponding time windows of customers, is introduced and combined with the penalty approach to eliminate infeasibilities regarding time window violations. The performance of the proposed algorithm and the effectiveness of the constraint handling technique have been studied extensively, comparing it to that of state-of-the-art metaheuristics using several sets of benchmark problems reported in the literature. The results of the numerical experiments show that the EMA generates feasible and near-optimal results within shorter computational times compared to the test algorithms. PMID:24723834

75 FR 11841 - Repowering Assistance Program

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-03-12

... application window. SUMMARY: RBS is announcing a new application window to submit applications for the...-time application window for remaining FY 2009 funds. Paperwork Reduction Act In accordance with the... allocate all of the FY 2009 authorized funds. Therefore, the Agency is opening a new application window to...

Millisecond timing on PCs and Macs.

PubMed

MacInnes, W J; Taylor, T L

2001-05-01

A real-time, object-oriented solution for displaying stimuli on Windows 95/98, MacOS and Linux platforms is presented. The program, written in C++, utilizes a special-purpose window class (GLWindow), OpenGL, and 32-bit graphics acceleration; it avoids display timing uncertainty by substituting the new window class for the default window code for each system. We report the outcome of tests for real-time capability across PC and Mac platforms running a variety of operating systems. The test program, which can be used as a shell for programming real-time experiments and testing specific processors, is available at http://www.cs.dal.ca/~macinnwj. We propose to provide researchers with a sense of the usefulness of our program, highlight the ability of many multitasking environments to achieve real time, as well as caution users about systems that may not achieve real time, even under optimal conditions.

Exclusive queueing model including the choice of service windows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tanaka, Masahiro; Yanagisawa, Daichi; Nishinari, Katsuhiro

2018-01-01

In a queueing system involving multiple service windows, choice behavior is a significant concern. This paper incorporates the choice of service windows into a queueing model with a floor represented by discrete cells. We contrived a logit-based choice algorithm for agents considering the numbers of agents and the distances to all service windows. Simulations were conducted with various parameters of agent choice preference for these two elements and for different floor configurations, including the floor length and the number of service windows. We investigated the model from the viewpoint of transit times and entrance block rates. The influences of the parameters on these factors were surveyed in detail and we determined that there are optimum floor lengths that minimize the transit times. In addition, we observed that the transit times were determined almost entirely by the entrance block rates. The results of the presented model are relevant to understanding queueing systems including the choice of service windows and can be employed to optimize facility design and floor management.

Correlates of avian building strikes at a glass façade museum surrounded by avian habitat

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kahle, L.; Flannery, M.; Dumbacher, J. P.

2013-12-01

Bird window collisions are the second largest anthropogenic cause of bird deaths in the world. Effective mitigation requires an understanding of which birds are most likely to strike, when, and why. Here, we examine five years of avian window strike data from the California Academy of Sciences - a relatively new museum with significant glass façade situated in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. We examine correlates of window-killed birds, including age, sex, season, and migratory or sedentary tendencies of the birds. We also examine correlates of window kills such as presence of habitat surrounding the building and overall window area. We found that males are almost three times more likely than females to mortally strike windows, and immature birds are three times more abundant than adults in our window kill dataset. Among seasons, strikes were not notably different in spring, summer, and fall; however they were notably reduced in winter. There was no statistical effect of building orientation (north, south, east, or west), and the presence of avian habitat directly adjacent to windows had a minor effect. We also report ongoing studies examining various efforts to reduce window kill (primarily external decals and large electronic window blinds.) We hope that improving our understanding of the causes of the window strikes will help us strategically reduce window strikes.

A novel fast optical switch based on two cascaded Terahertz Optical Asymmetric Demultiplexers (TOAD).

PubMed

Wang, Bing; Baby, Varghese; Tong, Wilson; Xu, Lei; Friedman, Michelle; Runser, Robert; Glesk, Ivan; Prucnal, Paul

2002-01-14

A novel optical switch based on cascading two terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexers (TOAD) is presented. By utilizing the sharp edge of the asymmetric TOAD switching window profile, two TOAD switching windows are overlapped to produce a narrower aggregate switching window, not limited by the pulse propagation time in the SOA of the TOAD. Simulations of the cascaded TOAD switching window show relatively constant window amplitude for different window sizes. Experimental results on cascading two TOADs, each with a switching window of 8ps, but with the SOA on opposite sides of the fiber loop, show a minimum switching window of 2.7ps.

On Time Delay Margin Estimation for Adaptive Control and Optimal Control Modification

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nguyen, Nhan T.

2011-01-01

This paper presents methods for estimating time delay margin for adaptive control of input delay systems with almost linear structured uncertainty. The bounded linear stability analysis method seeks to represent an adaptive law by a locally bounded linear approximation within a small time window. The time delay margin of this input delay system represents a local stability measure and is computed analytically by three methods: Pade approximation, Lyapunov-Krasovskii method, and the matrix measure method. These methods are applied to the standard model-reference adaptive control, s-modification adaptive law, and optimal control modification adaptive law. The windowing analysis results in non-unique estimates of the time delay margin since it is dependent on the length of a time window and parameters which vary from one time window to the next. The optimal control modification adaptive law overcomes this limitation in that, as the adaptive gain tends to infinity and if the matched uncertainty is linear, then the closed-loop input delay system tends to a LTI system. A lower bound of the time delay margin of this system can then be estimated uniquely without the need for the windowing analysis. Simulation results demonstrates the feasibility of the bounded linear stability method for time delay margin estimation.

High-Reliability Waveguide Vacuum/Pressure Window

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Britcliffe, Michael J.; Hanson, Theodore R.; Long, Ezra M.; Montanez, Steven

2013-01-01

The NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) uses commercial waveguide windows on the output waveguide of Ka-band (32 GHz) low-noise amplifiers. Mechanical failure of these windows resulted in an unacceptable loss in tracking time. To address this issue, a new Ka-band WR-28 waveguide window has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The window uses a slab of low-loss, low-dielectric constant foam that is bonded into a 1/2-wave-thick waveguide/flange. The foam is a commercially available, rigid, closed-cell polymethacrylimide. It has excellent electrical properties with a dielectric constant of 1.04, and a loss tangent of 0.01. It is relatively strong with a tensile strength of 1 MPa. The material is virtually impermeable to helium. The finished window exhibits a leak rate of less than 3x10(exp -3)cu cm/s with helium. The material is also chemically resistant and can be cleaned with acetone. The window is constructed by fabricating a window body by brazing a short length of WR-28 copper waveguide into a standard rectangular flange, and machining the resulting part to a thickness of 4.6 mm. The foam is machined to a rectangular shape with a dimension of 7.06x3.53 mm. The foam is bonded into the body with a two-part epoxy. After curing, the excess glue and foam are knife-trimmed by hand. The finished window has a loss of less than 0.08 dB (2%) and a return loss of greater than 25 dB at 32 GHz. This meets the requirements for the DSN application. The window is usable for most applications over the entire 26-to-40-GHz waveguide band. The window return loss can be tuned to a required frequency by var y in g the thickness of the window slightly. Most standard waveguide windows use a thin membrane of material bonded into a recess in a waveguide flange, or sandwiched between two flanges with a polymer seal. Designs using the recessed window are prone to mechanical failure over time due to constraints on the dimensions of the recess that allow the bond to fail. Designs using the sandwich method are often permeable to helium, which prohibits the use of helium leak detection. At the time of this reporting, 40 windows have been produced. Twelve are in operation with a combined operating time of over 30,000 hours without a failure.

76 FR 23911 - Fisheries of the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and South Atlantic; Reef Fish Fishery of the Gulf of...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-04-29

... maintenance window for the Gulf individual fishing quota (IFQ) programs, and removing obsolete codified text..., etc.), extends the IFQ maintenance window an additional 8 hours to allow for more time to conduct end... maintenance window. All electronic IFQ transactions must be completed by December 31 at 6 p.m. eastern time...

The Practical Assessment of Pilot Workload: Flight Mechanics Panel of AGARD

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-06-01

tesits. The PSE, consi"n of a post-flght questionnaire and a d ~befrif interview, was zised to obtain informationt from botit pilots for each test sortie...sgetdta rasetcria voe epne eye blomink beaio otiuecmpeetr nomtions abouer plt worklo d . a nge dmntalaesety I authtor:t describen theprcia use of ths...sit d ~ymt auablnietihWtmmn &I when irvd no pant of ibjtove ratlln s. fohad( X9)4)S) n h (ec) Cane s deeine heitha wich requre visalmoitoang Tol an

Self spectrum window method in wigner-ville distribution.

PubMed

Liu, Zhongguo; Liu, Changchun; Liu, Boqiang; Lv, Yangsheng; Lei, Yinsheng; Yu, Mengsun

2005-01-01

Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) is an important type of time-frequency analysis in biomedical signal processing. The cross-term interference in WVD has a disadvantageous influence on its application. In this research, the Self Spectrum Window (SSW) method was put forward to suppress the cross-term interference, based on the fact that the cross-term and auto-WVD- terms in integral kernel function are orthogonal. With the Self Spectrum Window (SSW) algorithm, a real auto-WVD function was used as a template to cross-correlate with the integral kernel function, and the Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) spectrum of the signal was used as window function to process the WVD in time-frequency plane. The SSW method was confirmed by computer simulation with good analysis results. Satisfactory time- frequency distribution was obtained.

Fully automatic time-window selection using machine learning for global adjoint tomography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Y.; Hill, J.; Lei, W.; Lefebvre, M. P.; Bozdag, E.; Komatitsch, D.; Tromp, J.

2017-12-01

Selecting time windows from seismograms such that the synthetic measurements (from simulations) and measured observations are sufficiently close is indispensable in a global adjoint tomography framework. The increasing amount of seismic data collected everyday around the world demands "intelligent" algorithms for seismic window selection. While the traditional FLEXWIN algorithm can be "automatic" to some extent, it still requires both human input and human knowledge or experience, and thus is not deemed to be fully automatic. The goal of intelligent window selection is to automatically select windows based on a learnt engine that is built upon a huge number of existing windows generated through the adjoint tomography project. We have formulated the automatic window selection problem as a classification problem. All possible misfit calculation windows are classified as either usable or unusable. Given a large number of windows with a known selection mode (select or not select), we train a neural network to predict the selection mode of an arbitrary input window. Currently, the five features we extract from the windows are its cross-correlation value, cross-correlation time lag, amplitude ratio between observed and synthetic data, window length, and minimum STA/LTA value. More features can be included in the future. We use these features to characterize each window for training a multilayer perceptron neural network (MPNN). Training the MPNN is equivalent to solve a non-linear optimization problem. We use backward propagation to derive the gradient of the loss function with respect to the weighting matrices and bias vectors and use the mini-batch stochastic gradient method to iteratively optimize the MPNN. Numerical tests show that with a careful selection of the training data and a sufficient amount of training data, we are able to train a robust neural network that is capable of detecting the waveforms in an arbitrary earthquake data with negligible detection error compared to existing selection methods (e.g. FLEXWIN). We will introduce in detail the mathematical formulation of the window-selection-oriented MPNN and show very encouraging results when applying the new algorithm to real earthquake data.

Robust alignment of chromatograms by statistically analyzing the shifts matrix generated by moving window fast Fourier transform cross-correlation.

PubMed

Zhang, Mingjing; Wen, Ming; Zhang, Zhi-Min; Lu, Hongmei; Liang, Yizeng; Zhan, Dejian

2015-03-01

Retention time shift is one of the most challenging problems during the preprocessing of massive chromatographic datasets. Here, an improved version of the moving window fast Fourier transform cross-correlation algorithm is presented to perform nonlinear and robust alignment of chromatograms by analyzing the shifts matrix generated by moving window procedure. The shifts matrix in retention time can be estimated by fast Fourier transform cross-correlation with a moving window procedure. The refined shift of each scan point can be obtained by calculating the mode of corresponding column of the shifts matrix. This version is simple, but more effective and robust than the previously published moving window fast Fourier transform cross-correlation method. It can handle nonlinear retention time shift robustly if proper window size has been selected. The window size is the only one parameter needed to adjust and optimize. The properties of the proposed method are investigated by comparison with the previous moving window fast Fourier transform cross-correlation and recursive alignment by fast Fourier transform using chromatographic datasets. The pattern recognition results of a gas chromatography mass spectrometry dataset of metabolic syndrome can be improved significantly after preprocessing by this method. Furthermore, the proposed method is available as an open source package at https://github.com/zmzhang/MWFFT2. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Free-breathing 3D Cardiac MRI Using Iterative Image-Based Respiratory Motion Correction

PubMed Central

Moghari, Mehdi H.; Roujol, Sébastien; Chan, Raymond H.; Hong, Susie N.; Bello, Natalie; Henningsson, Markus; Ngo, Long H.; Goddu, Beth; Goepfert, Lois; Kissinger, Kraig V.; Manning, Warren J.; Nezafat, Reza

2012-01-01

Respiratory motion compensation using diaphragmatic navigator (NAV) gating with a 5 mm gating window is conventionally used for free-breathing cardiac MRI. Due to the narrow gating window, scan efficiency is low resulting in long scan times, especially for patients with irregular breathing patterns. In this work, a new retrospective motion compensation algorithm is presented to reduce the scan time for free-breathing cardiac MRI that increasing the gating window to 15 mm without compromising image quality. The proposed algorithm iteratively corrects for respiratory-induced cardiac motion by optimizing the sharpness of the heart. To evaluate this technique, two coronary MRI datasets with 1.3 mm3 resolution were acquired from 11 healthy subjects (7 females, 25±9 years); one using a NAV with a 5 mm gating window acquired in 12.0±2.0 minutes and one with a 15 mm gating window acquired in 7.1±1.0 minutes. The images acquired with a 15 mm gating window were corrected using the proposed algorithm and compared to the uncorrected images acquired with the 5 mm and 15 mm gating windows. The image quality score, sharpness, and length of the three major coronary arteries were equivalent between the corrected images and the images acquired with a 5 mm gating window (p-value>0.05), while the scan time was reduced by a factor of 1.7. PMID:23132549

Evaluation of optimized magnetic resonance perfusion imaging scanning time window after contrast agent injection for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions

PubMed Central

Dong, Jie; Wang, Dawei; Ma, Zhenshen; Deng, Guodong; Wang, Lanhua; Zhang, Jiandong

2017-01-01

The aim of the study was evaluate the 3.0 T magnetic resonance (MR) perfusion imaging scanning time window following contrast injection for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions and to determine the optimum scanning time window for increased scanner usage efficiency and reduced diagnostic adverse risk factors. A total of 52 women with breast abnormalities were selected for conventional MR imaging and T1 dynamic-enhanced imaging. Quantitative parameters [volume transfer constant (Ktrans), rate constant (Kep) and extravascular extracellular volume fraction (Ve)] were calculated at phases 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50, which represented time windows at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 min, respectively, following injection of contrast agent. The association of the parameters at different phases with benign and malignant tumor diagnosis was analyzed. MR perfusion imaging was verified as an effective modality in the diagnosis of breast malignancies and the best scanning time window was identified: i) Values of Ktrans and Kep at all phases were statistically significant in differentiating benign and malignant tumors (P<0.05), while the value of Ve had statistical significance only at stage 10, but not at any other stages (P>0.05); ii) values of Ve in benign tumors increased with phase number, but achieved no obvious changes at different phases in malignant tumors; iii) the optimum scanning time window of breast perfusion imaging with 3.0 T MR was between phases 10 and 30 (i.e., between 5 and 15 min after contrast agent injection). The variation trend of Ve values at different phases may serve as a diagnostic reference for differentiating benign and malignant breast abnormalities. The most efficient scanning time window was indicated to be 5 min after contrast injection, based on the observation that the Ve value only had statistical significance in diagnosis at stage 10. However, the optimal scanning time window is from 5 to 15 min following the injection of contrast agent, since that the variation trend of Ve is able to serve as a diagnostic reference. PMID:28450944

Evaluation of optimized magnetic resonance perfusion imaging scanning time window after contrast agent injection for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions.

PubMed

Dong, Jie; Wang, Dawei; Ma, Zhenshen; Deng, Guodong; Wang, Lanhua; Zhang, Jiandong

2017-03-01

The aim of the study was evaluate the 3.0 T magnetic resonance (MR) perfusion imaging scanning time window following contrast injection for differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions and to determine the optimum scanning time window for increased scanner usage efficiency and reduced diagnostic adverse risk factors. A total of 52 women with breast abnormalities were selected for conventional MR imaging and T1 dynamic-enhanced imaging. Quantitative parameters [volume transfer constant (K trans ), rate constant (K ep ) and extravascular extracellular volume fraction (V e )] were calculated at phases 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50, which represented time windows at 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 min, respectively, following injection of contrast agent. The association of the parameters at different phases with benign and malignant tumor diagnosis was analyzed. MR perfusion imaging was verified as an effective modality in the diagnosis of breast malignancies and the best scanning time window was identified: i) Values of K trans and K ep at all phases were statistically significant in differentiating benign and malignant tumors (P<0.05), while the value of V e had statistical significance only at stage 10, but not at any other stages (P>0.05); ii) values of V e in benign tumors increased with phase number, but achieved no obvious changes at different phases in malignant tumors; iii) the optimum scanning time window of breast perfusion imaging with 3.0 T MR was between phases 10 and 30 (i.e., between 5 and 15 min after contrast agent injection). The variation trend of V e values at different phases may serve as a diagnostic reference for differentiating benign and malignant breast abnormalities. The most efficient scanning time window was indicated to be 5 min after contrast injection, based on the observation that the V e value only had statistical significance in diagnosis at stage 10. However, the optimal scanning time window is from 5 to 15 min following the injection of contrast agent, since that the variation trend of V e is able to serve as a diagnostic reference.

Timing anthropogenic stressors to mitigate their impact on marine ecosystem resilience.

PubMed

Wu, Paul Pao-Yen; Mengersen, Kerrie; McMahon, Kathryn; Kendrick, Gary A; Chartrand, Kathryn; York, Paul H; Rasheed, Michael A; Caley, M Julian

2017-11-02

Better mitigation of anthropogenic stressors on marine ecosystems is urgently needed to address increasing biodiversity losses worldwide. We explore opportunities for stressor mitigation using whole-of-systems modelling of ecological resilience, accounting for complex interactions between stressors, their timing and duration, background environmental conditions and biological processes. We then search for ecological windows, times when stressors minimally impact ecological resilience, defined here as risk, recovery and resistance. We show for 28 globally distributed seagrass meadows that stressor scheduling that exploits ecological windows for dredging campaigns can achieve up to a fourfold reduction in recovery time and 35% reduction in extinction risk. Although the timing and length of windows vary among sites to some degree, global trends indicate favourable windows in autumn and winter. Our results demonstrate that resilience is dynamic with respect to space, time and stressors, varying most strongly with: (i) the life history of the seagrass genus and (ii) the duration and timing of the impacting stress.

Platform for Postprocessing Waveform-Based NDE

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roth, Don

2008-01-01

Taking advantage of the similarities that exist among all waveform-based non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods, a common software platform has been developed containing multiple- signal and image-processing techniques for waveforms and images. The NASA NDE Signal and Image Processing software has been developed using the latest versions of LabVIEW, and its associated Advanced Signal Processing and Vision Toolkits. The software is useable on a PC with Windows XP and Windows Vista. The software has been designed with a commercial grade interface in which two main windows, Waveform Window and Image Window, are displayed if the user chooses a waveform file to display. Within these two main windows, most actions are chosen through logically conceived run-time menus. The Waveform Window has plots for both the raw time-domain waves and their frequency- domain transformations (fast Fourier transform and power spectral density). The Image Window shows the C-scan image formed from information of the time-domain waveform (such as peak amplitude) or its frequency-domain transformation at each scan location. The user also has the ability to open an image, or series of images, or a simple set of X-Y paired data set in text format. Each of the Waveform and Image Windows contains menus from which to perform many user actions. An option exists to use raw waves obtained directly from scan, or waves after deconvolution if system wave response is provided. Two types of deconvolution, time-based subtraction or inverse-filter, can be performed to arrive at a deconvolved wave set. Additionally, the menu on the Waveform Window allows preprocessing of waveforms prior to image formation, scaling and display of waveforms, formation of different types of images (including non-standard types such as velocity), gating of portions of waves prior to image formation, and several other miscellaneous and specialized operations. The menu available on the Image Window allows many further image processing and analysis operations, some of which are found in commercially-available image-processing software programs (such as Adobe Photoshop), and some that are not (removing outliers, Bscan information, region-of-interest analysis, line profiles, and precision feature measurements).

75 FR 74687 - Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; Construction of the Parsons Slough...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-12-01

.... Actual pile driving time during this work window will depend on a number of factors, such as sediments... period beginning in November 2010, and ending in February 2011. This work window was selected to coincide.... The work window also coincides with the USFWS' required construction work window to avoid the peak...

A Window-Washing Challenge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roman, Harry T.

2010-01-01

Skyscrapers sure do have a lot of windows, and these windows are cleaned and checked regularly. All this takes time, money, and puts workers at potential risk. Might there be a better way to do it? In this article, the author discusses a window-washing challenge and describes how students can tackle this task, pick up the challenge, and creatively…

Design and implementation of laser target simulator in hardware-in-the-loop simulation system based on LabWindows/CVI and RTX

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tong, Qiujie; Wang, Qianqian; Li, Xiaoyang; Shan, Bin; Cui, Xuntai; Li, Chenyu; Peng, Zhong

2016-11-01

In order to satisfy the requirements of the real-time and generality, a laser target simulator in semi-physical simulation system based on RTX+LabWindows/CVI platform is proposed in this paper. Compared with the upper-lower computers simulation platform architecture used in the most of the real-time system now, this system has better maintainability and portability. This system runs on the Windows platform, using Windows RTX real-time extension subsystem to ensure the real-time performance of the system combining with the reflective memory network to complete some real-time tasks such as calculating the simulation model, transmitting the simulation data, and keeping real-time communication. The real-time tasks of simulation system run under the RTSS process. At the same time, we use the LabWindows/CVI to compile a graphical interface, and complete some non-real-time tasks in the process of simulation such as man-machine interaction, display and storage of the simulation data, which run under the Win32 process. Through the design of RTX shared memory and task scheduling algorithm, the data interaction between the real-time tasks process of RTSS and non-real-time tasks process of Win32 is completed. The experimental results show that this system has the strongly real-time performance, highly stability, and highly simulation accuracy. At the same time, it also has the good performance of human-computer interaction.

Rapidity window dependences of higher order cumulants and diffusion master equation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kitazawa, Masakiyo

2015-10-01

We study the rapidity window dependences of higher order cumulants of conserved charges observed in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The time evolution and the rapidity window dependence of the non-Gaussian fluctuations are described by the diffusion master equation. Analytic formulas for the time evolution of cumulants in a rapidity window are obtained for arbitrary initial conditions. We discuss that the rapidity window dependences of the non-Gaussian cumulants have characteristic structures reflecting the non-equilibrium property of fluctuations, which can be observed in relativistic heavy ion collisions with the present detectors. It is argued that various information on the thermal and transport properties of the hot medium can be revealed experimentally by the study of the rapidity window dependences, especially by the combined use, of the higher order cumulants. Formulas of higher order cumulants for a probability distribution composed of sub-probabilities, which are useful for various studies of non-Gaussian cumulants, are also presented.

Optimization of ramp area aircraft push back time windows in the presence of uncertainty

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coupe, William Jeremy

It is well known that airport surface traffic congestion at major airports is responsible for increased taxi-out times, fuel burn and excess emissions and there is potential to mitigate these negative consequences through optimizing airport surface traffic operations. Due to a highly congested voice communication channel between pilots and air traffic controllers and a data communication channel that is used only for limited functions, one of the most viable near-term strategies for improvement of the surface traffic is issuing a push back advisory to each departing aircraft. This dissertation focuses on the optimization of a push back time window for each departing aircraft. The optimization takes into account both spatial and temporal uncertainties of ramp area aircraft trajectories. The uncertainties are described by a stochastic kinematic model of aircraft trajectories, which is used to infer distributions of combinations of push back times that lead to conflict among trajectories from different gates. The model is validated and the distributions are included in the push back time window optimization. Under the assumption of a fixed taxiway spot schedule, the computed push back time windows can be integrated with a higher level taxiway scheduler to optimize the flow of traffic from the gate to the departure runway queue. To enable real-time decision making the computational time of the push back time window optimization is critical and is analyzed throughout.

Impact of Hypokalemia on Electromechanical Window, Excitation Wavelength and Repolarization Gradients in Guinea-Pig and Rabbit Hearts

PubMed Central

Osadchii, Oleg E.

2014-01-01

Normal hearts exhibit a positive time difference between the end of ventricular contraction and the end of QT interval, which is referred to as the electromechanical (EM) window. Drug-induced prolongation of repolarization may lead to the negative EM window, which was proposed to be a novel proarrhythmic marker. This study examined whether abnormal changes in the EM window may account for arrhythmogenic effects produced by hypokalemia. Left ventricular pressure, electrocardiogram, and epicardial monophasic action potentials were recorded in perfused hearts from guinea-pig and rabbit. Hypokalemia (2.5 mM K+) was found to prolong repolarization, reduce the EM window, and promote tachyarrhythmia. Nevertheless, during both regular pacing and extrasystolic excitation, the increased QT interval invariably remained shorter than the duration of mechanical systole, thus yielding positive EM window values. Hypokalemia-induced arrhythmogenicity was associated with slowed ventricular conduction, and shortened effective refractory periods, which translated to a reduced excitation wavelength index. Hypokalemia also evoked non-uniform prolongation of action potential duration in distinct epicardial regions, which resulted in increased spatial variability in the repolarization time. These findings suggest that arrhythmogenic effects of hypokalemia are not accounted for by the negative EM window, and are rather attributed to abnormal changes in ventricular conduction times, refractoriness, excitation wavelength, and spatial repolarization gradients. PMID:25141124

Study of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen state for space-time variables in a two photon interference experiment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Shih, Y. H.; Sergienko, A. V.; Rubin, M. H.

1993-01-01

A pair of correlated photons generated from parametric down conversion was sent to two independent Michelson interferometers. Second order interference was studied by means of a coincidence measurement between the outputs of two interferometers. The reported experiment and analysis studied this second order interference phenomena from the point of view of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. The experiment was done in two steps. The first step of the experiment used 50 psec and 3 nsec coincidence time windows simultaneously. The 50 psec window was able to distinguish a 1.5 cm optical path difference in the interferometers. The interference visibility was measured to be 38 percent and 21 percent for the 50 psec time window and 22 percent and 7 percent for the 3 nsec time window, when the optical path difference of the interferometers were 2 cm and 4 cm, respectively. By comparing the visibilities between these two windows, the experiment showed the non-classical effect which resulted from an E.P.R. state. The second step of the experiment used a 20 psec coincidence time window, which was able to distinguish a 6 mm optical path difference in the interferometers. The interference visibilities were measured to be 59 percent for an optical path difference of 7 mm. This is the first observation of visibility greater than 50 percent for a two interferometer E.P.R. experiment which demonstrates nonclassical correlation of space-time variables.

Selective visual attention to emotional words: Early parallel frontal and visual activations followed by interactive effects in visual cortex.

PubMed

Schindler, Sebastian; Kissler, Johanna

2016-10-01

Human brains spontaneously differentiate between various emotional and neutral stimuli, including written words whose emotional quality is symbolic. In the electroencephalogram (EEG), emotional-neutral processing differences are typically reflected in the early posterior negativity (EPN, 200-300 ms) and the late positive potential (LPP, 400-700 ms). These components are also enlarged by task-driven visual attention, supporting the assumption that emotional content naturally drives attention. Still, the spatio-temporal dynamics of interactions between emotional stimulus content and task-driven attention remain to be specified. Here, we examine this issue in visual word processing. Participants attended to negative, neutral, or positive nouns while high-density EEG was recorded. Emotional content and top-down attention both amplified the EPN component in parallel. On the LPP, by contrast, emotion and attention interacted: Explicit attention to emotional words led to a substantially larger amplitude increase than did explicit attention to neutral words. Source analysis revealed early parallel effects of emotion and attention in bilateral visual cortex and a later interaction of both in right visual cortex. Distinct effects of attention were found in inferior, middle and superior frontal, paracentral, and parietal areas, as well as in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Results specify separate and shared mechanisms of emotion and attention at distinct processing stages. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3575-3587, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Purification and identification of an antibacterial protein from the symbiotic bacteria associated with novel entomopathogenic nematode, Rhabditis (Oscheius) sp.

PubMed

Anju, K M; Archana, M M; Mohandas, C; Nambisan, Bala

2015-04-01

Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) belonging to the families steinernematidae and heterorhabditidae and their symbiotic bacteria Xenorhabdus and Photorhabdus are well-known as biological control agents and are found to produce a wide range of bioactive secondary metabolites. Studies carried out at the Central Tuber Crops Research Institute (CTCRI) on entomopathogenic nematodes resulted in the identification of novel EPN belonging to the family Rhabditidae. This study reports the purification of a high molecular weight antibacterial protein from culture filtrates of a bacterium (Bacillus cereus) symbiotically associated with a novel entomopathogenic nematode Rhabditis (Oscheius) species, maintained at CTCRI laboratory. Fermentation conditions were standardized and optimum antibacterial activity was observed in tryptic soy broth after 48 h incubation at 30 °C. The aqueous extracts yielded antibacterial proteins which were purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation followed by ion exchange chromatography and size exclusion chromatography. Native gel electrophoresis indicated an active protein of molecular mass 220KDa which resolved into a major band of 90 kDa and a minor band of about 40 kDa on SDS-PAGE. The 90 kDa protein showed antibacterial activity and was further analysed by MALDI TOF-MS/MS. The protein was identified as a TQXA (Threonine-glutamine dipeptide) domain containing protein from Bacillus cereus. The protein was found to be active against Bacillus subtilis MTCC2756, Staphylococus aureus MTCC902 and Escherichia coli MTCC 2622 and was thermally stable.

Interspecific nematode signals regulate dispersal behavior.

PubMed

Kaplan, Fatma; Alborn, Hans T; von Reuss, Stephan H; Ajredini, Ramadan; Ali, Jared G; Akyazi, Faruk; Stelinski, Lukasz L; Edison, Arthur S; Schroeder, Frank C; Teal, Peter E

2012-01-01

Dispersal is an important nematode behavior. Upon crowding or food depletion, the free living bacteriovorus nematode Caenorhabditis elegans produces stress resistant dispersal larvae, called dauer, which are analogous to second stage juveniles (J2) of plant parasitic Meloidogyne spp. and infective juveniles (IJ)s of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN), e.g., Steinernema feltiae. Regulation of dispersal behavior has not been thoroughly investigated for C. elegans or any other nematode species. Based on the fact that ascarosides regulate entry in dauer stage as well as multiple behaviors in C. elegans adults including mating, avoidance and aggregation, we hypothesized that ascarosides might also be involved in regulation of dispersal behavior in C. elegans and for other nematodes such as IJ of phylogenetically related EPNs. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of C. elegans dauer conditioned media, which shows strong dispersing activity, revealed four known ascarosides (ascr#2, ascr#3, ascr#8, icas#9). A synthetic blend of these ascarosides at physiologically relevant concentrations dispersed C. elegans dauer in the presence of food and also caused dispersion of IJs of S. feltiae and J2s of plant parasitic Meloidogyne spp. Assay guided fractionation revealed structural analogs as major active components of the S. feltiae (ascr#9) and C. elegans (ascr#2) dispersal blends. Further analysis revealed ascr#9 in all Steinernema spp. and Heterorhabditis spp. infected insect host cadavers. Ascaroside blends represent evolutionarily conserved, fundamentally important communication systems for nematodes from diverse habitats, and thus may provide sustainable means for control of parasitic nematodes.

The motivational salience of cigarette-related stimuli among former, never, and current smokers

PubMed Central

Robinson, Jason D.; Versace, Francesco; Engelmann, Jeffery M.; Cui, Yong; Slapin, Aurelija; Oum, Robert; Cinciripini, Paul M.

2014-01-01

While smokers are known to find smoking-related stimuli to be motivationally salient, the extent to which former smokers do so is largely unknown. In this study, we collected event-related potential (ERP) data from former and never smokers and compared them to a sample of current smokers interested in quitting who completed the same ERP paradigm prior to smoking cessation treatment. All participants (n = 180) attended one laboratory session where we recorded dense-array ERPs in response to cigarette-related, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures, and where we collected valence and arousal ratings of the pictures. We identified three spatial and temporal regions of interest, corresponding to the P1 (120-132 ms), early posterior negativity (EPN; 244-316 ms), and late positive potential (LPP; 384-800 ms) ERP components. We found that all participants produced larger P1 responses to cigarette-related pictures compared to the other picture categories. With the EPN component, we found that, similar to pleasant and unpleasant pictures, cigarette-related pictures attracted early attentional resources, regardless of smoking status. Both former and never smokers produced reduced LPP responses to cigarette-related and pleasant pictures compared to current smokers. Current smokers rated the cigarette-related pictures as being more pleasant and arousing than the former and never smokers. The LPP and picture rating results suggest that former smokers, like never smokers, do not find cigarette-related stimuli to be as motivationally salient as current smokers. PMID:25436840

Fabrication, characterization and in vitro evaluation of silibinin nanoparticles: an attempt to enhance its oral bioavailability

PubMed Central

Sahibzada, Muhammad Umar Khayam; Sadiq, Abdul; Khan, Shahzeb; Faidah, Hani S; Naseemullah; Khurram, Muhammad; Amin, Muhammad Usman; Haseeb, Abdul

2017-01-01

Background Silibinin has gained in importance in the past few decades as a hepatoprotector and is used widely as oral therapy for toxic liver damage, liver cirrhosis, and chronic inflammatory liver diseases, as well as for the treatment of different types of cancers. Unfortunately, it has low aqueous solubility and inadequate dissolution, which results in low oral bioavailability. Materials and methods In this study, nanoparticles (NPs) of silibinin, which is a hydrophobic drug, were manufactured using two cost-effective methods. Antisolvent precipitation with a syringe pump (APSP) and evaporative precipitation of nanosuspension (EPN) were used. The prepared NPs were characterized using different analytical techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and X-ray powder diffractometry (XRD) and were sifted for their bioavailability through in vitro dissolution and solubility studies. Moreover, the prepared NPs were evaluated for antimicrobial activity against a battery of bacteria and yeast. Results DSC and XRD studies indicated that the prepared NPs were amorphous in nature, with more solubility and dissolution compared to the crystalline form of this drug. NPs prepared through the EPN method had better results than those prepared using the APSP method. Antimicrobial activities of the NPs were improved compared to the unprocessed drugs, while having comparable activities to standard antimicrobial drugs. Conclusion Results indicate that the NPs have significantly increased solubility, dissolution rate, and antimicrobial activities due to the conversion of crystalline structure into amorphous form. PMID:28553075

Affective picture modulation: valence, arousal, attention allocation and motivational significance.

PubMed

Leite, Jorge; Carvalho, Sandra; Galdo-Alvarez, Santiago; Alves, Jorge; Sampaio, Adriana; Gonçalves, Oscar F

2012-03-01

The present study analyses the modulatory effects of affective pictures in the early posterior negativity (EPN), the late positive potential (LPP) and the human startle response on both the peripheral (eye blink EMG) and central neurophysiological levels (Probe P3), during passive affective pictures viewing. The affective pictures categories were balanced in terms of valence (pleasant; unpleasant) and arousal (high; low). The data shows that EPN may be sensitive to specific stimulus characteristics (affective relevant pictures versus neutral pictures) associated with early stages of attentional processing. In later stages, the heightened attentional resource allocation as well as the motivated significance of the affective stimuli was found to elicit enhanced amplitudes of slow wave processes thought to be related to enhanced encoding, namely LPP,. Although pleasant low arousing pictures were effective in engaging the resources involved in the slow wave processes, the highly arousing affective stimuli (pleasant and unpleasant) were found to produce the largest enhancement of the LPP, suggesting that high arousing stimuli may are associated with increased motivational significance. Additionally the response to high arousing stimuli may be suggestive of increased motivational attention, given the heightened attentional allocation, as expressed in the P3 probe, especially for the pleasant pictures. The hedonic valence may then serve as a mediator of the attentional inhibition to the affective priming, potentiating or inhibiting a shift towards defensive activation, as measured by the startle reflex. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A scan statistic for identifying optimal risk windows in vaccine safety studies using self-controlled case series design.

PubMed

Xu, Stanley; Hambidge, Simon J; McClure, David L; Daley, Matthew F; Glanz, Jason M

2013-08-30

In the examination of the association between vaccines and rare adverse events after vaccination in postlicensure observational studies, it is challenging to define appropriate risk windows because prelicensure RCTs provide little insight on the timing of specific adverse events. Past vaccine safety studies have often used prespecified risk windows based on prior publications, biological understanding of the vaccine, and expert opinion. Recently, a data-driven approach was developed to identify appropriate risk windows for vaccine safety studies that use the self-controlled case series design. This approach employs both the maximum incidence rate ratio and the linear relation between the estimated incidence rate ratio and the inverse of average person time at risk, given a specified risk window. In this paper, we present a scan statistic that can identify appropriate risk windows in vaccine safety studies using the self-controlled case series design while taking into account the dependence of time intervals within an individual and while adjusting for time-varying covariates such as age and seasonality. This approach uses the maximum likelihood ratio test based on fixed-effects models, which has been used for analyzing data from self-controlled case series design in addition to conditional Poisson models. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Bayesian distributed lag interaction models to identify perinatal windows of vulnerability in children's health.

PubMed

Wilson, Ander; Chiu, Yueh-Hsiu Mathilda; Hsu, Hsiao-Hsien Leon; Wright, Robert O; Wright, Rosalind J; Coull, Brent A

2017-07-01

Epidemiological research supports an association between maternal exposure to air pollution during pregnancy and adverse children's health outcomes. Advances in exposure assessment and statistics allow for estimation of both critical windows of vulnerability and exposure effect heterogeneity. Simultaneous estimation of windows of vulnerability and effect heterogeneity can be accomplished by fitting a distributed lag model (DLM) stratified by subgroup. However, this can provide an incomplete picture of how effects vary across subgroups because it does not allow for subgroups to have the same window but different within-window effects or to have different windows but the same within-window effect. Because the timing of some developmental processes are common across subpopulations of infants while for others the timing differs across subgroups, both scenarios are important to consider when evaluating health risks of prenatal exposures. We propose a new approach that partitions the DLM into a constrained functional predictor that estimates windows of vulnerability and a scalar effect representing the within-window effect directly. The proposed method allows for heterogeneity in only the window, only the within-window effect, or both. In a simulation study we show that a model assuming a shared component across groups results in lower bias and mean squared error for the estimated windows and effects when that component is in fact constant across groups. We apply the proposed method to estimate windows of vulnerability in the association between prenatal exposures to fine particulate matter and each of birth weight and asthma incidence, and estimate how these associations vary by sex and maternal obesity status in a Boston-area prospective pre-birth cohort study. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Optimization of finite difference forward modeling for elastic waves based on optimum combined window functions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jian, Wang; Xiaohong, Meng; Hong, Liu; Wanqiu, Zheng; Yaning, Liu; Sheng, Gui; Zhiyang, Wang

2017-03-01

Full waveform inversion and reverse time migration are active research areas for seismic exploration. Forward modeling in the time domain determines the precision of the results, and numerical solutions of finite difference have been widely adopted as an important mathematical tool for forward modeling. In this article, the optimum combined of window functions was designed based on the finite difference operator using a truncated approximation of the spatial convolution series in pseudo-spectrum space, to normalize the outcomes of existing window functions for different orders. The proposed combined window functions not only inherit the characteristics of the various window functions, to provide better truncation results, but also control the truncation error of the finite difference operator manually and visually by adjusting the combinations and analyzing the characteristics of the main and side lobes of the amplitude response. Error level and elastic forward modeling under the proposed combined system were compared with outcomes from conventional window functions and modified binomial windows. Numerical dispersion is significantly suppressed, which is compared with modified binomial window function finite-difference and conventional finite-difference. Numerical simulation verifies the reliability of the proposed method.

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Hydrogen Drive

Science.gov Websites

, contact Greater Washington Region Clean Cities Coalition. Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov ) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Download Help Text version See more videos provided

On the relationship between instantaneous phase synchrony and correlation-based sliding windows for time-resolved fMRI connectivity analysis.

PubMed

Pedersen, Mangor; Omidvarnia, Amir; Zalesky, Andrew; Jackson, Graeme D

2018-06-08

Correlation-based sliding window analysis (CSWA) is the most commonly used method to estimate time-resolved functional MRI (fMRI) connectivity. However, instantaneous phase synchrony analysis (IPSA) is gaining popularity mainly because it offers single time-point resolution of time-resolved fMRI connectivity. We aim to provide a systematic comparison between these two approaches, on both temporal and topological levels. For this purpose, we used resting-state fMRI data from two separate cohorts with different temporal resolutions (45 healthy subjects from Human Connectome Project fMRI data with repetition time of 0.72 s and 25 healthy subjects from a separate validation fMRI dataset with a repetition time of 3 s). For time-resolved functional connectivity analysis, we calculated tapered CSWA over a wide range of different window lengths that were temporally and topologically compared to IPSA. We found a strong association in connectivity dynamics between IPSA and CSWA when considering the absolute values of CSWA. The association between CSWA and IPSA was stronger for a window length of ∼20 s (shorter than filtered fMRI wavelength) than ∼100 s (longer than filtered fMRI wavelength), irrespective of the sampling rate of the underlying fMRI data. Narrow-band filtering of fMRI data (0.03-0.07 Hz) yielded a stronger relationship between IPSA and CSWA than wider-band (0.01-0.1 Hz). On a topological level, time-averaged IPSA and CSWA nodes were non-linearly correlated for both short (∼20 s) and long (∼100 s) windows, mainly because nodes with strong negative correlations (CSWA) displayed high phase synchrony (IPSA). IPSA and CSWA were anatomically similar in the default mode network, sensory cortex, insula and cerebellum. Our results suggest that IPSA and CSWA provide comparable characterizations of time-resolved fMRI connectivity for appropriately chosen window lengths. Although IPSA requires narrow-band fMRI filtering, we recommend the use of IPSA given that it does not mandate a (semi-)arbitrary choice of window length and window overlap. A code for calculating IPSA is provided. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Fault Diagnosis of Induction Machines in a Transient Regime Using Current Sensors with an Optimized Slepian Window

PubMed Central

Burriel-Valencia, Jordi; Martinez-Roman, Javier; Sapena-Bano, Angel

2018-01-01

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new methodology for the fault diagnosis of induction machines working in the transient regime, when time-frequency analysis tools are used. The proposed method relies on the use of the optimized Slepian window for performing the short time Fourier transform (STFT) of the stator current signal. It is shown that for a given sequence length of finite duration, the Slepian window has the maximum concentration of energy, greater than can be reached with a gated Gaussian window, which is usually used as the analysis window. In this paper, the use and optimization of the Slepian window for fault diagnosis of induction machines is theoretically introduced and experimentally validated through the test of a 3.15-MW induction motor with broken bars during the start-up transient. The theoretical analysis and the experimental results show that the use of the Slepian window can highlight the fault components in the current’s spectrogram with a significant reduction of the required computational resources. PMID:29316650

Fault Diagnosis of Induction Machines in a Transient Regime Using Current Sensors with an Optimized Slepian Window.

PubMed

Burriel-Valencia, Jordi; Puche-Panadero, Ruben; Martinez-Roman, Javier; Sapena-Bano, Angel; Pineda-Sanchez, Manuel

2018-01-06

The aim of this paper is to introduce a new methodology for the fault diagnosis of induction machines working in the transient regime, when time-frequency analysis tools are used. The proposed method relies on the use of the optimized Slepian window for performing the short time Fourier transform (STFT) of the stator current signal. It is shown that for a given sequence length of finite duration, the Slepian window has the maximum concentration of energy, greater than can be reached with a gated Gaussian window, which is usually used as the analysis window. In this paper, the use and optimization of the Slepian window for fault diagnosis of induction machines is theoretically introduced and experimentally validated through the test of a 3.15-MW induction motor with broken bars during the start-up transient. The theoretical analysis and the experimental results show that the use of the Slepian window can highlight the fault components in the current's spectrogram with a significant reduction of the required computational resources.

Hydrocarbon Reservoir Prediction Using Bi-Gaussian S Transform Based Time-Frequency Analysis Approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cheng, Z.; Chen, Y.; Liu, Y.; Liu, W.; Zhang, G.

2015-12-01

Among those hydrocarbon reservoir detection techniques, the time-frequency analysis based approach is one of the most widely used approaches because of its straightforward indication of low-frequency anomalies from the time-frequency maps, that is to say, the low-frequency bright spots usually indicate the potential hydrocarbon reservoirs. The time-frequency analysis based approach is easy to implement, and more importantly, is usually of high fidelity in reservoir prediction, compared with the state-of-the-art approaches, and thus is of great interest to petroleum geologists, geophysicists, and reservoir engineers. The S transform has been frequently used in obtaining the time-frequency maps because of its better performance in controlling the compromise between the time and frequency resolutions than the alternatives, such as the short-time Fourier transform, Gabor transform, and continuous wavelet transform. The window function used in the majority of previous S transform applications is the symmetric Gaussian window. However, one problem with the symmetric Gaussian window is the degradation of time resolution in the time-frequency map due to the long front taper. In our study, a bi-Gaussian S transform that substitutes the symmetric Gaussian window with an asymmetry bi-Gaussian window is proposed to analyze the multi-channel seismic data in order to predict hydrocarbon reservoirs. The bi-Gaussian window introduces asymmetry in the resultant time-frequency spectrum, with time resolution better in the front direction, as compared with the back direction. It is the first time that the bi-Gaussian S transform is used for analyzing multi-channel post-stack seismic data in order to predict hydrocarbon reservoirs since its invention in 2003. The superiority of the bi-Gaussian S transform over traditional S transform is tested on a real land seismic data example. The performance shows that the enhanced temporal resolution can help us depict more clearly the edge of the hydrocarbon reservoir, especially when the thickness of the reservoir is small (such as the thin beds).

Single-agent parallel window search

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Powley, Curt; Korf, Richard E.

1991-01-01

Parallel window search is applied to single-agent problems by having different processes simultaneously perform iterations of Iterative-Deepening-A(asterisk) (IDA-asterisk) on the same problem but with different cost thresholds. This approach is limited by the time to perform the goal iteration. To overcome this disadvantage, the authors consider node ordering. They discuss how global node ordering by minimum h among nodes with equal f = g + h values can reduce the time complexity of serial IDA-asterisk by reducing the time to perform the iterations prior to the goal iteration. Finally, the two ideas of parallel window search and node ordering are combined to eliminate the weaknesses of each approach while retaining the strengths. The resulting approach, called simply parallel window search, can be used to find a near-optimal solution quickly, improve the solution until it is optimal, and then finally guarantee optimality, depending on the amount of time available.

CAVE WINDOW

DOEpatents

Levenson, M.

1960-10-25

A cave window is described. It is constructed of thick glass panes arranged so that interior panes have smaller windowpane areas and exterior panes have larger areas. Exterior panes on the radiation exposure side are remotely replaceable when darkened excessively. Metal shutters minimize exposure time to extend window life.

Developmental time windows for axon growth influence neuronal network topology.

PubMed

Lim, Sol; Kaiser, Marcus

2015-04-01

Early brain connectivity development consists of multiple stages: birth of neurons, their migration and the subsequent growth of axons and dendrites. Each stage occurs within a certain period of time depending on types of neurons and cortical layers. Forming synapses between neurons either by growing axons starting at similar times for all neurons (much-overlapped time windows) or at different time points (less-overlapped) may affect the topological and spatial properties of neuronal networks. Here, we explore the extreme cases of axon formation during early development, either starting at the same time for all neurons (parallel, i.e., maximally overlapped time windows) or occurring for each neuron separately one neuron after another (serial, i.e., no overlaps in time windows). For both cases, the number of potential and established synapses remained comparable. Topological and spatial properties, however, differed: Neurons that started axon growth early on in serial growth achieved higher out-degrees, higher local efficiency and longer axon lengths while neurons demonstrated more homogeneous connectivity patterns for parallel growth. Second, connection probability decreased more rapidly with distance between neurons for parallel growth than for serial growth. Third, bidirectional connections were more numerous for parallel growth. Finally, we tested our predictions with C. elegans data. Together, this indicates that time windows for axon growth influence the topological and spatial properties of neuronal networks opening up the possibility to a posteriori estimate developmental mechanisms based on network properties of a developed network.

Sunlight Responsive Thermochromic Window System

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Millett, F,A; Byker,H, J

2006-10-27

Pleotint has embarked on a novel approach with our Sunlight Responsive Thermochromic, SRT™, windows. We are integrating dynamic sunlight control, high insulation values and low solar heat gain together in a high performance window. The Pleotint SRT window is dynamic because it reversibly changes light transmission based on thermochromics activated directly by the heating effect of sunlight. We can achieve a window package with low solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC), a low U value and high insulation. At the same time our windows provide good daylighting. Our innovative window design offers architects and building designers the opportunity to choose theirmore » desired energy performance, excellent sound reduction, external pane can be self-cleaning, or a resistance to wind load, blasts, bullets or hurricanes. SRT windows would provide energy savings that are estimated at up to 30% over traditional window systems. Glass fabricators will be able to use existing equipment to make the SRT window while adding value and flexibility to the basic design. Glazing installers will have the ability to fit the windows with traditional methods without wires, power supplies and controllers. SRT windows can be retrofit into existing buildings,« less

Threshold network of a financial market using the P-value of correlation coefficients

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ha, Gyeong-Gyun; Lee, Jae Woo; Nobi, Ashadun

2015-06-01

Threshold methods in financial networks are important tools for obtaining important information about the financial state of a market. Previously, absolute thresholds of correlation coefficients have been used; however, they have no relation to the length of time. We assign a threshold value depending on the size of the time window by using the P-value concept of statistics. We construct a threshold network (TN) at the same threshold value for two different time window sizes in the Korean Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI). We measure network properties, such as the edge density, clustering coefficient, assortativity coefficient, and modularity. We determine that a significant difference exists between the network properties of the two time windows at the same threshold, especially during crises. This implies that the market information depends on the length of the time window when constructing the TN. We apply the same technique to Standard and Poor's 500 (S&P500) and observe similar results.

Effect of the time window on the heat-conduction information filtering model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Qiang; Song, Wen-Jun; Hou, Lei; Zhang, Yi-Lu; Liu, Jian-Guo

2014-05-01

Recommendation systems have been proposed to filter out the potential tastes and preferences of the normal users online, however, the physics of the time window effect on the performance is missing, which is critical for saving the memory and decreasing the computation complexity. In this paper, by gradually expanding the time window, we investigate the impact of the time window on the heat-conduction information filtering model with ten similarity measures. The experimental results on the benchmark dataset Netflix indicate that by only using approximately 11.11% recent rating records, the accuracy could be improved by an average of 33.16% and the diversity could be improved by 30.62%. In addition, the recommendation performance on the dataset MovieLens could be preserved by only considering approximately 10.91% recent records. Under the circumstance of improving the recommendation performance, our discoveries possess significant practical value by largely reducing the computational time and shortening the data storage space.

Defining the therapeutic time window for suppressing the inflammatory prostaglandin E2 signaling after status epilepticus

PubMed Central

Du, Yifeng; Kemper, Timothy; Qiu, Jiange; Jiang, Jianxiong

2016-01-01

Neuroinflammation is a common feature in nearly all neurological and some psychiatric disorders. Resembling its extraneural counterpart, neuroinflammation can be both beneficial and detrimental depending on the responding molecules. The overall effect of inflammation on disease progression is highly dependent on the extent of inflammatory mediator production and the duration of inflammatory induction. The time-dependent aspect of inflammatory responses suggests that the therapeutic time window for quelling neuroinflammation might vary with molecular targets and injury types. Therefore, it is important to define the therapeutic time window for anti-inflammatory therapeutics, as contradicting or negative results might arise when different treatment regimens are utilized even in similar animal models. Herein, we discuss a few critical factors that can help define the therapeutic time window and optimize treatment paradigm for suppressing the cyclooxygenase-2/prostaglandin-mediated inflammation after status epilepticus. These determinants should also be relevant to other anti-inflammatory therapeutic strategies for the CNS diseases. PMID:26689339

Smart windows with functions of reflective display and indoor temperature-control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, I.-Hui; Chao, Yu-Ching; Hsu, Chih-Cheng; Chang, Liang-Chao; Chiu, Tien-Lung; Lee, Jiunn-Yih; Kao, Fu-Jen; Lee, Chih-Kung; Lee, Jiun-Haw

2010-02-01

In this paper, a switchable window based on cholestreric liquid crystal (CLC) was demonstrated. Under different applied voltages, incoming light at visible and infrared wavelengths was modulated, respectively. A mixture of CLC with a nematic liquid crystal and a chiral dopant selectively reflected infrared light without bias, which effectively reduced the indoor temperature under sunlight illumination. At this time, transmission at visible range was kept at high and the windows looked transparent. With increasing the voltage to 15V, CLC changed to focal conic state and can be used as a reflective display, a privacy window, or a screen for projector. Under a high voltage (30V), homeotropic state was achieved. At this time, both infrared and visible light can transmit which acted as a normal window, which permitted infrared spectrum of winter sunlight to enter the room so as to reduce the heating requirement. Such a device can be used as a switchable window in smart buildings, green houses and windshields.

Bird-Window Collisions at a West-Coast Urban Park Museum: Analyses of Bird Biology and Window Attributes from Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.

PubMed

Kahle, Logan Q; Flannery, Maureen E; Dumbacher, John P

2016-01-01

Bird-window collisions are a major and poorly-understood generator of bird mortality. In North America, studies of this topic tend to be focused east of the Mississippi River, resulting in a paucity of data from the Western flyways. Additionally, few available data can critically evaluate factors such as time of day, sex and age bias, and effect of window pane size on collisions. We collected and analyzed 5 years of window strike data from a 3-story building in a large urban park in San Francisco, California. To evaluate our window collision data in context, we collected weekly data on local bird abundance in the adjacent parkland. Our study asks two overarching questions: first-what aspects of a bird's biology might make them more likely to fatally strike windows; and second, what characteristics of a building's design contribute to bird-window collisions. We used a dataset of 308 fatal bird strikes to examine the relationships of strikes relative to age, sex, time of day, time of year, and a variety of other factors, including mitigation efforts. We found that actively migrating birds may not be major contributors to collisions as has been found elsewhere. We found that males and young birds were both significantly overrepresented relative to their abundance in the habitat surrounding the building. We also analyzed the effect of external window shades as mitigation, finding that an overall reduction in large panes, whether covered or in some way broken up with mullions, effectively reduced window collisions. We conclude that effective mitigation or design will be required in all seasons, but that breeding seasons and migratory seasons are most critical, especially for low-rise buildings and other sites away from urban migrant traps. Finally, strikes occur throughout the day, but mitigation may be most effective in the morning and midday.

Bird-Window Collisions at a West-Coast Urban Park Museum: Analyses of Bird Biology and Window Attributes from Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

PubMed Central

Kahle, Logan Q.; Flannery, Maureen E.; Dumbacher, John P.

2016-01-01

Bird-window collisions are a major and poorly-understood generator of bird mortality. In North America, studies of this topic tend to be focused east of the Mississippi River, resulting in a paucity of data from the Western flyways. Additionally, few available data can critically evaluate factors such as time of day, sex and age bias, and effect of window pane size on collisions. We collected and analyzed 5 years of window strike data from a 3-story building in a large urban park in San Francisco, California. To evaluate our window collision data in context, we collected weekly data on local bird abundance in the adjacent parkland. Our study asks two overarching questions: first–what aspects of a bird’s biology might make them more likely to fatally strike windows; and second, what characteristics of a building’s design contribute to bird-window collisions. We used a dataset of 308 fatal bird strikes to examine the relationships of strikes relative to age, sex, time of day, time of year, and a variety of other factors, including mitigation efforts. We found that actively migrating birds may not be major contributors to collisions as has been found elsewhere. We found that males and young birds were both significantly overrepresented relative to their abundance in the habitat surrounding the building. We also analyzed the effect of external window shades as mitigation, finding that an overall reduction in large panes, whether covered or in some way broken up with mullions, effectively reduced window collisions. We conclude that effective mitigation or design will be required in all seasons, but that breeding seasons and migratory seasons are most critical, especially for low-rise buildings and other sites away from urban migrant traps. Finally, strikes occur throughout the day, but mitigation may be most effective in the morning and midday. PMID:26731417

Optimal Window and Lattice in Gabor Transform. Application to Audio Analysis.

PubMed

Lachambre, Helene; Ricaud, Benjamin; Stempfel, Guillaume; Torrésani, Bruno; Wiesmeyr, Christoph; Onchis-Moaca, Darian

2015-01-01

This article deals with the use of optimal lattice and optimal window in Discrete Gabor Transform computation. In the case of a generalized Gaussian window, extending earlier contributions, we introduce an additional local window adaptation technique for non-stationary signals. We illustrate our approach and the earlier one by addressing three time-frequency analysis problems to show the improvements achieved by the use of optimal lattice and window: close frequencies distinction, frequency estimation and SNR estimation. The results are presented, when possible, with real world audio signals.

An Efficient Adaptive Window Size Selection Method for Improving Spectrogram Visualization.

PubMed

Nisar, Shibli; Khan, Omar Usman; Tariq, Muhammad

2016-01-01

Short Time Fourier Transform (STFT) is an important technique for the time-frequency analysis of a time varying signal. The basic approach behind it involves the application of a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) to a signal multiplied with an appropriate window function with fixed resolution. The selection of an appropriate window size is difficult when no background information about the input signal is known. In this paper, a novel empirical model is proposed that adaptively adjusts the window size for a narrow band-signal using spectrum sensing technique. For wide-band signals, where a fixed time-frequency resolution is undesirable, the approach adapts the constant Q transform (CQT). Unlike the STFT, the CQT provides a varying time-frequency resolution. This results in a high spectral resolution at low frequencies and high temporal resolution at high frequencies. In this paper, a simple but effective switching framework is provided between both STFT and CQT. The proposed method also allows for the dynamic construction of a filter bank according to user-defined parameters. This helps in reducing redundant entries in the filter bank. Results obtained from the proposed method not only improve the spectrogram visualization but also reduce the computation cost and achieves 87.71% of the appropriate window length selection.

Communicating likelihoods and probabilities in forecasts of volcanic eruptions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Doyle, Emma E. H.; McClure, John; Johnston, David M.; Paton, Douglas

2014-02-01

The issuing of forecasts and warnings of natural hazard events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquake aftershock sequences and extreme weather often involves the use of probabilistic terms, particularly when communicated by scientific advisory groups to key decision-makers, who can differ greatly in relative expertise and function in the decision making process. Recipients may also differ in their perception of relative importance of political and economic influences on interpretation. Consequently, the interpretation of these probabilistic terms can vary greatly due to the framing of the statements, and whether verbal or numerical terms are used. We present a review from the psychology literature on how the framing of information influences communication of these probability terms. It is also unclear as to how people rate their perception of an event's likelihood throughout a time frame when a forecast time window is stated. Previous research has identified that, when presented with a 10-year time window forecast, participants viewed the likelihood of an event occurring ‘today’ as being of less than that in year 10. Here we show that this skew in perception also occurs for short-term time windows (under one week) that are of most relevance for emergency warnings. In addition, unlike the long-time window statements, the use of the phrasing “within the next…” instead of “in the next…” does not mitigate this skew, nor do we observe significant differences between the perceived likelihoods of scientists and non-scientists. This finding suggests that effects occurring due to the shorter time window may be ‘masking’ any differences in perception due to wording or career background observed for long-time window forecasts. These results have implications for scientific advice, warning forecasts, emergency management decision-making, and public information as any skew in perceived event likelihood towards the end of a forecast time window may result in an underestimate of the likelihood of an event occurring ‘today’ leading to potentially inappropriate action choices. We thus present some initial guidelines for communicating such eruption forecasts.

On pleasure and thrill: the interplay between arousal and valence during visual word recognition.

PubMed

Recio, Guillermo; Conrad, Markus; Hansen, Laura B; Jacobs, Arthur M

2014-07-01

We investigated the interplay between arousal and valence in the early processing of affective words. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read words organized in an orthogonal design with the factors valence (positive, negative, neutral) and arousal (low, medium, high) in a lexical decision task. We observed faster reaction times for words of positive valence and for those of high arousal. Data from ERPs showed increased early posterior negativity (EPN) suggesting improved visual processing of these conditions. Valence effects appeared for medium and low arousal and were absent for high arousal. Arousal effects were obtained for neutral and negative words but were absent for positive words. These results suggest independent contributions of arousal and valence at early attentional stages of processing. Arousal effects preceded valence effects in the ERP data suggesting that arousal serves as an early alert system preparing a subsequent evaluation in terms of valence. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evaluation of sliding window correlation performance for characterizing dynamic functional connectivity and brain states

PubMed Central

Shakil, Sadia; Lee, Chin-Hui; Keilholz, Shella Dawn

2016-01-01

A promising recent development in the study of brain function is the dynamic analysis of resting-state functional MRI scans, which can enhance understanding of normal cognition and alterations that result from brain disorders. One widely used method of capturing the dynamics of functional connectivity is sliding window correlation (SWC). However, in the absence of a “gold standard” for comparison, evaluating the performance of the SWC in typical resting-state data is challenging. This study uses simulated networks (SNs) with known transitions to examine the effects of parameters such as window length, window offset, window type, noise, filtering, and sampling rate on the SWC performance. The SWC time course was calculated for all node pairs of each SN and then clustered using the k-means algorithm to determine how resulting brain states match known configurations and transitions in the SNs. The outcomes show that the detection of state transitions and durations in the SWC is most strongly influenced by the window length and offset, followed by noise and filtering parameters. The effect of the image sampling rate was relatively insignificant. Tapered windows provide less sensitivity to state transitions than rectangular windows, which could be the result of the sharp transitions in the SNs. Overall, the SWC gave poor estimates of correlation for each brain state. Clustering based on the SWC time course did not reliably reflect the underlying state transitions unless the window length was comparable to the state duration, highlighting the need for new adaptive window analysis techniques. PMID:26952197

Surface Transient Binding-Based Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy (STB-FCS), a Simple and Easy-to-Implement Method to Extend the Upper Limit of the Time Window to Seconds.

PubMed

Peng, Sijia; Wang, Wenjuan; Chen, Chunlai

2018-05-10

Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy is a powerful single-molecule tool that is able to capture kinetic processes occurring at the nanosecond time scale. However, the upper limit of its time window is restricted by the dwell time of the molecule of interest in the confocal detection volume, which is usually around submilliseconds for a freely diffusing biomolecule. Here, we present a simple and easy-to-implement method, named surface transient binding-based fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (STB-FCS), which extends the upper limit of the time window to seconds. We further demonstrated that STB-FCS enables capture of both intramolecular and intermolecular kinetic processes whose time scales cross several orders of magnitude.

Region of interest and windowing-based progressive medical image delivery using JPEG2000

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nagaraj, Nithin; Mukhopadhyay, Sudipta; Wheeler, Frederick W.; Avila, Ricardo S.

2003-05-01

An important telemedicine application is the perusal of CT scans (digital format) from a central server housed in a healthcare enterprise across a bandwidth constrained network by radiologists situated at remote locations for medical diagnostic purposes. It is generally expected that a viewing station respond to an image request by displaying the image within 1-2 seconds. Owing to limited bandwidth, it may not be possible to deliver the complete image in such a short period of time with traditional techniques. In this paper, we investigate progressive image delivery solutions by using JPEG 2000. An estimate of the time taken in different network bandwidths is performed to compare their relative merits. We further make use of the fact that most medical images are 12-16 bits, but would ultimately be converted to an 8-bit image via windowing for display on the monitor. We propose a windowing progressive RoI technique to exploit this and investigate JPEG 2000 RoI based compression after applying a favorite or a default window setting on the original image. Subsequent requests for different RoIs and window settings would then be processed at the server. For the windowing progressive RoI mode, we report a 50% reduction in transmission time.

Hospital-treated mental and behavioral disorders and risk of Alzheimer's disease: A nationwide nested case-control study.

PubMed

Tapiainen, V; Hartikainen, S; Taipale, H; Tiihonen, J; Tolppanen, A-M

2017-06-01

Studies investigating psychiatric disorders as Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk factors have yielded heterogeneous findings. Differences in time windows between the exposure and outcome could be one explanation. We examined whether (1) mental and behavioral disorders in general or (2) specific mental and behavioral disorder categories increase the risk of AD and (3) how the width of the time window between the exposure and outcome affects the results. A nationwide nested case-control study of all Finnish clinically verified AD cases, alive in 2005 and their age, sex and region of residence matched controls (n of case-control pairs 27,948). History of hospital-treated mental and behavioral disorders was available since 1972. Altogether 6.9% (n=1932) of the AD cases and 6.4% (n=1784) of controls had a history of any mental and behavioral disorder. Having any mental and behavioral disorder (adjusted OR=1.07, 95% CI=1.00-1.16) or depression/other mood disorder (adjusted OR=1.17, 95% CI=1.05-1.30) were associated with higher risk of AD with 5-year time window but not with 10-year time window (adjusted OR, 95% CI 0.99, 0.91-1.08 for any disorder and 1.08, 0.96-1.23 for depression). The associations between mental and behavioral disorders and AD were modest and dependent on the time window. Therefore, some of the disorders may represent misdiagnosed prodromal symptoms of AD, which underlines the importance of proper differential diagnostics among older persons. These findings also highlight the importance of appropriate time window in psychiatric and neuroepidemiology research. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Human Mars Mission: Launch Window from Earth Orbit. Pt. 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Young, Archie

1999-01-01

The determination of orbital window characteristics is of major importance in the analysis of human interplanetary missions and systems. The orbital launch window characteristics are directly involved in the selection of mission trajectories, the development of orbit operational concepts, and the design of orbital launch systems. The orbital launch window problem arises because of the dynamic nature of the relative geometry between outgoing (departure) asymptote of the hyperbolic escape trajectory and the earth parking orbit. The orientation of the escape hyperbola asymptotic relative to earth is a function of time. The required hyperbola energy level also varies with time. In addition, the inertial orientation of the parking orbit is a function of time because of the perturbations caused by the Earth's oblateness. Thus, a coplanar injection onto the escape hyperbola can be made only at a point in time when the outgoing escape asymptote is contained by the plane of parking orbit. Even though this condition may be planned as a nominal situation, it will not generally represent the more probable injection geometry. The general case of an escape injection maneuver performed at a time other than the coplanar time will involve both a path angle and plane change and, therefore, a DELTA V penalty. Usually, because of the DELTA V penalty the actual departure injection window is smaller in duration than that determined by energy requirement alone. This report contains the formulation, characteristics, and test cases for five different launch window modes for Earth orbit. These modes are: (1) One impulsive maneuver from a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) (2) Two impulsive maneuvers from a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) (3) One impulsive maneuver from a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) (4) Two impulsive maneuvers from LEO (5) Three impulsive maneuvers from LEO.

Calculation of Retention Time Tolerance Windows with Absolute Confidence from Shared Liquid Chromatographic Retention Data

PubMed Central

Boswell, Paul G.; Abate-Pella, Daniel; Hewitt, Joshua T.

2015-01-01

Compound identification by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is a tedious process, mainly because authentic standards must be run on a user’s system to be able to confidently reject a potential identity from its retention time and mass spectral properties. Instead, it would be preferable to use shared retention time/index data to narrow down the identity, but shared data cannot be used to reject candidates with an absolute level of confidence because the data are strongly affected by differences between HPLC systems and experimental conditions. However, a technique called “retention projection” was recently shown to account for many of the differences. In this manuscript, we discuss an approach to calculate appropriate retention time tolerance windows for projected retention times, potentially making it possible to exclude candidates with an absolute level of confidence, without needing to have authentic standards of each candidate on hand. In a range of multi-segment gradients and flow rates run among seven different labs, the new approach calculated tolerance windows that were significantly more appropriate for each retention projection than global tolerance windows calculated for retention projections or linear retention indices. Though there were still some small differences between the labs that evidently were not taken into account, the calculated tolerance windows only needed to be relaxed by 50% to make them appropriate for all labs. Even then, 42% of the tolerance windows calculated in this study without standards were narrower than those required by WADA for positive identification, where standards must be run contemporaneously. PMID:26292624

Calculation of retention time tolerance windows with absolute confidence from shared liquid chromatographic retention data.

PubMed

Boswell, Paul G; Abate-Pella, Daniel; Hewitt, Joshua T

2015-09-18

Compound identification by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) is a tedious process, mainly because authentic standards must be run on a user's system to be able to confidently reject a potential identity from its retention time and mass spectral properties. Instead, it would be preferable to use shared retention time/index data to narrow down the identity, but shared data cannot be used to reject candidates with an absolute level of confidence because the data are strongly affected by differences between HPLC systems and experimental conditions. However, a technique called "retention projection" was recently shown to account for many of the differences. In this manuscript, we discuss an approach to calculate appropriate retention time tolerance windows for projected retention times, potentially making it possible to exclude candidates with an absolute level of confidence, without needing to have authentic standards of each candidate on hand. In a range of multi-segment gradients and flow rates run among seven different labs, the new approach calculated tolerance windows that were significantly more appropriate for each retention projection than global tolerance windows calculated for retention projections or linear retention indices. Though there were still some small differences between the labs that evidently were not taken into account, the calculated tolerance windows only needed to be relaxed by 50% to make them appropriate for all labs. Even then, 42% of the tolerance windows calculated in this study without standards were narrower than those required by WADA for positive identification, where standards must be run contemporaneously. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A fast algorithm for vertex-frequency representations of signals on graphs

PubMed Central

Jestrović, Iva; Coyle, James L.; Sejdić, Ervin

2016-01-01

The windowed Fourier transform (short time Fourier transform) and the S-transform are widely used signal processing tools for extracting frequency information from non-stationary signals. Previously, the windowed Fourier transform had been adopted for signals on graphs and has been shown to be very useful for extracting vertex-frequency information from graphs. However, high computational complexity makes these algorithms impractical. We sought to develop a fast windowed graph Fourier transform and a fast graph S-transform requiring significantly shorter computation time. The proposed schemes have been tested with synthetic test graph signals and real graph signals derived from electroencephalography recordings made during swallowing. The results showed that the proposed schemes provide significantly lower computation time in comparison with the standard windowed graph Fourier transform and the fast graph S-transform. Also, the results showed that noise has no effect on the results of the algorithm for the fast windowed graph Fourier transform or on the graph S-transform. Finally, we showed that graphs can be reconstructed from the vertex-frequency representations obtained with the proposed algorithms. PMID:28479645

Shedding light on emotional perception: Interaction of brightness and semantic content in extrastriate visual cortex.

PubMed

Schettino, Antonio; Keil, Andreas; Porcu, Emanuele; Müller, Matthias M

2016-06-01

The rapid extraction of affective cues from the visual environment is crucial for flexible behavior. Previous studies have reported emotion-dependent amplitude modulations of two event-related potential (ERP) components - the N1 and EPN - reflecting sensory gain control mechanisms in extrastriate visual areas. However, it is unclear whether both components are selective electrophysiological markers of attentional orienting toward emotional material or are also influenced by physical features of the visual stimuli. To address this question, electrical brain activity was recorded from seventeen male participants while viewing original and bright versions of neutral and erotic pictures. Bright neutral scenes were rated as more pleasant compared to their original counterpart, whereas erotic scenes were judged more positively when presented in their original version. Classical and mass univariate ERP analysis showed larger N1 amplitude for original relative to bright erotic pictures, with no differences for original and bright neutral scenes. Conversely, the EPN was only modulated by picture content and not by brightness, substantiating the idea that this component is a unique electrophysiological marker of attention allocation toward emotional material. Complementary topographic analysis revealed the early selective expression of a centro-parietal positivity following the presentation of original erotic scenes only, reflecting the recruitment of neural networks associated with sustained attention and facilitated memory encoding for motivationally relevant material. Overall, these results indicate that neural networks subtending the extraction of emotional information are differentially recruited depending on low-level perceptual features, which ultimately influence affective evaluations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Ammonia concentration at emergence and its effects on the recovery of different species of entomopathogenic nematodes.

PubMed

San-Blas, Ernesto; Pirela, Deynireth; García, Dana; Portillo, Edgar

2014-09-01

The life cycle of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) occurs inside an insect cadaver and an accumulation of ammonia initiates as a consequence of the nematodes defecation. This accumulation reduces the food resources quality and creates a detrimental environment for nematodes. When a given ammonia concentration is reached, the nematodes start their emergence process, searching for a new host. In the present work, this parameter, ammonia triggering point (ATP) was measured in 7 Steinernema species/strains. The effect of different ammonia concentrations on the recovery process and their consequences in the nematodes survival were also investigated. The results indicate that ATP varies among nematode species; Steinernema glaseri showed the highest ATP of the evaluated species (1.98±2.6 mg of NH4-N*g of Galleria mellonella(-1)); whereas Steinernema riobrave presented the lowest ATP (1.16±0.1 mg of NH4-N*g of G. mellonella(-1)). On the other hand, the nematode emergence could be a repulsive response when ATP is reached. As the ammonia concentration increased the recovery percentage of Steinernema feltiae (Chile strain) dropped gradually from 79.4±11.9% in the control treatment to 0% when 1mg of NH4-N*ml of bacterial broth(-1) was added. It is possible, that emergence process could be a repulsive response of the nematodes due to ammonia concentration when is reaching the ATP. The role of ammonia inside the insect cadavers, might suggests connections with some stages of the EPN life cycle. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A fast neural signature of motivated attention to consumer goods separates the sexes.

PubMed

Junghöfer, Markus; Kissler, Johanna; Schupp, Harald T; Putsche, Christian; Elling, Ludger; Dobel, Christian

2010-01-01

Emotional stimuli guide selective visual attention and receive enhanced processing. Previous event-related potential studies have identified an early (>120 ms) negative potential shift over occipito-temporal regions (early posterior negativity, EPN) presumed to indicate the facilitated processing of survival-relevant stimuli. The present study investigated whether this neural signature of motivated attention is also responsive to the intrinsic significance of man-made objects and consumer goods. To address this issue, we capitalized on gender differences towards specific man-made objects, shoes and motorcycles, for which the Statistical Yearbook 2005 of Germany's Federal Statistical Office (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2005) revealed pronounced differences in consumer behavior. In a passive viewing paradigm, male and female participants viewed pictures of motorcycles and shoes, while their magnetoencephalographic brain responses were measured. Source localization of the magnetic counterpart of the EPN (EPNm) revealed pronounced gender differences in picture processing. Specifically, between 130 and 180 ms, all female participants generated stronger activity in occipito-temporal regions when viewing shoes compared to motorcycles, while all men except one showed stronger activation for motorcycles than shoes. Thus, the EPNm allowed a sex-dimorphic classification of the processing of consumer goods. Self-report data confirmed gender differences in consumer behavior, which, however, were less distinct compared to the brain based measure. Considering the latency of the EPNm, the reflected automatic emotional network activity is most likely not yet affected by higher cognitive functions such as response strategies or social expectancy. Non-invasive functional neuroimaging measures of early brain activity may thus serve as objective measure for individual preferences towards consumer goods.

Study of Thermal Anomalies at Cotopaxi Volcano, 2002 to 2005

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rivero, D. R.; Beate, B.; Troncoso, L.; Ramón, P.

2007-05-01

The Instituto Geofisico of the Escuela Politecnica Nacional (IG-EPN) has maintained continuous monitoring since 1977, allowing a better understanding of the volcano's baseline activity. Preliminary signs observed since 2001 of a possible reactivation of this volcano after more than a century of repose, prompted a comprehensive seismological study and implementation of new methods of monitoring, based mainly upon a general increase in seismic activity (VT and LP); appearance of new types of seismic signals never observed before (hybrids, "tornillos", big LP, and tremor); an increase in the fumaroles' number and discharge, as well as a marked thermal anomaly in the summit region. Seismic activity reached its peak in late 2001 / early 2002 and was correlated with enhanced degassing from the crater, with vapor columns reaching some meters above the crater level with abundant SO2 perceived. In this abstract we show evidence of the existence of a magmatic intrusion (Troncoso, 2005), that has disturbed the hydrothermal system present in the cone and it is melting the glacier. This has generated local population and civil defense concern. Since this stage of activity, Cotopaxi has not yet returned to its baseline level, therefore the newly implemented technology includes periodic over flights with a FLIR camera, which permits localization and identification of thermal anomalies. Additionally, a telemetric video camera has been deployed in the northwest rim of the crater to identify degassing changes and its relationship with seismic events. Finally, the IG-EPN staff perform continuous visits to the crater to observe changes IN the ice-cap, measure temperatures and verify the presence of magmatic gases.

Specific Reaction Patterns to Distinct Positive Emotional Cues Related to Incentive Motivation in Dependence of the Taq1A-Polymorphism: Molecular Genetic Associations of Early and Late Event-Related Potentials.

PubMed

Munk, Aisha J L; Wielpuetz, Catrin; Osinsky, Roman; Müller, Erik M; Grant, Phillip; Hennig, Jürgen

2016-01-01

Early and late event-related potential (ERP) responses, representing early subconscious and late motivational processes, were recorded for positive emotional words related to 'wanting' and 'liking', in dependence of the dopamine-related Taq1A genotype (ANKK1/DRD2). Research suggests that 'wanting' as opposed to 'liking' is related to dopaminergic processes. Therefore, it was hypothesized that risk allele carriers of the Taq1A polymorphism exhibit late ERP changes in reaction to words representing incentive motivation, i.e. 'wanting' (word categories 'lust' and 'anticipation'), but not to words representing 'liking' ('closeness'). Seventy-two male participants performed an emotional-word Stroop task during EEG recording and were genotyped according to the Taq1A polymorphism of ANKK1/DRD2. Positive emotional words related to anticipation and lust revealed blunted responses in the late positive potential (LPP) in carriers of the A1 allele, an effect absent in response to 'liking'-related words. These differences were not evident in the earlier posterior negativity (EPN). As no differences in dependence of the Taq1A genotype were observed in reaction to 'wanting'- and 'liking'-related words in the EPN, but merely in the LPP, it can be assumed that incentive-motivational stimuli only modify motivation-related ERP responses in carriers of the A1 allele of the Taq1A polymorphism, indicating the role of dopamine in late ERP components. © 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Early and late temporo-spatial effects of contextual interference during perception of facial affect.

PubMed

Frühholz, Sascha; Fehr, Thorsten; Herrmann, Manfred

2009-10-01

Contextual features during recognition of facial affect are assumed to modulate the temporal course of emotional face processing. Here, we simultaneously presented colored backgrounds during valence categorizations of facial expressions. Subjects incidentally learned to perceive negative, neutral and positive expressions within a specific colored context. Subsequently, subjects made fast valence judgments while presented with the same face-color-combinations as in the first run (congruent trials) or with different face-color-combinations (incongruent trials). Incongruent trials induced significantly increased response latencies and significantly decreased performance accuracy. Contextual incongruent information during processing of neutral expressions modulated the P1 and the early posterior negativity (EPN) both localized in occipito-temporal areas. Contextual congruent information during emotional face perception revealed an emotion-related modulation of the P1 for positive expressions and of the N170 and the EPN for negative expressions. Highest amplitude of the N170 was found for negative expressions in a negatively associated context and the N170 amplitude varied with the amount of overall negative information. Incongruent trials with negative expressions elicited a parietal negativity which was localized to superior parietal cortex and which most likely represents a posterior manifestation of the N450 as an indicator of conflict processing. A sustained activation of the late LPP over parietal cortex for all incongruent trials might reflect enhanced engagement with facial expression during task conditions of contextual interference. In conclusion, whereas early components seem to be sensitive to the emotional valence of facial expression in specific contexts, late components seem to subserve interference resolution during emotional face processing.

77 FR 46950 - Post Office Organization and Administration: Establishment, Classification, and Discontinuance

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-07

... defines a remotely managed Post Office (RMPO) as a Post Office that offers part-time window service hours... Administrative Post Office. The final rule also defines a part-time Post Office (PTPO) as a Post Office that offers part-time window service hours, is staffed by a Postal Service employee, and reports to a district...

Recalibration of the Multisensory Temporal Window of Integration Results from Changing Task Demands

PubMed Central

Mégevand, Pierre; Molholm, Sophie; Nayak, Ashabari; Foxe, John J.

2013-01-01

The notion of the temporal window of integration, when applied in a multisensory context, refers to the breadth of the interval across which the brain perceives two stimuli from different sensory modalities as synchronous. It maintains a unitary perception of multisensory events despite physical and biophysical timing differences between the senses. The boundaries of the window can be influenced by attention and past sensory experience. Here we examined whether task demands could also influence the multisensory temporal window of integration. We varied the stimulus onset asynchrony between simple, short-lasting auditory and visual stimuli while participants performed two tasks in separate blocks: a temporal order judgment task that required the discrimination of subtle auditory-visual asynchronies, and a reaction time task to the first incoming stimulus irrespective of its sensory modality. We defined the temporal window of integration as the range of stimulus onset asynchronies where performance was below 75% in the temporal order judgment task, as well as the range of stimulus onset asynchronies where responses showed multisensory facilitation (race model violation) in the reaction time task. In 5 of 11 participants, we observed audio-visual stimulus onset asynchronies where reaction time was significantly accelerated (indicating successful integration in this task) while performance was accurate in the temporal order judgment task (indicating successful segregation in that task). This dissociation suggests that in some participants, the boundaries of the temporal window of integration can adaptively recalibrate in order to optimize performance according to specific task demands. PMID:23951203

Imaging windows for long-term intravital imaging

PubMed Central

Alieva, Maria; Ritsma, Laila; Giedt, Randy J; Weissleder, Ralph; van Rheenen, Jacco

2014-01-01

Intravital microscopy is increasingly used to visualize and quantitate dynamic biological processes at the (sub)cellular level in live animals. By visualizing tissues through imaging windows, individual cells (e.g., cancer, host, or stem cells) can be tracked and studied over a time-span of days to months. Several imaging windows have been developed to access tissues including the brain, superficial fascia, mammary glands, liver, kidney, pancreas, and small intestine among others. Here, we review the development of imaging windows and compare the most commonly used long-term imaging windows for cancer biology: the cranial imaging window, the dorsal skin fold chamber, the mammary imaging window, and the abdominal imaging window. Moreover, we provide technical details, considerations, and trouble-shooting tips on the surgical procedures and microscopy setups for each imaging window and explain different strategies to assure imaging of the same area over multiple imaging sessions. This review aims to be a useful resource for establishing the long-term intravital imaging procedure. PMID:28243510

Imaging windows for long-term intravital imaging: General overview and technical insights.

PubMed

Alieva, Maria; Ritsma, Laila; Giedt, Randy J; Weissleder, Ralph; van Rheenen, Jacco

2014-01-01

Intravital microscopy is increasingly used to visualize and quantitate dynamic biological processes at the (sub)cellular level in live animals. By visualizing tissues through imaging windows, individual cells (e.g., cancer, host, or stem cells) can be tracked and studied over a time-span of days to months. Several imaging windows have been developed to access tissues including the brain, superficial fascia, mammary glands, liver, kidney, pancreas, and small intestine among others. Here, we review the development of imaging windows and compare the most commonly used long-term imaging windows for cancer biology: the cranial imaging window, the dorsal skin fold chamber, the mammary imaging window, and the abdominal imaging window. Moreover, we provide technical details, considerations, and trouble-shooting tips on the surgical procedures and microscopy setups for each imaging window and explain different strategies to assure imaging of the same area over multiple imaging sessions. This review aims to be a useful resource for establishing the long-term intravital imaging procedure.

Photorefractive-based adaptive optical windows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Yuexin; Yang, Yi; Wang, Bo; Fu, John Y.; Yin, Shizhuo; Guo, Ruyan; Yu, Francis T.

2004-10-01

Optical windows have been widely used in optical spectrographic processing system. In this paper, various window profiles, such as rectangular, triangular, Hamming, Hanning, and Blackman etc., have been investigated in detail, regarding their effect on the generated spectrograms, such as joint time-frequency resolution ΔtΔw, the sidelobe amplitude attenuation etc.. All of these windows can be synthesized in a photorefractive crystal by angular multiplexing holographic technique, which renders the system more adaptive. Experimental results are provided.

Noise normalization and windowing functions for VALIDAR in wind parameter estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beyon, Jeffrey Y.; Koch, Grady J.; Li, Zhiwen

2006-05-01

The wind parameter estimates from a state-of-the-art 2-μm coherent lidar system located at NASA Langley, Virginia, named VALIDAR (validation lidar), were compared after normalizing the noise by its estimated power spectra via the periodogram and the linear predictive coding (LPC) scheme. The power spectra and the Doppler shift estimates were the main parameter estimates for comparison. Different types of windowing functions were implemented in VALIDAR data processing algorithm and their impact on the wind parameter estimates was observed. Time and frequency independent windowing functions such as Rectangular, Hanning, and Kaiser-Bessel and time and frequency dependent apodized windowing function were compared. The briefing of current nonlinear algorithm development for Doppler shift correction subsequently follows.

High-impact resistance optical sensor windows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Askinazi, Joel; Ceccorulli, Mark L.; Goldman, Lee

2011-06-01

Recent field experience with optical sensor windows on both ground and airborne platforms has shown a significant increase in window fracturing from foreign object debris (FOD) impacts and as a by-product of asymmetrical warfare. Common optical sensor window materials such as borosilicate glass do not typically have high impact resistance. Emerging advanced optical window materials such as aluminum oxynitride offer the potential for a significant improvement in FOD impact resistance due to their superior surface hardness, fracture toughness and strength properties. To confirm the potential impact resistance improvement achievable with these emerging materials, Goodrich ISR Systems in collaboration with Surmet Corporation undertook a set of comparative FOD impact tests of optical sensor windows made from borosilicate glass and from aluminum oxynitride. It was demonstrated that the aluminum oxynitride windows could withstand up to three times the FOD impact velocity (as compared with borosilicate glass) before fracture would occur. These highly encouraging test results confirm the utility of this new highly viable window solution for use on new ground and airborne window multispectral applications as well as a retrofit to current production windows. We believe that this solution can go a long way to significantly reducing the frequency and life cycle cost of window replacement.

Phase-space dynamics of opposition control in wall-bounded turbulent flows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hwang, Yongyun; Ibrahim, Joseph; Yang, Qiang; Doohan, Patrick

2017-11-01

The phase-space dynamics of wall-bounded shear flow in the presence of opposition control is explored by examining the behaviours of a pair of nonlinear equilibrium solutions (exact coherent structures), edge state and life time of turbulence at low Reynolds numbers. While the control modifies statistics and phase-space location of the edge state and the lower-branch equilibrium solution very little, it is also found to regularise the periodic orbit on the edge state by reverting a period-doubling bifurcation. Only the upper-branch equilibrium solution and mean turbulent state are significantly modified by the control, and, in phase space, they gradually approach the edge state on increasing the control gain. It is found that this behaviour results in a significant reduction of the life time of turbulence, indicating that the opposition control significantly increases the probability that the turbulent solution trajectory passes through the edge state. Finally, it is shown that the opposition control increases the critical Reynolds number of the onset of the equilibrium solutions, indicating its capability of transition delay. This work is sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in the UK (EP/N019342/1).

Application of MEMS-based x-ray optics as tuneable nanosecond choppers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Pice; Walko, Donald A.; Jung, Il Woong; Li, Zhilong; Gao, Ya; Shenoy, Gopal K.; Lopez, Daniel; Wang, Jin

2017-08-01

Time-resolved synchrotron x-ray measurements often rely on using a mechanical chopper to isolate a set of x-ray pulses. We have started the development of micro electromechanical systems (MEMS)-based x-ray optics, as an alternate method to manipulate x-ray beams. In the application of x-ray pulse isolation, we recently achieved a pulse-picking time window of half a nanosecond, which is more than 100 times faster than mechanical choppers can achieve. The MEMS device consists of a comb-drive silicon micromirror, designed for efficiently diffracting an x-ray beam during oscillation. The MEMS devices were operated in Bragg geometry and their oscillation was synchronized to x-ray pulses, with a frequency matching subharmonics of the cycling frequency of x-ray pulses. The microscale structure of the silicon mirror in terms of the curvature and the quality of crystallinity ensures a narrow angular spread of the Bragg reflection. With the discussion of factors determining the diffractive time window, this report showed our approaches to narrow down the time window to half a nanosecond. The short diffractive time window will allow us to select single x-ray pulse out of a train of pulses from synchrotron radiation facilities.

Windows of sensitivity to toxic chemicals in the motor effects development.

PubMed

Ingber, Susan Z; Pohl, Hana R

2016-02-01

Many chemicals currently used are known to elicit nervous system effects. In addition, approximately 2000 new chemicals introduced annually have not yet undergone neurotoxicity testing. This review concentrated on motor development effects associated with exposure to environmental neurotoxicants to help identify critical windows of exposure and begin to assess data needs based on a subset of chemicals thoroughly reviewed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in Toxicological Profiles and Addenda. Multiple windows of sensitivity were identified that differed based on the maturity level of the neurological system at the time of exposure, as well as dose and exposure duration. Similar but distinct windows were found for both motor activity (GD 8-17 [rats], GD 12-14 and PND 3-10 [mice]) and motor function performance (insufficient data for rats, GD 12-17 [mice]). Identifying specific windows of sensitivity in animal studies was hampered by study designs oriented towards detection of neurotoxicity that occurred at any time throughout the developmental process. In conclusion, while this investigation identified some critical exposure windows for motor development effects, it demonstrates a need for more acute duration exposure studies based on neurodevelopmental windows, particularly during the exposure periods identified in this review. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Windows of sensitivity to toxic chemicals in the motor effects development✩

PubMed Central

Ingber, Susan Z.; Pohl, Hana R.

2017-01-01

Many chemicals currently used are known to elicit nervous system effects. In addition, approximately 2000 new chemicals introduced annually have not yet undergone neurotoxicity testing. This review concentrated on motor development effects associated with exposure to environmental neurotoxicants to help identify critical windows of exposure and begin to assess data needs based on a subset of chemicals thoroughly reviewed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in Toxicological Profiles and Addenda. Multiple windows of sensitivity were identified that differed based on the maturity level of the neurological system at the time of exposure, as well as dose and exposure duration. Similar but distinct windows were found for both motor activity (GD 8–17 [rats], GD 12–14 and PND 3–10 [mice]) and motor function performance (insufficient data for rats, GD 12–17 [mice]). Identifying specific windows of sensitivity in animal studies was hampered by study designs oriented towards detection of neurotoxicity that occurred at any time throughout the developmental process. In conclusion, while this investigation identified some critical exposure windows for motor development effects, it demonstrates a need for more acute duration exposure studies based on neurodevelopmental windows, particularly during the exposure periods identified in this review. PMID:26686904

Simple Estimation of Incident HIV Infection Rates in Notification Cohorts Based on Window Periods of Algorithms for Evaluation of Line-Immunoassay Result Patterns

PubMed Central

Schüpbach, Jörg; Gebhardt, Martin D.; Scherrer, Alexandra U.; Bisset, Leslie R.; Niederhauser, Christoph; Regenass, Stephan; Yerly, Sabine; Aubert, Vincent; Suter, Franziska; Pfister, Stefan; Martinetti, Gladys; Andreutti, Corinne; Klimkait, Thomas; Brandenberger, Marcel; Günthard, Huldrych F.

2013-01-01

Background Tests for recent infections (TRIs) are important for HIV surveillance. We have shown that a patient's antibody pattern in a confirmatory line immunoassay (Inno-Lia) also yields information on time since infection. We have published algorithms which, with a certain sensitivity and specificity, distinguish between incident (< = 12 months) and older infection. In order to use these algorithms like other TRIs, i.e., based on their windows, we now determined their window periods. Methods We classified Inno-Lia results of 527 treatment-naïve patients with HIV-1 infection < = 12 months according to incidence by 25 algorithms. The time after which all infections were ruled older, i.e. the algorithm's window, was determined by linear regression of the proportion ruled incident in dependence of time since infection. Window-based incident infection rates (IIR) were determined utilizing the relationship ‘Prevalence  =  Incidence x Duration’ in four annual cohorts of HIV-1 notifications. Results were compared to performance-based IIR also derived from Inno-Lia results, but utilizing the relationship ‘incident  =  true incident + false incident’ and also to the IIR derived from the BED incidence assay. Results Window periods varied between 45.8 and 130.1 days and correlated well with the algorithms' diagnostic sensitivity (R2 = 0.962; P<0.0001). Among the 25 algorithms, the mean window-based IIR among the 748 notifications of 2005/06 was 0.457 compared to 0.453 obtained for performance-based IIR with a model not correcting for selection bias. Evaluation of BED results using a window of 153 days yielded an IIR of 0.669. Window-based IIR and performance-based IIR increased by 22.4% and respectively 30.6% in 2008, while 2009 and 2010 showed a return to baseline for both methods. Conclusions IIR estimations by window- and performance-based evaluations of Inno-Lia algorithm results were similar and can be used together to assess IIR changes between annual HIV notification cohorts. PMID:23990968

75 FR 11889 - Request for Comments on Proposed NIH, AHRQ and CDC Process Change for Electronic Submission of...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-03-12

... impact of eliminating the correction window from the electronic grant application submission process on... process a temporary error correction window to ensure a smooth and successful transition for applicants. This window provides applicants a period of time beyond the grant application due date to correct any...

Human Mars Mission: Launch Window from Earth Orbit. Pt. 1

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Young, Archie

1999-01-01

The determination of orbital window characteristics is of major importance in the analysis of human interplanetary missions and systems. The orbital launch window characteristics are directly involved in the selection of mission trajectories, the development of orbit operational concepts, and the design of orbital launch systems. The orbital launch window problem arises because of the dynamic nature of the relative geometry between outgoing (departure) asymptote of the hyperbolic escape trajectory and the earth parking orbit. The orientation of the escape hyperbola asymptotic relative to the earth is a function of time. The required hyperbola energy level also varies with time. In addition, the inertial orientation of the parking orbit is a function of time because of the perturbations caused by the Earth's oblateness. Thus, a coplanar injection onto the escape hyperbola can be made only at a point in time when the outgoing escape asymptote is contained by the plane of parking orbit. Even though this condition may be planned as a nominal situation, it will not generally represent the more probable injection geometry. The general case of an escape injection maneuver performed at a time other than the coplanar time will involve both a path angle and plane change and, therefore, a delta V penalty. Usually, because of the delta V penalty the actual departure injection window is smaller in duration than that determined by energy requirement alone. This report contains the formulation, characteristics, and test cases for five different launch window modes for Earth orbit. These modes are: 1) One impulsive maneuver from a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO); 2) Two impulsive maneuvers from a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO); 3) One impulsive maneuver from a Low Earth Orbit (LEO); 4) Two impulsive maneuvers form LEO; and 5) Three impulsive maneuvers form LEO. The formulation of these five different launch window modes provides a rapid means of generating realistic parametric data for space exploration studies. Also the formulation provides vector and geometrical data sufficient for use as a good starting point in detail trajectory analysis based on calculus of variations, steepest descent, or parameter optimization program techniques.

Human Exploration Missions Study Launch Window from Earth Orbit

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Young, Archie

2001-01-01

The determination of orbital launch window characteristics is of major importance in the analysis of human interplanetary missions and systems. The orbital launch window characteristics are directly involved in the selection of mission trajectories, the development of orbit operational concepts, and the design of orbital launch systems. The orbital launch window problem arises because of the dynamic nature of the relative geometry between outgoing (departure) asymptote of the hyperbolic escape trajectory and the earth parking orbit. The orientation of the escape hyperbola asymptotic relative to earth is a function of time. The required hyperbola energy level also varies with time. In addition, the inertial orientation of the parking orbit is a function of time because of the perturbations caused by the Earth's oblateness. Thus, a coplanar injection onto the escape hyperbola can be made only at a point in time when the outgoing escape asymptote is contained by the plane of parking orbit. Even though this condition may be planned as a nominal situation, it will not generally represent the more probable injection geometry. The general case of an escape injection maneuver performed at a time other than the coplanar time will involve both a path angle and plane change and, therefore, a Delta(V) penalty. Usually, because of the Delta(V) penalty the actual departure injection window is smaller in duration than that determined by energy requirement alone. This report contains the formulation, characteristics, and test cases for five different launch window modes for Earth orbit. These modes are: (1) One impulsive maneuver from a Low Earth Orbit (LEO), (2) Two impulsive maneuvers from LEO, (3) Three impulsive maneuvers from LEO, (4) One impulsive maneuvers from a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO), (5) Two impulsive maneuvers from a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) The formulation of these five different launch window modes provides a rapid means of generating realistic parametric data for space exploration studies. Also the formulation provides vector and geometrical data sufficient for use as a good starting point in detail trajectory analysis based on calculus of variations, steepest descent, or parameter optimization program techniques.

GlastCam: A Telemetry-Driven Spacecraft Visualization Tool

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stoneking, Eric T.; Tsai, Dean

2009-01-01

Developed for the GLAST project, which is now the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, GlastCam software ingests telemetry from the Integrated Test and Operations System (ITOS) and generates four graphical displays of geometric properties in real time, allowing visual assessment of the attitude, configuration, position, and various cross-checks. Four windows are displayed: a "cam" window shows a 3D view of the satellite; a second window shows the standard position plot of the satellite on a Mercator map of the Earth; a third window displays star tracker fields of view, showing which stars are visible from the spacecraft in order to verify star tracking; and the fourth window depicts

Know Your Enemy, Issue Number 8

DTIC Science & Technology

1966-11-18

8217the encircazb t. *bocaem6 ’t2-wer,,wun:de’rrate-d ’-the -enemy and only -ma~ de searches* as a matter" of f orm.. On. approach ing: the main objective...have. been able to de ~stroy them1hqp.1f.,.,- vWq,;D the.. ones-*Wo" ’ 1 life an 4 .,a~~1~ ..rd!oss i epn ~L A * . * . * .’~. . . .7A 1 - 4,q STUDY ON...preparation of the-supply system. Important tonnage of food has -to be’moved fr-om. rear Depots to the front line.. In addition to their Transport ation

BiF(AO+, v’) Radiative Lifetimes and Rate Coefficients for V yields T Transfer and Electronic Quenching.

DTIC Science & Technology

1987-04-24

8217) Radiative Lifetimes and Rate Coefficients for V - T Transfer and Electronic Quenching R. F. HEIDNER Ill, H . HELVAJIAN ,J. S. HOLLOWAY, and J. B...ofoffene. 9. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ia U91FO01NGOGNIAIO AE N DDESIIIA T NR.ASK II.~~~~~~~~ WSPIUIOk:TTMET:. .I epn *~~ h Approsp c...collisions of the metastable NF(a 1 h ) state with ground-state BI? molecules, a chemical pumping scheme made efficient by the large densities of NF(a) that can

Automated Measurement of P- and S-Wave Differential Times for Imaging Spatial Distributions of Vp/Vs Ratio, with Moving-Window Cross-Correlation Technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taira, T.; Kato, A.

2013-12-01

A high-resolution Vp/Vs ratio estimate is one of the key parameters to understand spatial variations of composition and physical state within the Earth. Lin and Shearer (2007, BSSA) recently developed a methodology to obtain local Vp/Vs ratios in individual similar earthquake clusters, based on P- and S-wave differential times. A waveform cross-correlation approach is typically employed to measure those differential times for pairs of seismograms from similar earthquakes clusters, at narrow time windows around the direct P and S waves. This approach effectively collects P- and S-wave differential times and however requires the robust P- and S-wave time windows that are extracted based on either manually or automatically picked P- and S-phases. We present another technique to estimate P- and S-wave differential times by exploiting temporal properties of delayed time as a function of elapsed time on the seismograms with a moving-window cross-correlation analysis (e.g., Snieder, 2002, Phys. Rev. E; Niu et al. 2003, Nature). Our approach is based on the principle that the delayed time for the direct S wave differs from that for the direct P wave. Two seismograms aligned by the direct P waves from a pair of similar earthquakes yield that delayed times become zero around the direct P wave. In contrast, delayed times obtained from time windows including the direct S wave have non-zero value. Our approach, in principle, is capable of measuring both P- and S-wave differential times from single-component seismograms. In an ideal case, the temporal evolution of delayed time becomes a step function with its discontinuity at the onset of the direct S wave. The offset in the resulting step function would be the S-wave differential time, relative to the P-wave differential time as the two waveforms are aligned by the direct P wave. We apply our moving-window cross-correlation technique to the two different data sets collected at: 1) the Wakayama district, Japan and 2) the Geysers geothermal field, California. The both target areas are characterized by earthquake swarms that provide a number of similar events clusters. We use the following automated procedure to systematically analyze the two data sets: 1) the identification of the direct P arrivals by using an Akaike Information Criterion based phase picking algorithm introduced by Zhang and Thurber (2003, BSSA), 2) the waveform alignment by the P-wave with a waveform cross-correlation to obtain P-wave differential time, 3) the moving-time window analysis to estimate the S-differential time. Kato et al. (2010, GRL) have estimated the Vp/Vs ratios for a few similar earthquake clusters from the Wakayama data set, by a conventional approach to obtain differential times. We find that the resulting Vp/Vs ratios from our approach for the same earthquake clusters are comparable with those obtained from Kato et al. (2010, GRL). We show that the moving-window cross-correlation technique effectively measures both P- and S-wave differential times for the seismograms in which the clear P and S phases are not observed. We will show spatial distributions in Vp/Vs ratios in our two target areas.

Tropospheric delays from GNSS for application in coastal altimetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernandes, M. Joana; Pires, Nelson; Lázaro, Clara; Nunes, Alexandra L.

2013-04-01

In the scope of the development of an improved methodology for the computation of the wet tropospheric correction for coastal altimetry, based on the use of tropospheric delays derived from GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems), various studies have been conducted aiming to improve the estimation, at global scale, of GNSS-derived tropospheric delays.Amongst these studies, two are presented in this paper: (1) a global assessment of zenith total delays (ZTD) determined at international data centres such as EPN (EUREF Permanent Network) and IGS (International GNSS Service) by comparison with ZTD solutions computed at the University of Porto (U.Porto) using state-of-the-art methodologies and ZTD estimated from ERA Interim, the latest reanalysis dataset from ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts), (2) evaluation of the accuracy of the hydrostatic component of the tropospheric delay (zenith hydrostatic delay, ZHD) estimation from different sources of surface pressure.When compared with ERA Interim, both IGS and U.Porto ZTD are homogeneous with a mean standard deviation of the differences, for all analysed sites, of 12 mm. The U.Porto and IGS ZTD agree within 4 mm (1σ), while for EPN the same result is only valid for the period after November 2006. Before that date, the EPN solutions are slightly degraded and require an adequate correction.Aiming to evaluate the accuracy of ZHD determination from various sources of atmospheric pressure, a study is presented that compares ZHD values determined with in situ measurements of surface pressure at a global set of 63 coastal barometric sites (GNSS stations), the corresponding values obtained from ECMWF operational model, ERA Interim sea level pressure (SLP) and ZHD from the Vienna Mapping Functions 1 (VMF1).Results show that the global grids of sea level pressure provided by ECMWF operational model, either at 0.25° or 0.125° spacing, or the ERA Interim reanalysis product at 1.5°, allow the estimation of the hydrostatic component of the tropospheric delay with an accuracy of 1 to 3 mm at global scale, provided an adequate model for the height dependence of atmospheric pressure is adopted. In comparison, for VMF1 grids provided at 2.5° spacing, although the overall accuracy of ZHD estimation is 2-4 mm in most sites, in regions with high variability and strong seasonal signal in the surface pressure, VMF1 can reveal errors with a clear annual pattern and epochs for which the error exceeds the centimetre level. When used to estimate the wet component of the tropospheric delay (zenith wet delay, ZWD) for coastal altimetry, these errors can translate into errors of similar magnitude in sea level studies.

Windows Into the Real World From a Virtual Globe

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rich, J.; Urban-Rich, J.

2007-12-01

Virtual globes such as Google Earth can be great tools for learning about the geographical variation of the earth. The key to virtual globes is the use of satellite imagery to provide a highly accurate view of the earth's surface. However, because the images are not updated regularly, variations in climate and vegetation over time can not be easily seen. In order to enhance the view of the earth and observe these changes by region and over time we are working to add near real time "windows" into the real world from a virtual globe. For the past 4 years we have been installing web cameras in areas of the world that will provide long term monitoring of global changes. By archiving hourly images from arctic, temperate and tropical regions we are creating a visual data set that is already beginning to tell the story of climate variability. The cameras are currently installed in 10 elementary schools in 3 countries and show the student's view out each window. The Windows Around the World program (http://www.WindowsAroundTheWorld.org) uses the images from these cameras to help students gain a better understanding of earth process and variability in climate and vegetation between different regions and over time. Previously we have used standard web based technologies such as DHTML and AJAX to provide near real-time access to these images and also provide enhanced functionality such as dynamic time lapse movies that allow users to see changes over months, days or hours up to the current hour (http://www.windowsaroundtheworld.org/north_america.aspx). We have integrated the camera images from Windows Around the World into Google Earth. Through network links and models we are creating a way for students to "fly" to another school in the program and see what the current view is out the window. By using a model as a screen, the image can be viewed from the same direction as the students who are sitting in a classroom at the participating school. Once at the school, visiting students can move around the area in three dimensions and gain a better understanding of what they are seeing out the window. Currently time-lapse images can be viewed at a lower resolution for all schools on the globe or when flying into an individual school, higher resolution time-lapse images can be seen. The observation of shadows, precipitation, movement of the sun and changes in vegetation allows the viewer to gain a better understanding of how the earth works and how the environment changes between regions and over time. World.org

Effects of mixing eggs of different initial incubation time on the hatching pattern, chick embryonic development and post-hatch performance.

PubMed

Zhong, Zhentao; Yu, Yue; Jin, Shufang; Pan, Jinming

2018-01-01

The hatch window that varies from 24 to 48 h is known to influence post-hatch performance of chicks. A narrow hatch window is needed for commercial poultry industry to acquire a high level of uniformity of chick quality. Hatching synchronization observed in avian species presents possibilities in altering hatch window in artificial incubation. Layer eggs which were laid on the same day by a single breeder flock and stored for no more than two days started incubation 12 h apart to obtain developmental distinction. The eggs of different initial incubation time were mixed as rows adjacent to rows on day 12 of incubation. During the hatching period (since day 18), hatching time of individual eggs and hatch window were obtained by video recordings. Embryonic development (day 18 and 20) and post-hatch performance up to day 7 were measured. The manipulation of mixing eggs of different initial incubation time shortened the hatch window of late incubated eggs in the manipulated group by delaying the onset of hatching process, and improved the hatchability. Compared to the control groups, chick embryos or chicks in the egg redistribution group showed no significant difference in embryonic development and post-hatch performance up to day 7. We have demonstrated that eggs that were incubated with advanced eggs performed a narrow spread of hatch with higher hatchability, normal embryonic development as well as unaffected chick quality. This specific manipulation is applicable in industrial poultry production to shorten hatch window and improve the uniformity of chick quality.

Seismic signal time-frequency analysis based on multi-directional window using greedy strategy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Yingpin; Peng, Zhenming; Cheng, Zhuyuan; Tian, Lin

2017-08-01

Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) is an important time-frequency analysis technology with a high energy distribution in seismic signal processing. However, it is interfered by many cross terms. To suppress the cross terms of the WVD and keep the concentration of its high energy distribution, an adaptive multi-directional filtering window in the ambiguity domain is proposed. This begins with the relationship of the Cohen distribution and the Gabor transform combining the greedy strategy and the rotational invariance property of the fractional Fourier transform in order to propose the multi-directional window, which extends the one-dimensional, one directional, optimal window function of the optimal fractional Gabor transform (OFrGT) to a two-dimensional, multi-directional window in the ambiguity domain. In this way, the multi-directional window matches the main auto terms of the WVD more precisely. Using the greedy strategy, the proposed window takes into account the optimal and other suboptimal directions, which also solves the problem of the OFrGT, called the local concentration phenomenon, when encountering a multi-component signal. Experiments on different types of both the signal models and the real seismic signals reveal that the proposed window can overcome the drawbacks of the WVD and the OFrGT mentioned above. Finally, the proposed method is applied to a seismic signal's spectral decomposition. The results show that the proposed method can explore the space distribution of a reservoir more precisely.

Air transparent soundproof window

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kim, Sang-Hoon, E-mail: shkim@mmu.ac.kr; Lee, Seong-Hyun

2014-11-15

A soundproof window or wall which is transparent to airflow is presented. The design is based on two wave theories: the theory of diffraction and the theory of acoustic metamaterials. It consists of a three-dimensional array of strong diffraction-type resonators with many holes centered on each individual resonator. The negative effective bulk modulus of the resonators produces evanescent wave, and at the same time the air holes with subwavelength diameter existed on the surfaces of the window for macroscopic air ventilation. The acoustic performance levels of two soundproof windows with air holes of 20mm and 50mm diameters were measured. Themore » sound level was reduced by about 30 - 35dB in the frequency range of 400 - 5,000Hz with the 20mm window, and by about 20 - 35dB in the frequency range of 700 - 2,200Hz with the 50mm window. Multi stop-band was created by the multi-layers of the window. The attenuation length or the thickness of the window was limited by background noise. The effectiveness of the soundproof window with airflow was demonstrated by a real installation.« less

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Schwan's Home Service Delivers With

Science.gov Websites

distribute products across the United States. For information about this project, contact Twin Cities Clean Cities Coalition. Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Download Help Text version See more videos provided by Clean Cities TV and FuelEconomy.gov

Displaying Special Characters and Symbols in Computer-Controlled Reaction Time Experiments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Friel, Brian M.; Kennison, Shelia M.

A procedure for using MEL2 (Version 2.0 of Microcomputer Experimental Laboratory) and FontWINDOW to present special characters and symbols in computer-controlled reaction time experiments is described. The procedure permits more convenience and flexibility than in tachistocopic and projection techniques. FontWINDOW allows researchers to design…

Attosecond light sources in the water window

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ren, Xiaoming; Li, Jie; Yin, Yanchun; Zhao, Kun; Chew, Andrew; Wang, Yang; Hu, Shuyuan; Cheng, Yan; Cunningham, Eric; Wu, Yi; Chini, Michael; Chang, Zenghu

2018-02-01

As a compact and burgeoning alternative to synchrotron radiation and free-electron lasers, high harmonic generation (HHG) has proven its superiority in static and time-resolved extreme ultraviolet spectroscopy for the past two decades and has recently gained many interests and successes in generating soft x-ray emissions covering the biologically important water window spectral region. Unlike synchrotron and free-electron sources, which suffer from relatively long pulse width or large time jitter, soft x-ray sources from HHG could offer attosecond time resolution and be synchronized with their driving field to investigate time-resolved near edge absorption spectroscopy, which could reveal rich structural and dynamical information of the interrogated samples. In this paper, we review recent progresses on generating and characterizing attosecond light sources in the water window region. We show our development of an energetic, two-cycle, carrier-envelope phase stable laser source at 1.7 μm and our achievement in producing a 53 as soft x-ray pulse covering the carbon K-edge in the water window. Such source paves the ways for the next generation x-ray spectroscopy with unprecedented temporal resolution.

Ultrasound-guided identification of cardiac imaging windows.

PubMed

Liu, Garry; Qi, Xiu-Ling; Robert, Normand; Dick, Alexander J; Wright, Graham A

2012-06-01

Currently, the use of cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify cardiac quiescent periods relative to the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is insufficient for producing submillimeter-resolution coronary MR angiography (MRA) images. In this work, the authors perform a time series comparison between tissue Doppler echocardiograms of the interventricular septum (IVS) and concurrent biplane x-ray angiograms. Our results indicate very close agreement between the diastasis gating windows identified by both the IVS and x-ray techniques. Seven cath lab patients undergoing diagnostic angiograms were simultaneously scanned during a breath hold by ultrasound and biplane x-ray for six to eight heartbeats. The heart rate of each patient was stable. Dye was injected into either the left or right-coronary vasculature. The IVS was imaged using color tissue Doppler in an apical four-chamber view. Diastasis was estimated on the IVS velocity curve. On the biplane angiograms, proximal, mid, and distal regions were identified on the coronary artery (CA). Frame by frame correlation was used to derive displacement, and then velocity, for each region. The quiescent periods for a CA and its subsegments were estimated based on velocity. Using Pearson's correlation coefficient and Bland-Altman analysis, the authors compared the start and end times of the diastasis windows as estimated from the IVS and CA velocities. The authors also estimated the vessel blur across the diastasis windows of multiple sequential heartbeats of each patient. In total, 17 heartbeats were analyzed. The range of heart rate observed across patients was 47-79 beats per minute (bpm) with a mean of 57 bpm. Significant correlations (R > 0.99; p < 0.01) were observed between the IVS and x-ray techniques for the identification of the start and end times of diastasis windows. The mean difference in the starting times between IVS and CA quiescent windows was -12.0 ms. The mean difference in end times between IVS and CA quiescent windows was -3.5 ms. In contrast, the correlation between RR interval and both the start and duration of the x-ray gating windows were relatively weaker: R = 0.63 (p = 0.13) and R = 0.86 (p = 0.01). For IVS gating windows, the average estimated vessel blurs during single and multiple heartbeats were 0.5 and 0.66 mm, respectively. For x-ray gating windows, the corresponding values were 0.26 and 0.44 mm, respectively. In this study, the authors showed that IVS velocity can be used to identify periods of diastasis for coronary arteries. Despite variability in mid-diastolic rest positions over multiple steady rate heartbeats, vessel blurring of 0.5-1 mm was found to be achievable using the IVS gating technique. The authors envision this leading to a new cardiac gating system that, compared with conventional ECG gating, provides better resolution and shorter scan times for coronary MRA. © 2012 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

Image-guided adaptive gating of lung cancer radiotherapy: a computer simulation study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aristophanous, Michalis; Rottmann, Joerg; Park, Sang-June; Nishioka, Seiko; Shirato, Hiroki; Berbeco, Ross I.

2010-08-01

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect that image-guided adaptation of the gating window during treatment could have on the residual tumor motion, by simulating different gated radiotherapy techniques. There are three separate components of this simulation: (1) the 'Hokkaido Data', which are previously measured 3D data of lung tumor motion tracks and the corresponding 1D respiratory signals obtained during the entire ungated radiotherapy treatments of eight patients, (2) the respiratory gating protocol at our institution and the imaging performed under that protocol and (3) the actual simulation in which the Hokkaido Data are used to select tumor position information that could have been collected based on the imaging performed under our gating protocol. We simulated treatments with a fixed gating window and a gating window that is updated during treatment. The patient data were divided into different fractions, each with continuous acquisitions longer than 2 min. In accordance to the imaging performed under our gating protocol, we assume that we have tumor position information for the first 15 s of treatment, obtained from kV fluoroscopy, and for the rest of the fractions the tumor position is only available during the beam-on time from MV imaging. The gating window was set according to the information obtained from the first 15 s such that the residual motion was less than 3 mm. For the fixed gating window technique the gate remained the same for the entire treatment, while for the adaptive technique the range of the tumor motion during beam-on time was measured and used to adapt the gating window to keep the residual motion below 3 mm. The algorithm used to adapt the gating window is described. The residual tumor motion inside the gating window was reduced on average by 24% for the patients with regular breathing patterns and the difference was statistically significant (p-value = 0.01). The magnitude of the residual tumor motion depended on the regularity of the breathing pattern suggesting that image-guided adaptive gating should be combined with breath coaching. The adaptive gating window technique was able to track the exhale position of the breathing cycle quite successfully. Out of a total of 53 fractions the duty cycle was greater than 20% for 42 fractions for the fixed gating window technique and for 39 fractions for the adaptive gating window technique. The results of this study suggest that real-time updating of the gating window can result in reliably low residual tumor motion and therefore can facilitate safe margin reduction.

Multi-Window Controllers for Autonomous Space Systems

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lurie, B, J.; Hadaegh, F. Y.

1997-01-01

Multi-window controllers select between elementary linear controllers using nonlinear windows based on the amplitude and frequency content of the feedback error. The controllers are relatively simple to implement and perform much better than linear controllers. The commanders for such controllers only order the destination point and are freed from generating the command time-profiles. The robotic missions rely heavily on the tasks of acquisition and tracking. For autonomous and optimal control of the spacecraft, the control bandwidth must be larger while the feedback can (and, therefore, must) be reduced.. Combining linear compensators via multi-window nonlinear summer guarantees minimum phase character of the combined transfer function. It is shown that the solution may require using several parallel branches and windows. Several examples of multi-window nonlinear controller applications are presented.

Comparing on-road real-time simultaneous in-cabin and outdoor particulate and gaseous concentrations for a range of ventilation scenarios

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Leavey, Anna; Reed, Nathan; Patel, Sameer; Bradley, Kevin; Kulkarni, Pramod; Biswas, Pratim

2017-10-01

Advanced automobile technology, developed infrastructure, and changing economic markets have resulted in increasing commute times. Traffic is a major source of harmful pollutants and consequently daily peak exposures tend to occur near roadways or while travelling on them. The objective of this study was to measure simultaneous real-time particulate matter (particle numbers, lung-deposited surface area, PM2.5, particle number size distributions) and CO concentrations outside and in-cabin of an on-road car during regular commutes to and from work. Data was collected for different ventilation parameters (windows open or closed, fan on, AC on), whilst travelling along different road-types with varying traffic densities. Multiple predictor variables were examined using linear mixed-effects models. Ambient pollutants (NOx, PM2.5, CO) and meteorological variables (wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, dew point) explained 5-44% of outdoor pollutant variability, while the time spent travelling behind a bus was statistically significant for PM2.5, lung-deposited SA, and CO (adj-R2 values = 0.12, 0.10, 0.13). The geometric mean diameter (GMD) for outdoor aerosol was 34 nm. Larger cabin GMDs were observed when windows were closed compared to open (b = 4.3, p-value = <0.01). When windows were open, cabin total aerosol concentrations tracked those outdoors. With windows closed, the pollutants took longer to enter the vehicle cabin, but also longer to exit it. Concentrations of pollutants in cabin were influenced by outdoor concentrations, ambient temperature, and the window/ventilation parameters. As expected, particle number concentrations were impacted the most by changes to window position/ventilation, and PM2.5 the least. Car drivers can expect their highest exposures when driving with windows open or the fan on, and their lowest exposures during windows closed or the AC on. Final linear mixed-effects models could explain between 88 and 97% of cabin pollutant concentration variability. An individual may control their commuting exposure by applying dynamic behavior modification to adapt to changing pollutant scenarios.

Comparing on-road real-time simultaneous in-cabin and outdoor particulate and gaseous concentrations for a range of ventilation scenarios

PubMed Central

Leavey, Anna; Reed, Nathan; Patel, Sameer; Bradley, Kevin; Kulkarni, Pramod; Biswas, Pratim

2017-01-01

Advanced automobile technology, developed infrastructure, and changing economic markets have resulted in increasing commute times. Traffic is a major source of harmful pollutants and consequently daily peak exposures tend to occur near roadways or while traveling on them. The objective of this study was to measure simultaneous real-time particulate matter (particle numbers, lung-deposited surface area, PM2.5, particle number size distributions) and CO concentrations outside and in-cabin of an on-road car during regular commutes to and from work. Data was collected for different ventilation parameters (windows open or closed, fan on, AC on), whilst traveling along different road-types with varying traffic densities. Multiple predictor variables were examined using linear mixed-effects models. Ambient pollutants (NOx, PM2.5, CO) and meteorological variables (wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, dew point) explained 5–44% of outdoor pollutant variability, while the time spent travelling behind a bus was statistically significant for PM2.5, lung-deposited SA, and CO (adj-R2 values = 0.12, 0.10, 0.13). The geometric mean diameter (GMD) for outdoor aerosol was 34 nm. Larger cabin GMDs were observed when windows were closed compared to open (b = 4.3, p-value = <0.01). When windows were open, cabin total aerosol concentrations tracked those outdoors. With windows closed, the pollutants took longer to enter the vehicle cabin, but also longer to exit it. Concentrations of pollutants in cabin were influenced by outdoor concentrations, ambient temperature, and the window/ventilation parameters. As expected, particle number concentrations were impacted the most by changes to window position / ventilation, and PM2.5 the least. Car drivers can expect their highest exposures when driving with windows open or the fan on, and their lowest exposures during windows closed or the AC on. Final linear mixed-effects models could explain between 88–97% of cabin pollutant concentration variability. An individual may control their commuting exposure by applying dynamic behavior modification to adapt to changing pollutant scenarios. PMID:29284988

Comparing on-road real-time simultaneous in-cabin and outdoor particulate and gaseous concentrations for a range of ventilation scenarios.

PubMed

Leavey, Anna; Reed, Nathan; Patel, Sameer; Bradley, Kevin; Kulkarni, Pramod; Biswas, Pratim

2017-10-01

Advanced automobile technology, developed infrastructure, and changing economic markets have resulted in increasing commute times. Traffic is a major source of harmful pollutants and consequently daily peak exposures tend to occur near roadways or while traveling on them. The objective of this study was to measure simultaneous real-time particulate matter (particle numbers, lung-deposited surface area, PM 2.5 , particle number size distributions) and CO concentrations outside and in-cabin of an on-road car during regular commutes to and from work. Data was collected for different ventilation parameters (windows open or closed, fan on, AC on), whilst traveling along different road-types with varying traffic densities. Multiple predictor variables were examined using linear mixed-effects models. Ambient pollutants (NO x , PM 2.5 , CO) and meteorological variables (wind speed, temperature, relative humidity, dew point) explained 5-44% of outdoor pollutant variability, while the time spent travelling behind a bus was statistically significant for PM 2.5, lung-deposited SA, and CO (adj-R 2 values = 0.12, 0.10, 0.13). The geometric mean diameter (GMD) for outdoor aerosol was 34 nm. Larger cabin GMDs were observed when windows were closed compared to open (b = 4.3, p-value = <0.01). When windows were open, cabin total aerosol concentrations tracked those outdoors. With windows closed, the pollutants took longer to enter the vehicle cabin, but also longer to exit it. Concentrations of pollutants in cabin were influenced by outdoor concentrations, ambient temperature, and the window/ventilation parameters. As expected, particle number concentrations were impacted the most by changes to window position / ventilation, and PM 2.5 the least. Car drivers can expect their highest exposures when driving with windows open or the fan on, and their lowest exposures during windows closed or the AC on. Final linear mixed-effects models could explain between 88-97% of cabin pollutant concentration variability. An individual may control their commuting exposure by applying dynamic behavior modification to adapt to changing pollutant scenarios.

Prognostic models based on patient snapshots and time windows: Predicting disease progression to assisted ventilation in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

PubMed

Carreiro, André V; Amaral, Pedro M T; Pinto, Susana; Tomás, Pedro; de Carvalho, Mamede; Madeira, Sara C

2015-12-01

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating disease and the most common neurodegenerative disorder of young adults. ALS patients present a rapidly progressive motor weakness. This usually leads to death in a few years by respiratory failure. The correct prediction of respiratory insufficiency is thus key for patient management. In this context, we propose an innovative approach for prognostic prediction based on patient snapshots and time windows. We first cluster temporally-related tests to obtain snapshots of the patient's condition at a given time (patient snapshots). Then we use the snapshots to predict the probability of an ALS patient to require assisted ventilation after k days from the time of clinical evaluation (time window). This probability is based on the patient's current condition, evaluated using clinical features, including functional impairment assessments and a complete set of respiratory tests. The prognostic models include three temporal windows allowing to perform short, medium and long term prognosis regarding progression to assisted ventilation. Experimental results show an area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC) in the test set of approximately 79% for time windows of 90, 180 and 365 days. Creating patient snapshots using hierarchical clustering with constraints outperforms the state of the art, and the proposed prognostic model becomes the first non population-based approach for prognostic prediction in ALS. The results are promising and should enhance the current clinical practice, largely supported by non-standardized tests and clinicians' experience. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Ultrafast fluorescence imaging in vivo with conjugated polymer fluorophores in the second near-infrared window

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hong, Guosong; Zou, Yingping; Antaris, Alexander L.; Diao, Shuo; Wu, Di; Cheng, Kai; Zhang, Xiaodong; Chen, Changxin; Liu, Bo; He, Yuehui; Wu, Justin Z.; Yuan, Jun; Zhang, Bo; Tao, Zhimin; Fukunaga, Chihiro; Dai, Hongjie

2014-06-01

In vivo fluorescence imaging in the second near-infrared window (1.0-1.7 μm) can afford deep tissue penetration and high spatial resolution, owing to the reduced scattering of long-wavelength photons. Here we synthesize a series of low-bandgap donor/acceptor copolymers with tunable emission wavelengths of 1,050-1,350 nm in this window. Non-covalent functionalization with phospholipid-polyethylene glycol results in water-soluble and biocompatible polymeric nanoparticles, allowing for live cell molecular imaging at >1,000 nm with polymer fluorophores for the first time. Importantly, the high quantum yield of the polymer allows for in vivo, deep-tissue and ultrafast imaging of mouse arterial blood flow with an unprecedented frame rate of >25 frames per second. The high time-resolution results in spatially and time resolved imaging of the blood flow pattern in cardiogram waveform over a single cardiac cycle (~200 ms) of a mouse, which has not been observed with fluorescence imaging in this window before.

Low-complexity image processing for real-time detection of neonatal clonic seizures.

PubMed

Ntonfo, Guy Mathurin Kouamou; Ferrari, Gianluigi; Raheli, Riccardo; Pisani, Francesco

2012-05-01

In this paper, we consider a novel low-complexity real-time image-processing-based approach to the detection of neonatal clonic seizures. Our approach is based on the extraction, from a video of a newborn, of an average luminance signal representative of the body movements. Since clonic seizures are characterized by periodic movements of parts of the body (e.g., the limbs), by evaluating the periodicity of the extracted average luminance signal it is possible to detect the presence of a clonic seizure. The periodicity is investigated, through a hybrid autocorrelation-Yin estimation technique, on a per-window basis, where a time window is defined as a sequence of consecutive video frames. While processing is first carried out on a single window basis, we extend our approach to interlaced windows. The performance of the proposed detection algorithm is investigated, in terms of sensitivity and specificity, through receiver operating characteristic curves, considering video recordings of newborns affected by neonatal seizures.

Smart glass as the method of improving the energy efficiency of high-rise buildings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gamayunova, Olga; Gumerova, Eliza; Miloradova, Nadezda

2018-03-01

The question that has to be answered in high-rise building is glazing and its service life conditions. Contemporary market offers several types of window units, for instance, wooden, aluminum, PVC and combined models. Wooden and PVC windows become the most widespread and competitive between each other. In recent times design engineers choose smart glass. In this article, the advantages and drawbacks of all types of windows are reviewed, and the recommendations are given according to choice of window type in order to improve energy efficiency of buildings.

Determining the optimal window length for pattern recognition-based myoelectric control: balancing the competing effects of classification error and controller delay.

PubMed

Smith, Lauren H; Hargrove, Levi J; Lock, Blair A; Kuiken, Todd A

2011-04-01

Pattern recognition-based control of myoelectric prostheses has shown great promise in research environments, but has not been optimized for use in a clinical setting. To explore the relationship between classification error, controller delay, and real-time controllability, 13 able-bodied subjects were trained to operate a virtual upper-limb prosthesis using pattern recognition of electromyogram (EMG) signals. Classification error and controller delay were varied by training different classifiers with a variety of analysis window lengths ranging from 50 to 550 ms and either two or four EMG input channels. Offline analysis showed that classification error decreased with longer window lengths (p < 0.01 ). Real-time controllability was evaluated with the target achievement control (TAC) test, which prompted users to maneuver the virtual prosthesis into various target postures. The results indicated that user performance improved with lower classification error (p < 0.01 ) and was reduced with longer controller delay (p < 0.01 ), as determined by the window length. Therefore, both of these effects should be considered when choosing a window length; it may be beneficial to increase the window length if this results in a reduced classification error, despite the corresponding increase in controller delay. For the system employed in this study, the optimal window length was found to be between 150 and 250 ms, which is within acceptable controller delays for conventional multistate amplitude controllers.

Determination of Equine Cytochrome c Backbone Amide Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Rates by Mass Spectrometry Using a Wider Time Window and Isotope Envelope.

PubMed

Hamuro, Yoshitomo

2017-03-01

A new strategy to analyze amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) data is proposed, utilizing a wider time window and isotope envelope analysis of each peptide. While most current scientific reports present HDX-MS data as a set of time-dependent deuteration levels of peptides, the ideal HDX-MS data presentation is a complete set of backbone amide hydrogen exchange rates. The ideal data set can provide single amide resolution, coverage of all exchange events, and the open/close ratio of each amide hydrogen in EX2 mechanism. Toward this goal, a typical HDX-MS protocol was modified in two aspects: measurement of a wider time window in HDX-MS experiments and deconvolution of isotope envelope of each peptide. Measurement of a wider time window enabled the observation of deuterium incorporation of most backbone amide hydrogens. Analysis of the isotope envelope instead of centroid value provides the deuterium distribution instead of the sum of deuteration levels in each peptide. A one-step, global-fitting algorithm optimized exchange rate and deuterium retention during the analysis of each amide hydrogen by fitting the deuterated isotope envelopes at all time points of all peptides in a region. Application of this strategy to cytochrome c yielded 97 out of 100 amide hydrogen exchange rates. A set of exchange rates determined by this approach is more appropriate for a patent or regulatory filing of a biopharmaceutical than a set of peptide deuteration levels obtained by a typical protocol. A wider time window of this method also eliminates false negatives in protein-ligand binding site identification. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

Determination of Equine Cytochrome c Backbone Amide Hydrogen/Deuterium Exchange Rates by Mass Spectrometry Using a Wider Time Window and Isotope Envelope

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamuro, Yoshitomo

2017-03-01

A new strategy to analyze amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry (HDX-MS) data is proposed, utilizing a wider time window and isotope envelope analysis of each peptide. While most current scientific reports present HDX-MS data as a set of time-dependent deuteration levels of peptides, the ideal HDX-MS data presentation is a complete set of backbone amide hydrogen exchange rates. The ideal data set can provide single amide resolution, coverage of all exchange events, and the open/close ratio of each amide hydrogen in EX2 mechanism. Toward this goal, a typical HDX-MS protocol was modified in two aspects: measurement of a wider time window in HDX-MS experiments and deconvolution of isotope envelope of each peptide. Measurement of a wider time window enabled the observation of deuterium incorporation of most backbone amide hydrogens. Analysis of the isotope envelope instead of centroid value provides the deuterium distribution instead of the sum of deuteration levels in each peptide. A one-step, global-fitting algorithm optimized exchange rate and deuterium retention during the analysis of each amide hydrogen by fitting the deuterated isotope envelopes at all time points of all peptides in a region. Application of this strategy to cytochrome c yielded 97 out of 100 amide hydrogen exchange rates. A set of exchange rates determined by this approach is more appropriate for a patent or regulatory filing of a biopharmaceutical than a set of peptide deuteration levels obtained by a typical protocol. A wider time window of this method also eliminates false negatives in protein-ligand binding site identification.

Statistical tests for power-law cross-correlated processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Podobnik, Boris; Jiang, Zhi-Qiang; Zhou, Wei-Xing; Stanley, H. Eugene

2011-12-01

For stationary time series, the cross-covariance and the cross-correlation as functions of time lag n serve to quantify the similarity of two time series. The latter measure is also used to assess whether the cross-correlations are statistically significant. For nonstationary time series, the analogous measures are detrended cross-correlations analysis (DCCA) and the recently proposed detrended cross-correlation coefficient, ρDCCA(T,n), where T is the total length of the time series and n the window size. For ρDCCA(T,n), we numerically calculated the Cauchy inequality -1≤ρDCCA(T,n)≤1. Here we derive -1≤ρDCCA(T,n)≤1 for a standard variance-covariance approach and for a detrending approach. For overlapping windows, we find the range of ρDCCA within which the cross-correlations become statistically significant. For overlapping windows we numerically determine—and for nonoverlapping windows we derive—that the standard deviation of ρDCCA(T,n) tends with increasing T to 1/T. Using ρDCCA(T,n) we show that the Chinese financial market's tendency to follow the U.S. market is extremely weak. We also propose an additional statistical test that can be used to quantify the existence of cross-correlations between two power-law correlated time series.

Brain dynamics of visual attention during anticipation and encoding of threat- and safe-cues in spider-phobic individuals

PubMed Central

Pané-Farré, Christiane A.; Löw, Andreas; Hamm, Alfons O.

2015-01-01

This study systematically investigated the sensitivity of the phobic attention system by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) in spider-phobic and non-phobic volunteers in a context where spider and neutral pictures were presented (phobic threat condition) and in contexts where no phobic but unpleasant and neutral or only neutral pictures were displayed (phobia-irrelevant conditions). In a between-group study, participants were assigned to phobia-irrelevant conditions either before or after the exposure to spider pictures (pre-exposure vs post-exposure participants). Additionally, each picture was preceded by a fixation cross presented in one of three different colors that were informative about the category of an upcoming picture. In the phobic threat condition, spider-phobic participants showed a larger P1 than controls for all pictures and signal cues. Moreover, individuals with spider phobia who were sensitized by the exposure to phobic stimuli (i.e. post-exposure participants) responded with an increased P1 also in phobia-irrelevant conditions. In contrast, no group differences between spider-phobic and non-phobic individuals were observed in the P1-amplitudes during viewing of phobia-irrelevant stimuli in the pre-exposure group. In addition, cues signaling neutral pictures elicited decreased stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) compared with cues signaling emotional pictures. Moreover, emotional pictures and cues signaling emotional pictures evoked larger early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) than neutral stimuli. Spider phobics showed greater selective attention effects than controls for phobia-relevant pictures (increased EPN and LPP) and cues (increased LPP and SPN). Increased sensitization of the attention system observed in spider-phobic individuals might facilitate fear conditioning and promote generalization of fear playing an important role in the maintenance of anxiety disorders. PMID:25608985

Effects of expectation congruency on event-related potentials (ERPs) to facial expressions depend on cognitive load during the expectation phase.

PubMed

Lin, Huiyan; Schulz, Claudia; Straube, Thomas

2016-10-01

Previous studies have shown that event-related potentials (ERPs) to facial expressions are modulated by expectation (congruency) and that the ERP effects of expectation congruency are altered by cognitive tasks during the expectation phase. However, it is as yet unknown whether the congruency ERP effects can be modulated by the amount of cognitive load during the expectation phase. To address this question, electroencephalogram (EEG) was acquired when participants viewed fearful and neutral facial expressions. Before the presentation of facial expressions, a cue indicating the expression of a face and subsequently, an expectation interval without any cues were presented. Facial expressions were congruent with the cues in 75% of all trials. During the expectation interval, participants had to solve a cognitive task, in which several letters were presented for target letter detection. The letters were all the same under low load, but differed under high load. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that the amount of cognitive load during the expectation phase altered the congruency effect in N2 and EPN amplitudes for fearful faces. Congruent as compared to incongruent fearful expressions elicited larger N2 and smaller EPN amplitudes under low load, but these congruency effects were not observed under high load. For neutral faces, a congruency effect in late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes was modulated by cognitive load during the expectation phase. The LPP was more positive for incongruent as compared to congruent faces under low load, but the congruency effect was not evident under high load. The findings indicate that congruency effects on ERPs are modulated by the amount of cognitive load the expectation phase and that this modulation is altered by facial expression. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Anxiety, emotional processing and depression in people with multiple sclerosis.

PubMed

Gay, Marie-Claire; Bungener, Catherine; Thomas, Sarah; Vrignaud, Pierre; Thomas, Peter W; Baker, Roger; Montel, Sébastien; Heinzlef, Olivier; Papeix, Caroline; Assouad, Rana; Montreuil, Michèle

2017-02-23

Despite the high comorbidity of anxiety and depression in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), little is known about their inter-relationships. Both involve emotional perturbations and the way in which emotions are processed is likely central to both. The aim of the current study was to explore relationships between the domains of mood, emotional processing and coping and to analyse how anxiety affects coping, emotional processing, emotional balance and depression in people with MS. A cross-sectional questionnaire study involving 189 people with MS with a confirmed diagnosis of MS recruited from three French hospitals. Study participants completed a battery of questionnaires encompassing the following domains: i. anxiety and depression (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)); ii. emotional processing (Emotional Processing Scale (EPS-25)); iii. positive and negative emotions (Positive and Negative Emotionality Scale (EPN-31)); iv. alexithymia (Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire) and v. coping (Coping with Health Injuries and Problems-Neuro (CHIP-Neuro) questionnaire. Relationships between these domains were explored using path analysis. Anxiety was a strong predictor of depression, in both a direct and indirect way, and our model explained 48% of the variance of depression. Gender and functional status (measured by the Expanded Disability Status Scale) played a modest role. Non-depressed people with MS reported high levels of negative emotions and low levels of positive emotions. Anxiety also had an indirect impact on depression via one of the subscales of the Emotional Processing Scale ("Unregulated Emotion") and via negative emotions (EPN-31). This research confirms that anxiety is a vulnerability factor for depression via both direct and indirect pathways. Anxiety symptoms should therefore be assessed systematically and treated in order to lessen the likelihood of depression symptoms.

Efficacy of indigenous entomopathogenic nematodes (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae, Steinernematidae), from Rio Grande do Sul Brazil, against Anastrephafraterculus (Wied.) (Diptera: Tephritidae) in peach orchards.

PubMed

Barbosa-Negrisoli, Carla R C; Garcia, Mauro S; Dolinski, Claudia; Negrisoli, Aldomario S; Bernardi, Daniel; Nava, Dori Edson

2009-09-01

Laboratory, greenhouse, and field experiments were performed with the objective of selecting efficient indigenous strains of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) from Rio Grande do Sul (RS) state, Brazil, for controlling the South American fruit fly, Anastrepha fraterculus (Wied.). Laboratory experiments were conducted in 24 well-plates filled with sterile sand and one insect per well. In greenhouse experiments, plastic trays filled with soil collected from the field were used, while in field experiments, holes were made in soil under the edge of peach tree canopies. Among 19 EPN strains tested, Heterorhabditis bacteriophora Poinar RS88 and Steinernema riobrave Cabanillas, Poinar, & Raulston RS59 resulted in higher A. fraterculus larval (pre-pupal) and pupal mortality, with LD(90) of 1630, 457 and 2851, 423 infective juveniles (IJs)/cm(2), respectively. Greenhouse experiments showed no differences in pupal mortality at 250 and 500IJs/cm(2) of either nematode. In the field, H. bacteriophora RS88 and S. riobravae RS59 sprayed individually over natural and artificially infested fruit (250IJs/cm(2)) resulted in A. fraterculus larval mortality of 51.3%, 28.1% and 20%, 24.3%, respectively. There was no significant difference in A. fraterculus pupal mortality sprayed with an aqueous suspension of either nematode; however, when using infected insect cadavers, H. bacteriophora RS88 was more efficient than S. riobrave RS59. Our results showed that H. bacteriophora RS88 was more virulent to insect larvae, with an efficient host search inside the infested fruit and control of pupae in the soil after being applied by aqueous suspension or infected cadavers.

Evaluation of efficacy of entomopathogenic nematodes against larvae of Lucilia sericata (Meigen, 1826) (Diptera: Calliphoridae).

PubMed

Tóth, Erika M; Márialigeti, K; Fodor, A; Lucskai, A; Farkas, R

2005-01-01

The blowfly Lucilia sericata (Meigen, 1826) (Diptera: Calliphoridae) is the primary agent of cutaneous myiasis of sheep in northern Europe, southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand. As the application of chemicals has several disadvantages, alternative control measures of traumatic myiasis of livestock must be developed. In this study, the use of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) as potential biocontrol agents against second instar larvae of Lucilia sericata was considered. The following nematode species were tested: Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (IS 5, HHU 1, Hmol, HNC 1, HAZ 36, Hbrecon, HHU 2, HAZ 29, HHP 88, HHU 3, HHU 4 and HGua), Steinernema intermedia, NC513 strain of S. glaserii, S. anomali, S. riobrave, Steinernema sp. and 5 strains of S. feltiae (22, Vija Norway, HU 1, scp, and IS 6). None of the examined EPN species or strains showed larvicidal efficacy at 37 degrees C (no killing effect was observed in the case of the two heat-tolerant strains--H. bacteriophora and S.feltiae) against L. sericata larvae. At lower temperatures (20 degrees C and 25 degrees C) only strains of S. feltiae were found to be active. The overall odds ratios calculated for L. sericata maggots to contract S. feltiae nematode infection show significant (p < 0.05) effect only in the case of strains HU 1, 22 and IS 6. In the case of strains HU 1 and 22 parasitic forms of S. feltiae could be detected in the dead larvae of L. sericata. Strain IS 6 (and also Vija Norway at 20 degrees C) penetrated and killed fly larvae, but only adult forms of the nematode occurred in the cadavers.

Windowed time-reversal music technique for super-resolution ultrasound imaging

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Huang, Lianjie; Labyed, Yassin

Systems and methods for super-resolution ultrasound imaging using a windowed and generalized TR-MUSIC algorithm that divides the imaging region into overlapping sub-regions and applies the TR-MUSIC algorithm to the windowed backscattered ultrasound signals corresponding to each sub-region. The algorithm is also structured to account for the ultrasound attenuation in the medium and the finite-size effects of ultrasound transducer elements.

The Golden Cage: Growing up in the Socialist Yugoslavia

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Marjanovic-Shane, Ana

2018-01-01

From the mid 1950s through roughly the 1980s, some or many children and youth of the Socialist Yugoslavia, especially those of us in Belgrade, the capital, lived in a curious, almost surreal "window" in the space and time. This surreal window of space-time, offered to children and youth of Yugoslavia, unprecedented opportunities for…

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Maine's Only Biodiesel Manufacturer Powers

Science.gov Websites

this project, contact Maine Clean Communities. Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Download Help Text version See more videos provided by truck Krug Energy Opens Natural Gas Fueling Station in Arkansas June 18, 2016 photo of natural gas

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Texas Taxis Go Hybrid

Science.gov Websites

information about this project, contact Alamo Area Clean Cities (San Antonio). Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Download Help Text version See more car Hydrogen Powers Fuel Cell Vehicles in California Nov. 18, 2017 Photo of a car Smart Car Shopping

International postseismic response after the Mw=7.8 April 16, 2016 Pedernales Earthquake in Ecuador

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Font, Y.; Ruiz, M. C.; Alvarado, A. P.; Mercerat, D.; Beck, S. L.; Leon Rios, S.; Meltzer, A.; Charvis, P.; Regnier, M. M.; Jarrin, P.; Rietbrock, A.; Vasconez, F.; Dionicio, V.; Calvache, M. L.; Singaucho, J. C.; Pazmino, A.; Rolandone, F.; Mothes, P. A.; Nocquet, J. M.; Martin, X.; Viracucha, C.; Audin, L.; Saillard, M.; Laurendeau, A.; Perrault, M.; Garth, T.; Pernoud, M.; Barros, J. G.; Yates, B.; Malengros, D.; Oregioni, D.; Villegas Lanza, J. C.; Cisneros, D.; Gomez, J.; Montes, L.; Beauval, C. M.; Bertrand, E.; Delouis, B.; Ruiz Paspuel, A. G.; Freymueller, J. T.; Williams, K.; La Femina, P.; Fuenzalida, A.; Mariniere, J.; Cheze, J.; Gueguen, P.; Maron, C.; Michaud, F.; Yepes, H. A.; Palacios, P.; Vallee, M.; Deschamps, A.; Gabriela, P.; Ambrois, D.; Ramos, C.; Courboulex, F.

2016-12-01

The Pedernales earthquake is a large Mw7.8 subduction earthquake caused by the relative convergence between the Nazca and South American plates. It occured north of the city of Pedernales, at 21 km depth and struck the coastal and densely populated Manabi Province, causing many casualties, structural damages and widespread surficial deformation. The 2016 epicenter was located near the Mw 7.8 1942 epicenter. Both events are similar in size and probably ruptured the same segment, which also corresponds to the southern part of the 1906 Mw8.8 Ecuador-Colombia megathrust rupture zone. Immediately after the earthquake, an international team from Ecuador, France, Colombia, the United Kingdom, Peru and the United States coordinated a scientific response with the respective financial support of EPN, IRD and CNRS, SGC, NERC and NSF. Equipment was provided by IGEPN, IRD, CEREMA, SGC, LIVERPOOL, IRIS PASSCAL and UNAVCO. Within a 1.5 month, the team progressively deployed a temporary seismic network of about 70 accelerometer and seismic stations, and 17 continuous GPS stations, complementing the permanent seismic, accelerometer and geodetic network of the IG-EPN. The dense network covers the 300 x 150 km wide area affected by the earthquake, including a trench-parallel line of 10 ocean bottom seismometers deployed by the R/V Orion of INOCAR for 6 months, assuring a minimized azimuthal gap. Intense seismicity is observed up to 150 km N- and S-ward from the rupture zone aligning mainly along 3 seismic strips roughly perpendicular to the trench and also near the rupture area. Peak ground and spectral accelerations are compared with existing ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) developed for interface earthquakes. Different soil investigations were realized to highlight soil characteristics in cities. The geodetic observations captured the immediate afterslip and will help determining the time history of afterslip and viscoelastic relaxation in response to this earthquake. A field survey was conducted on-land to describe the coseismic tectonic deformations and damages to buildings. At sea, a multibeam bathymetry survey of the margin over the rupture zone was conducted by the R/V Orion, making it possible to tentatively estimate and quantify sea-floor deformation after and before the earthquake.

Iconic Meaning in Music: An Event-Related Potential Study.

PubMed

Cai, Liman; Huang, Ping; Luo, Qiuling; Huang, Hong; Mo, Lei

2015-01-01

Although there has been extensive research on the processing of the emotional meaning of music, little is known about other aspects of listeners' experience of music. The present study investigated the neural correlates of the iconic meaning of music. Event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded while a group of 20 music majors and a group of 20 non-music majors performed a lexical decision task in the context of implicit musical iconic meaning priming. ERP analysis revealed a significant N400 effect of congruency in time window 260-510 ms following the onset of the target word only in the group of music majors. Time-course analysis using 50 ms windows indicated significant N400 effects both within the time window 410-460 ms and 460-510 ms for music majors, whereas only a partial N400 effect during time window 410-460 ms was observed for non-music majors. There was also a trend for the N400 effects in the music major group to be stronger than those in the non-major group in the sub-windows of 310-360 ms and 410-460 ms. Especially in the sub-window of 410-460 ms, the topographical map of the difference waveforms between congruent and incongruent conditions revealed different N400 distribution between groups; the effect was concentrated in bilateral frontal areas for music majors, but in central-parietal areas for non-music majors. These results imply probable neural mechanism differences underlying automatic iconic meaning priming of music. Our findings suggest that processing of the iconic meaning of music can be accomplished automatically and that musical training may facilitate the understanding of the iconic meaning of music.

Iconic Meaning in Music: An Event-Related Potential Study

PubMed Central

Luo, Qiuling; Huang, Hong; Mo, Lei

2015-01-01

Although there has been extensive research on the processing of the emotional meaning of music, little is known about other aspects of listeners’ experience of music. The present study investigated the neural correlates of the iconic meaning of music. Event-related potentials (ERP) were recorded while a group of 20 music majors and a group of 20 non-music majors performed a lexical decision task in the context of implicit musical iconic meaning priming. ERP analysis revealed a significant N400 effect of congruency in time window 260-510 ms following the onset of the target word only in the group of music majors. Time-course analysis using 50 ms windows indicated significant N400 effects both within the time window 410-460 ms and 460-510 ms for music majors, whereas only a partial N400 effect during time window 410-460 ms was observed for non-music majors. There was also a trend for the N400 effects in the music major group to be stronger than those in the non-major group in the sub-windows of 310-360ms and 410-460ms. Especially in the sub-window of 410-460 ms, the topographical map of the difference waveforms between congruent and incongruent conditions revealed different N400 distribution between groups; the effect was concentrated in bilateral frontal areas for music majors, but in central-parietal areas for non-music majors. These results imply probable neural mechanism differences underlying automatic iconic meaning priming of music. Our findings suggest that processing of the iconic meaning of music can be accomplished automatically and that musical training may facilitate the understanding of the iconic meaning of music. PMID:26161561

Issues in visual support to real-time space system simulation solved in the Systems Engineering Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Yuen, Vincent K.

1989-01-01

The Systems Engineering Simulator has addressed the major issues in providing visual data to its real-time man-in-the-loop simulations. Out-the-window views and CCTV views are provided by three scene systems to give the astronauts their real-world views. To expand the window coverage for the Space Station Freedom workstation a rotating optics system is used to provide the widest field of view possible. To provide video signals to as many viewpoints as possible, windows and CCTVs, with a limited amount of hardware, a video distribution system has been developed to time-share the video channels among viewpoints at the selection of the simulation users. These solutions have provided the visual simulation facility for real-time man-in-the-loop simulations for the NASA space program.

Split delivery vehicle routing problem with time windows: a case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Latiffianti, E.; Siswanto, N.; Firmandani, R. A.

2018-04-01

This paper aims to implement an extension of VRP so called split delivery vehicle routing problem (SDVRP) with time windows in a case study involving pickups and deliveries of workers from several points of origin and several destinations. Each origin represents a bus stop and the destination represents either site or office location. An integer linear programming of the SDVRP problem is presented. The solution was generated using three stages of defining the starting points, assigning busses, and solving the SDVRP with time windows using an exact method. Although the overall computational time was relatively lengthy, the results indicated that the produced solution was better than the existing routing and scheduling that the firm used. The produced solution was also capable of reducing fuel cost by 9% that was obtained from shorter total distance travelled by the shuttle buses.

The Use of Variable Q1 Isolation Windows Improves Selectivity in LC-SWATH-MS Acquisition.

PubMed

Zhang, Ying; Bilbao, Aivett; Bruderer, Tobias; Luban, Jeremy; Strambio-De-Castillia, Caterina; Lisacek, Frédérique; Hopfgartner, Gérard; Varesio, Emmanuel

2015-10-02

As tryptic peptides and metabolites are not equally distributed along the mass range, the probability of cross fragment ion interference is higher in certain windows when fixed Q1 SWATH windows are applied. We evaluated the benefits of utilizing variable Q1 SWATH windows with regards to selectivity improvement. Variable windows based on equalizing the distribution of either the precursor ion population (PIP) or the total ion current (TIC) within each window were generated by an in-house software, swathTUNER. These two variable Q1 SWATH window strategies outperformed, with respect to quantification and identification, the basic approach using a fixed window width (FIX) for proteomic profiling of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MDDCs). Thus, 13.8 and 8.4% additional peptide precursors, which resulted in 13.1 and 10.0% more proteins, were confidently identified by SWATH using the strategy PIP and TIC, respectively, in the MDDC proteomic sample. On the basis of the spectral library purity score, some improvement warranted by variable Q1 windows was also observed, albeit to a lesser extent, in the metabolomic profiling of human urine. We show that the novel concept of "scheduled SWATH" proposed here, which incorporates (i) variable isolation windows and (ii) precursor retention time segmentation further improves both peptide and metabolite identifications.

Early Warning for Large Magnitude Earthquakes: Is it feasible?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zollo, A.; Colombelli, S.; Kanamori, H.

2011-12-01

The mega-thrust, Mw 9.0, 2011 Tohoku earthquake has re-opened the discussion among the scientific community about the effectiveness of Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems, when applied to such large events. Many EEW systems are now under-testing or -development worldwide and most of them are based on the real-time measurement of ground motion parameters in a few second window after the P-wave arrival. Currently, we are using the initial Peak Displacement (Pd), and the Predominant Period (τc), among other parameters, to rapidly estimate the earthquake magnitude and damage potential. A well known problem about the real-time estimation of the magnitude is the parameter saturation. Several authors have shown that the scaling laws between early warning parameters and magnitude are robust and effective up to magnitude 6.5-7; the correlation, however, has not yet been verified for larger events. The Tohoku earthquake occurred near the East coast of Honshu, Japan, on the subduction boundary between the Pacific and the Okhotsk plates. The high quality Kik- and K- networks provided a large quantity of strong motion records of the mainshock, with a wide azimuthal coverage both along the Japan coast and inland. More than 300 3-component accelerograms have been available, with an epicentral distance ranging from about 100 km up to more than 500 km. This earthquake thus presents an optimal case study for testing the physical bases of early warning and to investigate the feasibility of a real-time estimation of earthquake size and damage potential even for M > 7 earthquakes. In the present work we used the acceleration waveform data of the main shock for stations along the coast, up to 200 km epicentral distance. We measured the early warning parameters, Pd and τc, within different time windows, starting from 3 seconds, and expanding the testing time window up to 30 seconds. The aim is to verify the correlation of these parameters with Peak Ground Velocity and Magnitude, respectively, as a function of the length of the P-wave window. The entire rupture process of the Tohoku earthquake lasted more than 120 seconds, as shown by the source time functions obtained by several authors. When a 3 second window is used to measure Pd and τc the result is an obvious underestimation of the event size and final PGV. However, as the time window increases up to 27-30 seconds, the measured values of Pd and τc become comparable with those expected for a magnitude M≥8.5 earthquake, according to the τc vs. M and the PGV vs. Pd relationships obtained in a previous work. Since we did not observe any saturation effect for the predominant period and peak displacement measured within a P-wave, 30-seconds window, we infer that, at least from a theoretical point of view, the estimation of earthquake damage potential through the early warning parameters is still feasible for large events, provided that a longer time window is used for parameter measurement. The off-line analysis of the Tohoku event records shows that reliable estimations of the damage potential could have been obtained 40-50 seconds after the origin time, by updating the measurements of the early warning parameters in progressively enlarged P-wave time windows from 3 to 30 seconds.

Time-Frequency Distribution Analyses of Ku-Band Radar Doppler Echo Signals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bujaković, Dimitrije; Andrić, Milenko; Bondžulić, Boban; Mitrović, Srđan; Simić, Slobodan

2015-03-01

Real radar echo signals of a pedestrian, vehicle and group of helicopters are analyzed in order to maximize signal energy around central Doppler frequency in time-frequency plane. An optimization, preserving this concentration, is suggested based on three well-known concentration measures. Various window functions and time-frequency distributions were optimization inputs. Conducted experiments on an analytic and three real signals have shown that energy concentration significantly depends on used time-frequency distribution and window function, for all three used criteria.

USB Storage Device Forensics for Windows 10.

PubMed

Arshad, Ayesha; Iqbal, Waseem; Abbas, Haider

2018-05-01

Significantly increased use of USB devices due to their user-friendliness and large storage capacities poses various threats for many users/companies in terms of data theft that becomes easier due to their efficient mobility. Investigations for such data theft activities would require gathering critical digital information capable of recovering digital forensics artifacts like date, time, and device information. This research gathers three sets of registry and logs data: first, before insertion; second, during insertion; and the third, after removal of a USB device. These sets are analyzed to gather evidentiary information from Registry and Windows Event log that helps in tracking a USB device. This research furthers the prior research on earlier versions of Microsoft Windows and compares it with latest Windows 10 system. Comparison of Windows 8 and Windows 10 does not show much difference except for new subkey under USB Key in registry. However, comparison of Windows 7 with latest version indicates significant variances. © 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Determination of injection molding process windows for optical lenses using response surface methodology.

PubMed

Tsai, Kuo-Ming; Wang, He-Yi

2014-08-20

This study focuses on injection molding process window determination for obtaining optimal imaging optical properties, astigmatism, coma, and spherical aberration using plastic lenses. The Taguchi experimental method was first used to identify the optimized combination of parameters and significant factors affecting the imaging optical properties of the lens. Full factorial experiments were then implemented based on the significant factors to build the response surface models. The injection molding process windows for lenses with optimized optical properties were determined based on the surface models, and confirmation experiments were performed to verify their validity. The results indicated that the significant factors affecting the optical properties of lenses are mold temperature, melt temperature, and cooling time. According to experimental data for the significant factors, the oblique ovals for different optical properties on the injection molding process windows based on melt temperature and cooling time can be obtained using the curve fitting approach. The confirmation experiments revealed that the average errors for astigmatism, coma, and spherical aberration are 3.44%, 5.62%, and 5.69%, respectively. The results indicated that the process windows proposed are highly reliable.

The windows of SETI - Frequency and time in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Oliver, Bernard M.

1987-01-01

Since interstellar travel is not economically possible on the time scale of a human lifetime, communication with extraterrestrials can be achieved only by sending some form of energy or matter across space; photons (electromagnetic waves) are best. Of particular interest to SETI is the region from about 1,000-60,000 MHz known as the free-space microwave window. During the course of NASA's Cyclops program, it was pointed out that the hydrogen and hydroxyl lines bounded a band in which there were no other known lines. The threatened loss of the microwave window to earth-based services is discussed.

Synchronization as a biological, psychological and social mechanism to create common time: A theoretical frame and a single case study.

PubMed

Bao, Yan; Pöppel, Ernst; Wang, Lingyan; Lin, Xiaoxiong; Yang, Taoxi; Avram, Mihai; Blautzik, Janusch; Paolini, Marco; Silveira, Sarita; Vedder, Aline; Zaytseva, Yuliya; Zhou, Bin

2015-12-01

Synchronizing neural processes, mental activities, and social interactions is considered to be fundamental for the creation of temporal order on the personal and interpersonal level. Several different types of synchronization are distinguished, and for each of them examples are given: self-organized synchronizations on the neural level giving rise to pre-semantically defined time windows of some tens of milliseconds and of approximately 3 s; time windows that are created by synchronizing different neural representations, as for instance in aesthetic appreciations or moral judgments; and synchronization of biological rhythms with geophysical cycles, like the circadian clock with the 24-hr rhythm of day and night. For the latter type of synchronization, an experiment is described that shows the importance of social interactions for sharing or avoiding common time. In a group study with four subjects being completely isolated together for 3 weeks from the external world, social interactions resulted both in intra- and interindividual circadian synchronization and desynchronization. A unique phenomenon in circadian regulation is described, the "beat phenomenon," which has been made visible by the interaction of two circadian rhythms with different frequencies in one body. The separation of the two physiological rhythms was the consequence of social interactions, that is, by the desire of a subject to share and to escape common time during different phases of the long-term experiment. The theoretical arguments on synchronization are summarized with the general statement: "Nothing in cognitive science makes sense except in the light of time windows." The hypothesis is forwarded that time windows that express discrete timing mechanisms in behavioral control and on the level of conscious experiences are the necessary bases to create cognitive order, and it is suggested that time windows are implemented by neural oscillations in different frequency domains. © 2015 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

VO2 thermochromic smart window for energy savings and generation

PubMed Central

Zhou, Jiadong; Gao, Yanfeng; Zhang, Zongtao; Luo, Hongjie; Cao, Chuanxiang; Chen, Zhang; Dai, Lei; Liu, Xinling

2013-01-01

The ability to achieve energy saving in architectures and optimal solar energy utilisation affects the sustainable development of the human race. Traditional smart windows and solar cells cannot be combined into one device for energy saving and electricity generation. A VO2 film can respond to the environmental temperature to intelligently regulate infrared transmittance while maintaining visible transparency, and can be applied as a thermochromic smart window. Herein, we report for the first time a novel VO2-based smart window that partially utilises light scattering to solar cells around the glass panel for electricity generation. This smart window combines energy-saving and generation in one device, and offers potential to intelligently regulate and utilise solar radiation in an efficient manner. PMID:24157625

VO₂ thermochromic smart window for energy savings and generation.

PubMed

Zhou, Jiadong; Gao, Yanfeng; Zhang, Zongtao; Luo, Hongjie; Cao, Chuanxiang; Chen, Zhang; Dai, Lei; Liu, Xinling

2013-10-24

The ability to achieve energy saving in architectures and optimal solar energy utilisation affects the sustainable development of the human race. Traditional smart windows and solar cells cannot be combined into one device for energy saving and electricity generation. A VO2 film can respond to the environmental temperature to intelligently regulate infrared transmittance while maintaining visible transparency, and can be applied as a thermochromic smart window. Herein, we report for the first time a novel VO2-based smart window that partially utilises light scattering to solar cells around the glass panel for electricity generation. This smart window combines energy-saving and generation in one device, and offers potential to intelligently regulate and utilise solar radiation in an efficient manner.

Optimal pulse design for communication-oriented slow-light pulse detection.

PubMed

Stenner, Michael D; Neifeld, Mark A

2008-01-21

We present techniques for designing pulses for linear slow-light delay systems which are optimal in the sense that they maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio (SNIR) of the detected pulse energy. Given a communication model in which input pulses are created in a finite temporal window and output pulse energy in measured in a temporally-offset output window, the SNIR-optimal pulses achieve typical improvements of 10 dB compared to traditional pulse shapes for a given output window offset. Alternatively, for fixed SNR or SNIR, window offset (detection delay) can be increased by 0.3 times the window width. This approach also invites a communication-based model for delay and signal fidelity.

Alternative Fuels Data Center: America's Largest Home Runs on Biodiesel in

Science.gov Websites

Coalition (Western North Carolina). Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Download Help Text version See more videos provided by Clean Cities TV and Photo of a car Hydrogen Powers Fuel Cell Vehicles in California Nov. 18, 2017 Photo of a car Smart Car

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Rhode Island EV Initiative Adds Chargers

Science.gov Websites

Ocean State Clean Cities. Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Download Help Text version See more videos provided by Clean Cities TV and Photo of a car Hydrogen Powers Fuel Cell Vehicles in California Nov. 18, 2017 Photo of a car Smart Car

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Worcester Regional Transit Authority Drives

Science.gov Websites

Clean Cities. Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv ) Video Download Help Text version See more videos provided by Clean Cities TV and FuelEconomy.gov Fuel Cell Vehicles in California Nov. 18, 2017 Photo of a car Smart Car Shopping Nov. 4, 2017 Image of

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Propane Powers Airport Shuttles in New

Science.gov Websites

Clean Fuel Partnership. Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Download Help Text version See more videos provided by Clean Cities TV and Vehicles in California Nov. 18, 2017 Photo of a car Smart Car Shopping Nov. 4, 2017 Photo of a truck

Automated variance reduction for MCNP using deterministic methods.

PubMed

Sweezy, J; Brown, F; Booth, T; Chiaramonte, J; Preeg, B

2005-01-01

In order to reduce the user's time and the computer time needed to solve deep penetration problems, an automated variance reduction capability has been developed for the MCNP Monte Carlo transport code. This new variance reduction capability developed for MCNP5 employs the PARTISN multigroup discrete ordinates code to generate mesh-based weight windows. The technique of using deterministic methods to generate importance maps has been widely used to increase the efficiency of deep penetration Monte Carlo calculations. The application of this method in MCNP uses the existing mesh-based weight window feature to translate the MCNP geometry into geometry suitable for PARTISN. The adjoint flux, which is calculated with PARTISN, is used to generate mesh-based weight windows for MCNP. Additionally, the MCNP source energy spectrum can be biased based on the adjoint energy spectrum at the source location. This method can also use angle-dependent weight windows.

ASTP (SA-210) Launch vehicle operational flight trajectory. Part 3: Final documentation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Carter, A. B.; Klug, G. W.; Williams, N. W.

1975-01-01

Trajectory data are presented for a nominal and two launch window trajectory simulations. These trajectories are designed to insert a manned Apollo spacecraft into a 150/167 km. (81/90 n. mi.) earth orbit inclined at 51.78 degrees for rendezvous with a Soyuz spacecraft, which will be orbiting at approximately 225 km. (121.5 n. mi.). The launch window allocation defined for this launch is 500 pounds of S-IVB stage propellant. The launch window opening trajectory simulation depicts the earliest launch time deviation from a planar flight launch which conforms to this constraint. The launch window closing trajectory simulation was developed for the more stringent Air Force Eastern Test Range (AFETR) flight azimuth restriction of 37.4 degrees east-of-north. These trajectories enclose a 12.09 minute launch window, pertinent features of which are provided in a tabulation. Planar flight data are included for mid-window reference.

Effects of the window openings on the micro-environmental condition in a school bus

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Fei; Lee, Eon S.; Zhou, Bin; Liu, Junjie; Zhu, Yifang

2017-10-01

School bus is an important micro-environment for children's health because the level of in-cabin air pollution can increase due to its own exhaust in addition to on-road traffic emissions. However, it has been challenging to understand the in-cabin air quality that is associated with complex airflow patterns inside and outside a school bus. This study conducted Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling analyses to determine the effects of window openings on the self-pollution for a school bus. Infiltration through the window gaps is modeled by applying variable numbers of active computational cells as a function of the effective area ratio of the opening. The experimental data on ventilation rates from the literature was used to validate the model. Ultrafine particles (UFPs) and black carbon (BC) concentrations were monitored in ;real world; field campaigns using school buses. This modeling study examined the airflow pattern inside the school bus under four different types of side-window openings at 20, 40, and 60 mph (i.e., a total of 12 cases). We found that opening the driver's window could allow the infiltration of exhaust through window/door gaps in the back of school bus; whereas, opening windows in the middle of the school bus could mitigate this phenomenon. We also found that an increased driving speed (from 20 mph to 60 mph) could result in a higher ventilation rate (up to 3.4 times) and lower mean age of air (down to 0.29 time) inside the bus.

Dynamic subcellular imaging of cancer cell mitosis in the brain of live mice.

PubMed

Momiyama, Masashi; Suetsugu, Atsushi; Kimura, Hiroaki; Chishima, Takashi; Bouvet, Michael; Endo, Itaru; Hoffman, Robert M

2013-04-01

The ability to visualize cancer cell mitosis and apoptosis in the brain in real time would be of great utility in testing novel therapies. In order to achieve this goal, the cancer cells were labeled with green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the nucleus and red fluorescent protein (RFP) in the cytoplasm, such that mitosis and apoptosis could be clearly imaged. A craniotomy open window was made in athymic nude mice for real-time fluorescence imaging of implanted cancer cells growing in the brain. The craniotomy window was reversibly closed with a skin flap. Mitosis of the individual cancer cells were imaged dynamically in real time through the craniotomy-open window. This model can be used to evaluate brain metastasis and brain cancer at the subcellular level.

Percutaneous window chamber method for chronic intravital microscopy of sensor-tissue interactions.

PubMed

Koschwanez, Heidi E; Klitzman, Bruce; Reichert, W Monty

2008-11-01

A dorsal, two-sided skin-fold window chamber model was employed previously by Gough in glucose sensor research to characterize poorly understood physiological factors affecting sensor performance. We have extended this work by developing a percutaneous one-sided window chamber model for the rodent dorsum that offers both a larger subcutaneous area and a less restrictive tissue space than previous animal models. A surgical procedure for implanting a sensor into the subcutis beneath an acrylic window (15 mm diameter) is presented. Methods to quantify changes in the microvascular network and red blood cell perfusion around the sensors using noninvasive intravital microscopy and laser Doppler flowmetry are described. The feasibility of combining interstitial glucose monitoring from an implanted sensor with intravital fluorescence microscopy was explored using a bolus injection of fluorescein and dextrose to observe real-time mass transport of a small molecule at the sensor-tissue interface. The percutaneous window chamber provides an excellent model for assessing the influence of different sensor modifications, such as surface morphologies, on neovascularization using real-time monitoring of the microvascular network and tissue perfusion. However, the tissue response to an implanted sensor was variable, and some sensors migrated entirely out of the field of view and could not be observed adequately. A percutaneous optical window provides direct, real-time images of the development and dynamics of microvascular networks, microvessel patency, and fibrotic encapsulation at the tissue-sensor interface. Additionally, observing microvessels following combined bolus injections of a fluorescent dye and glucose in the local sensor environment demonstrated a valuable technique to visualize mass transport at the sensor surface.

Near real-time vaccine safety surveillance with partially accrued data.

PubMed

Greene, Sharon K; Kulldorff, Martin; Yin, Ruihua; Yih, W Katherine; Lieu, Tracy A; Weintraub, Eric S; Lee, Grace M

2011-06-01

The Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) Project conducts near real-time vaccine safety surveillance using sequential analytic methods. Timely surveillance is critical in identifying potential safety problems and preventing additional exposure before most vaccines are administered. For vaccines that are administered during a short period, such as influenza vaccines, timeliness can be improved by undertaking analyses while risk windows following vaccination are ongoing and by accommodating predictable and unpredictable data accrual delays. We describe practical solutions to these challenges, which were adopted by the VSD Project during pandemic and seasonal influenza vaccine safety surveillance in 2009/2010. Adjustments were made to two sequential analytic approaches. The Poisson-based approach compared the number of pre-defined adverse events observed following vaccination with the number expected using historical data. The expected number was adjusted for the proportion of the risk window elapsed and the proportion of inpatient data estimated to have accrued. The binomial-based approach used a self-controlled design, comparing the observed numbers of events in risk versus comparison windows. Events were included in analysis only if they occurred during a week that had already passed for both windows. Analyzing data before risk windows fully elapsed improved the timeliness of safety surveillance. Adjustments for data accrual lags were tailored to each data source and avoided biasing analyses away from detecting a potential safety problem, particularly early during surveillance. The timeliness of vaccine and drug safety surveillance can be improved by properly accounting for partially elapsed windows and data accrual delays. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Towards component-based validation of GATE: aspects of the coincidence processor

PubMed Central

Moraes, Eder R.; Poon, Jonathan K.; Balakrishnan, Karthikayan; Wang, Wenli; Badawi, Ramsey D.

2014-01-01

GATE is public domain software widely used for Monte Carlo simulation in emission tomography. Validations of GATE have primarily been performed on a whole-system basis, leaving the possibility that errors in one sub-system may be offset by errors in others. We assess the accuracy of the GATE PET coincidence generation sub-system in isolation, focusing on the options most closely modeling the majority of commercially available scanners. Independent coincidence generators were coded by teams at Toshiba Medical Research Unit (TMRU) and UC Davis. A model similar to the Siemens mCT scanner was created in GATE. Annihilation photons interacting with the detectors were recorded. Coincidences were generated using GATE, TMRU and UC Davis code and results compared to “ground truth” obtained from the history of the photon interactions. GATE was tested twice, once with every qualified single event opening a time window and initiating a coincidence check (the “multiple window method”), and once where a time window is opened and a coincidence check initiated only by the first single event to occur after the end of the prior time window (the “single window method”). True, scattered and random coincidences were compared. Noise equivalent count rates were also computed and compared. The TMRU and UC Davis coincidence generators agree well with ground truth. With GATE, reasonable accuracy can be obtained if the single window method option is chosen and random coincidences are estimated without use of the delayed coincidence option. However in this GATE version, other parameter combinations can result in significant errors. PMID:25240897

Solving the chemical master equation using sliding windows

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Background The chemical master equation (CME) is a system of ordinary differential equations that describes the evolution of a network of chemical reactions as a stochastic process. Its solution yields the probability density vector of the system at each point in time. Solving the CME numerically is in many cases computationally expensive or even infeasible as the number of reachable states can be very large or infinite. We introduce the sliding window method, which computes an approximate solution of the CME by performing a sequence of local analysis steps. In each step, only a manageable subset of states is considered, representing a "window" into the state space. In subsequent steps, the window follows the direction in which the probability mass moves, until the time period of interest has elapsed. We construct the window based on a deterministic approximation of the future behavior of the system by estimating upper and lower bounds on the populations of the chemical species. Results In order to show the effectiveness of our approach, we apply it to several examples previously described in the literature. The experimental results show that the proposed method speeds up the analysis considerably, compared to a global analysis, while still providing high accuracy. Conclusions The sliding window method is a novel approach to address the performance problems of numerical algorithms for the solution of the chemical master equation. The method efficiently approximates the probability distributions at the time points of interest for a variety of chemically reacting systems, including systems for which no upper bound on the population sizes of the chemical species is known a priori. PMID:20377904

Window-Based Channel Impulse Response Prediction for Time-Varying Ultra-Wideband Channels.

PubMed

Al-Samman, A M; Azmi, M H; Rahman, T A; Khan, I; Hindia, M N; Fattouh, A

2016-01-01

This work proposes channel impulse response (CIR) prediction for time-varying ultra-wideband (UWB) channels by exploiting the fast movement of channel taps within delay bins. Considering the sparsity of UWB channels, we introduce a window-based CIR (WB-CIR) to approximate the high temporal resolutions of UWB channels. A recursive least square (RLS) algorithm is adopted to predict the time evolution of the WB-CIR. For predicting the future WB-CIR tap of window wk, three RLS filter coefficients are computed from the observed WB-CIRs of the left wk-1, the current wk and the right wk+1 windows. The filter coefficient with the lowest RLS error is used to predict the future WB-CIR tap. To evaluate our proposed prediction method, UWB CIRs are collected through measurement campaigns in outdoor environments considering line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. Under similar computational complexity, our proposed method provides an improvement in prediction errors of approximately 80% for LOS and 63% for NLOS scenarios compared with a conventional method.

Window-Based Channel Impulse Response Prediction for Time-Varying Ultra-Wideband Channels

PubMed Central

Al-Samman, A. M.; Azmi, M. H.; Rahman, T. A.; Khan, I.; Hindia, M. N.; Fattouh, A.

2016-01-01

This work proposes channel impulse response (CIR) prediction for time-varying ultra-wideband (UWB) channels by exploiting the fast movement of channel taps within delay bins. Considering the sparsity of UWB channels, we introduce a window-based CIR (WB-CIR) to approximate the high temporal resolutions of UWB channels. A recursive least square (RLS) algorithm is adopted to predict the time evolution of the WB-CIR. For predicting the future WB-CIR tap of window wk, three RLS filter coefficients are computed from the observed WB-CIRs of the left wk−1, the current wk and the right wk+1 windows. The filter coefficient with the lowest RLS error is used to predict the future WB-CIR tap. To evaluate our proposed prediction method, UWB CIRs are collected through measurement campaigns in outdoor environments considering line-of-sight (LOS) and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) scenarios. Under similar computational complexity, our proposed method provides an improvement in prediction errors of approximately 80% for LOS and 63% for NLOS scenarios compared with a conventional method. PMID:27992445

Strategies of statistical windows in PET image reconstruction to improve the user’s real time experience

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moliner, L.; Correcher, C.; Gimenez-Alventosa, V.; Ilisie, V.; Alvarez, J.; Sanchez, S.; Rodríguez-Alvarez, M. J.

2017-11-01

Nowadays, with the increase of the computational power of modern computers together with the state-of-the-art reconstruction algorithms, it is possible to obtain Positron Emission Tomography (PET) images in practically real time. These facts open the door to new applications such as radio-pharmaceuticals tracking inside the body or the use of PET for image-guided procedures, such as biopsy interventions, among others. This work is a proof of concept that aims to improve the user experience with real time PET images. Fixed, incremental, overlapping, sliding and hybrid windows are the different statistical combinations of data blocks used to generate intermediate images in order to follow the path of the activity in the Field Of View (FOV). To evaluate these different combinations, a point source is placed in a dedicated breast PET device and moved along the FOV. These acquisitions are reconstructed according to the different statistical windows, resulting in a smoother transition of positions for the image reconstructions that use the sliding and hybrid window.

Time-resolved two-window measurement of Wigner functions for coherent backscatter from a turbid medium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Reil, Frank; Thomas, John E.

2002-05-01

For the first time we are able to observe the time-resolved Wigner function of enhanced backscatter from a random medium using a novel two-window technique. This technique enables us to directly verify the phase-conjugating properties of random media. An incident divergent beam displays a convergent enhanced backscatter cone. We measure the joint position and momentum (x, p) distributions of the light field as a function of propagation time in the medium. The two-window technique allows us to independently control the resolutions for position and momentum, thereby surpassing the uncertainty limit associated with Fourier transform pairs. By using a low-coherence light source in a heterodyne detection scheme, we observe enhanced backscattering resolved by path length in the random medium, providing information about the evolution of optical coherence as a function of penetration depth in the random medium.

Analysis of oil-pipeline distribution of multiple products subject to delivery time-windows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jittamai, Phongchai

This dissertation defines the operational problems of, and develops solution methodologies for, a distribution of multiple products into oil pipeline subject to delivery time-windows constraints. A multiple-product oil pipeline is a pipeline system composing of pipes, pumps, valves and storage facilities used to transport different types of liquids. Typically, products delivered by pipelines are petroleum of different grades moving either from production facilities to refineries or from refineries to distributors. Time-windows, which are generally used in logistics and scheduling areas, are incorporated in this study. The distribution of multiple products into oil pipeline subject to delivery time-windows is modeled as multicommodity network flow structure and mathematically formulated. The main focus of this dissertation is the investigation of operating issues and problem complexity of single-source pipeline problems and also providing solution methodology to compute input schedule that yields minimum total time violation from due delivery time-windows. The problem is proved to be NP-complete. The heuristic approach, a reversed-flow algorithm, is developed based on pipeline flow reversibility to compute input schedule for the pipeline problem. This algorithm is implemented in no longer than O(T·E) time. This dissertation also extends the study to examine some operating attributes and problem complexity of multiple-source pipelines. The multiple-source pipeline problem is also NP-complete. A heuristic algorithm modified from the one used in single-source pipeline problems is introduced. This algorithm can also be implemented in no longer than O(T·E) time. Computational results are presented for both methodologies on randomly generated problem sets. The computational experience indicates that reversed-flow algorithms provide good solutions in comparison with the optimal solutions. Only 25% of the problems tested were more than 30% greater than optimal values and approximately 40% of the tested problems were solved optimally by the algorithms.

Window Performance in Extreme Cold,

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-12-01

outdoor temperatures ranging between -40 and 20*F Alaska that have undergone an extensive window re- as shown in Table 2. We made these observations in...good predictor of when We made icing and condensation observations over moisture or ice would occur on a window pane. the temperature spectrum shown...tions were made during the daytime, it was often likely sashes or frames, and 4) vapor-loose indoor sashes that ATIo at the time of observation would

Design and comparison of laser windows for high-power lasers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Niu, Yanxiong; Liu, Wenwen; Liu, Haixia; Wang, Caili; Niu, Haisha; Man, Da

2014-11-01

High-power laser systems are getting more and more widely used in industry and military affairs. It is necessary to develop a high-power laser system which can operate over long periods of time without appreciable degradation in performance. When a high-energy laser beam transmits through a laser window, it is possible that the permanent damage is caused to the window because of the energy absorption by window materials. So, when we design a high-power laser system, a suitable laser window material must be selected and the laser damage threshold of the window must be known. In this paper, a thermal analysis model of high-power laser window is established, and the relationship between the laser intensity and the thermal-stress field distribution is studied by deducing the formulas through utilizing the integral-transform method. The influence of window radius, thickness and laser intensity on the temperature and stress field distributions is analyzed. Then, the performance of K9 glass and the fused silica glass is compared, and the laser-induced damage mechanism is analyzed. Finally, the damage thresholds of laser windows are calculated. The results show that compared with K9 glass, the fused silica glass has a higher damage threshold due to its good thermodynamic properties. The presented theoretical analysis and simulation results are helpful for the design and selection of high-power laser windows.

Novel windowing technique realized in FPGA for radar system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Escamilla-Hernandez, E.; Kravchenko, V. F.; Ponomaryov, V. I.; Ikuo, Arai

2006-02-01

To improve the weak target detection ability in radar applications a pulse compression is usually used that in the case linear FM modulation can improve the SNR. One drawback in here is that it can add the range side-lobes in reflectivity measurements. Using weighting window processing in time domain it is possible to decrease significantly the side-lobe level (SLL) and resolve small or low power targets those are masked by powerful ones. There are usually used classical windows such as Hamming, Hanning, etc. in window processing. Additionally to classical ones in this paper we also use a novel class of windows based on atomic functions (AF) theory. For comparison of simulation and experimental results we applied the standard parameters, such as coefficient of amplification, maximum level of side-lobe, width of main lobe, etc. To implement the compression-windowing model on hardware level it has been employed FPGA. This work aims at demonstrating a reasonably flexible implementation of FM-linear signal, pulse compression and windowing employing FPGA's. Classical and novel AF window technique has been investigated to reduce the SLL taking into account the noise influence and increasing the detection ability of the small or weak targets in the imaging radar. Paper presents the experimental hardware results of windowing in pulse compression radar resolving several targets for rectangular, Hamming, Kaiser-Bessel, (see manuscript for formula) functions windows. The windows created by use the atomic functions offer sufficiently better decreasing of the SLL in case of noise presence and when we move away of the main lobe in comparison with classical windows.

climwin: An R Toolbox for Climate Window Analysis.

PubMed

Bailey, Liam D; van de Pol, Martijn

2016-01-01

When studying the impacts of climate change, there is a tendency to select climate data from a small set of arbitrary time periods or climate windows (e.g., spring temperature). However, these arbitrary windows may not encompass the strongest periods of climatic sensitivity and may lead to erroneous biological interpretations. Therefore, there is a need to consider a wider range of climate windows to better predict the impacts of future climate change. We introduce the R package climwin that provides a number of methods to test the effect of different climate windows on a chosen response variable and compare these windows to identify potential climate signals. climwin extracts the relevant data for each possible climate window and uses this data to fit a statistical model, the structure of which is chosen by the user. Models are then compared using an information criteria approach. This allows users to determine how well each window explains variation in the response variable and compare model support between windows. climwin also contains methods to detect type I and II errors, which are often a problem with this type of exploratory analysis. This article presents the statistical framework and technical details behind the climwin package and demonstrates the applicability of the method with a number of worked examples.

Alternative Fuels Data Center: Kentucky Charges Forward with All-Electric

Science.gov Websites

Partnership. Download QuickTime Video QuickTime (.mov) Download Windows Media Video Windows Media (.wmv) Video Fuel Cell Vehicles in California Nov. 18, 2017 Photo of a car Smart Car Shopping Nov. 4, 2017 Image of Photo of a truck Natural Gas Fuels School Buses and Refuse Trucks in Tulsa, Oklahoma Feb. 18, 2017 Photo

Study of wavefront error and polarization of a side mounted infrared window

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Jiaguo; Li, Lin; Hu, Xinqi; Yu, Xin

2008-03-01

The wavefront error and polarization of a side mounted infrared window made of ZnS are studied. The Infrared windows suffer from temperature gradient and stress during their launch process. Generally, the gradient in temperature changes the refractive index of the material whereas stress produces deformation and birefringence. In this paper, a thermal finite element analysis (FEA) of an IR window is presented. For this purpose, we employed an FEA program Ansys to obtain the time-varying temperature field. The deformation and stress of the window are derived from a structural FEA with the aerodynamic force and the temperature field previously obtained as being the loads. The deformation, temperature field, stress field, ray tracing and Jones Calculus are used to calculate the wavefront error and the change of polarization state.

DPOAEs in infants developmentally exposed to PCBs show two differently time spaced exposure sensitive windows.

PubMed

Koštiaková, Vladimíra; Moleti, Arturo; Wimmerová, Soňa; Jusko, Todd A; Palkovičová Murínová, Ľubica; Sisto, Renata; Richterová, Denisa; Kováč, Ján; Čonka, Kamil; Patayová, Henrieta; Tihányi, Juraj; Trnovec, Tomáš

2016-10-01

The study aim was to identify the timing of sensitive windows for ototoxicity related to perinatal exposure to PCBs. A total of 351 and 214 children from a birth cohort in eastern Slovakia underwent otoacoustic testing at 45 and 72 months, respectively, and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) at 11 frequencies were recorded. Cord and child 6-, 16-, 45-, and 72- month blood samples were analyzed for PCB 153 concentration. The PCB 153 concentration-time profiles were approximated with a system model to calculate area under the PCB*time curves (AUCs) for specific time intervals (3 and 6 months for 45 and 72 months data, respectively). DPOAE amplitudes were correlated (Spearman) with cord serum PCB and AUCs, markers of prenatal and postnatal exposure, respectively. Two exposure critical windows were identified in infants, the first related to prenatal and early postnatal and the second to postnatal exposure to PCBs. Our data have shown tonotopicity, sexual dimorphism, and asymmetry in ototoxicity of PCBs. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Real-time image sequence segmentation using curve evolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jun; Liu, Weisong

2001-04-01

In this paper, we describe a novel approach to image sequence segmentation and its real-time implementation. This approach uses the 3D structure tensor to produce a more robust frame difference signal and uses curve evolution to extract whole objects. Our algorithm is implemented on a standard PC running the Windows operating system with video capture from a USB camera that is a standard Windows video capture device. Using the Windows standard video I/O functionalities, our segmentation software is highly portable and easy to maintain and upgrade. In its current implementation on a Pentium 400, the system can perform segmentation at 5 frames/sec with a frame resolution of 160 by 120.

Development of novel murine mammary imaging windows to examine wound healing effects on leukocyte trafficking in mammary tumors with intravital imaging

PubMed Central

Sobolik, Tammy; Su, Ying-Jun; Ashby, Will; Schaffer, David K.; Wells, Sam; Wikswo, John P.; Zijlstra, Andries; Richmond, Ann

2016-01-01

ABSTRACT We developed mammary imaging windows (MIWs) to evaluate leukocyte infiltration and cancer cell dissemination in mouse mammary tumors imaged by confocal microscopy. Previous techniques relied on surgical resection of a skin flap to image the tumor microenvironment restricting imaging time to a few hours. Utilization of mammary imaging windows offers extension of intravital imaging of the tumor microenvironment. We have characterized strengths and identified some previously undescribed potential weaknesses of MIW techniques. Through iterative enhancements of a transdermal portal we defined conditions for improved quality and extended confocal imaging time for imaging key cell-cell interactions in the tumor microenvironment. PMID:28243517

Development of novel murine mammary imaging windows to examine wound healing effects on leukocyte trafficking in mammary tumors with intravital imaging.

PubMed

Sobolik, Tammy; Su, Ying-Jun; Ashby, Will; Schaffer, David K; Wells, Sam; Wikswo, John P; Zijlstra, Andries; Richmond, Ann

2016-01-01

We developed mammary imaging windows (MIWs) to evaluate leukocyte infiltration and cancer cell dissemination in mouse mammary tumors imaged by confocal microscopy. Previous techniques relied on surgical resection of a skin flap to image the tumor microenvironment restricting imaging time to a few hours. Utilization of mammary imaging windows offers extension of intravital imaging of the tumor microenvironment. We have characterized strengths and identified some previously undescribed potential weaknesses of MIW techniques. Through iterative enhancements of a transdermal portal we defined conditions for improved quality and extended confocal imaging time for imaging key cell-cell interactions in the tumor microenvironment.

Latitudinal and photic effects on diel foraging and predation risk in freshwater pelagic ecosystems

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hansen, Adam G.; Beauchamp, David A.

2014-01-01

1. Clark & Levy (American Naturalist, 131, 1988, 271–290) described an antipredation window for smaller planktivorous fish during crepuscular periods when light permits feeding on zooplankton, but limits visual detection by piscivores. Yet, how the window is influenced by the interaction between light regime, turbidity and cloud cover over a broad latitudinal gradi- ent remains unexplored. 2. We evaluated how latitudinal and seasonal shifts in diel light regimes alter the foraging- risk environment for visually feeding planktivores and piscivores across a natural range of turbidities and cloud covers. Pairing a model of aquatic visual feeding with a model of sun and moon illuminance, we estimated foraging rates of an idealized planktivore and piscivore over depth and time across factorial combinations of latitude (0–70°), turbidity (01–5 NTU) and cloud cover (clear to overcast skies) during the summer solstice and autumnal equinox. We evaluated the foraging-risk environment based on changes in the magnitude, duration and peak timing of the antipredation window. 3. The model scenarios generated up to 10-fold shifts in magnitude, 24-fold shifts in duration and 55-h shifts in timing of the peak antipredation window. The size of the window increased with latitude. This pattern was strongest during the solstice. In clear water at low turbidity (01–05 NTU), peaks in the magnitude and duration of the window formed at 57–60° latitude, before falling to near zero as surface waters became saturated with light under a midnight sun and clear skies at latitudes near 70°. Overcast dampened the midnight sun enough to allow larger windows to form in clear water at high latitudes. Conversely, at turbidities ≥2 NTU, greater reductions in the visual range of piscivores than planktivores created a window for long periods at high latitudes. Latitudinal dependencies were essentially lost during the equinox, indicating a progressive compression of the window from early summer into autumn. 4. Model results show that diel-seasonal foraging and predation risk in freshwater pelagic ecosystems changes considerably with latitude, turbidity and cloud cover. These changes alter the structure of pelagic predator–prey interactions, and in turn, the broader role of pelagic consumers in habitat coupling in lakes. 

High-Temperature Optical Window Design

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Roeloffs, Norman; Taranto, Nick

1995-01-01

A high-temperature optical window is essential to the optical diagnostics of high-temperature combustion rigs. Laser Doppler velocimetry, schlieren photography, light sheet visualization, and laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy are a few of the tests that require optically clear access to the combustor flow stream. A design was developed for a high-temperature window that could withstand the severe environment of the NASA Lewis 3200 F Lean Premixed Prevaporized (LPP) Flame Tube Test Rig. The development of this design was both time consuming and costly. This report documents the design process and the lessons learned, in an effort to reduce the cost of developing future designs for high-temperature optical windows.

The energy radiated by the 26 December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake estimated from 10-minute P-wave windows

USGS Publications Warehouse

Choy, G.L.; Boatwright, J.

2007-01-01

The rupture process of the Mw 9.1 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake lasted for approximately 500 sec, nearly twice as long as the teleseismic time windows between the P and PP arrival times generally used to compute radiated energy. In order to measure the P waves radiated by the entire earthquake, we analyze records that extend from the P-wave to the S-wave arrival times from stations at distances ?? >60??. These 8- to 10-min windows contain the PP, PPP, and ScP arrivals, along with other multiply reflected phases. To gauge the effect of including these additional phases, we form the spectral ratio of the source spectrum estimated from extended windows (between TP and TS) to the source spectrum estimated from normal windows (between TP and TPP). The extended windows are analyzed as though they contained only the P-pP-sP wave group. We analyze four smaller earthquakes that occurred in the vicinity of the Mw 9.1 mainshock, with similar depths and focal mechanisms. These smaller events range in magnitude from an Mw 6.0 aftershock of 9 January 2005 to the Mw 8.6 Nias earthquake that occurred to the south of the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake on 28 March 2005. We average the spectral ratios for these four events to obtain a frequency-dependent operator for the extended windows. We then correct the source spectrum estimated from the extended records of the 26 December 2004 mainshock to obtain a complete or corrected source spectrum for the entire rupture process (???600 sec) of the great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake. Our estimate of the total seismic energy radiated by this earthquake is 1.4 ?? 1017 J. When we compare the corrected source spectrum for the entire earthquake to the source spectrum from the first ???250 sec of the rupture process (obtained from normal teleseismic windows), we find that the mainshock radiated much more seismic energy in the first half of the rupture process than in the second half, especially over the period range from 3 sec to 40 sec.

Factors influencing the efficacy of round window dexamethasone protection of residual hearing post-cochlear implant surgery.

PubMed

Chang, Andrew; Eastwood, Hayden; Sly, David; James, David; Richardson, Rachael; O'Leary, Stephen

2009-09-01

To protect hearing in an experimental model of cochlear implantation by the application of dexamethasone to the round window prior to surgery. The present study examined the dosage and timing relationships required to optimise the hearing protection. Dexamethasone or saline (control) was absorbed into a pledget of the carboxymethylcellulose and hyaluronic acid and applied to the round window of the guinea pig prior to cochlear implantation. The treatment groups were 2% w/v dexamethasone for 30, 60 and 120min; 20% dexamethasone applied for 30min. Auditory sensitivity was determined pre-operatively, and at 1 week after surgery, with pure-tone auditory brainstem response audiometry (2-32kHz). Cochlear implantation was performed via a cochleostomy drilled into the basal turn of the cochlea, into which a miniature cochlear implant dummy electrode was inserted using soft-surgery techniques. ABR thresholds were elevated after cochlear implantation, maximally at 32kHz and to a lesser extent at lower frequencies. Thresholds were less elevated after dexamethasone treatment, and the hearing protection improved when 2% dexamethasone was applied to the round window for longer periods of time prior to implantation. The time that dexamethasone need be applied to achieve hearing protection could be reduced by increasing the concentration of steroid, with a 20% application for 30min achieving similar levels of protection to a 60min application of 2% dexamethasone. Hearing protection is improved by increasing the time that dexamethasone is applied to the round window prior to cochlear implantation, and the waiting time can be reduced by increasing the steroid concentration. These results suggest that the diffusion dexamethasone through the cochlea is the prime determinant of the extent of hearing protection.

Delay of cognitive gamma responses in Alzheimer's disease

PubMed Central

Başar, Erol; Emek-Savaş, Derya Durusu; Güntekin, Bahar; Yener, Görsev G.

2016-01-01

Event-related oscillations (EROs) reflect cognitive brain dynamics, while sensory-evoked oscillations (SEOs) reflect sensory activities. Previous reports from our lab have shown that those with Alzheimer's disease (AD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have decreased activity and/or coherence in delta, theta, alpha and beta cognitive responses. In the current study, we investigated gamma responses in visual SEO and ERO in 15 patients with AD and in 15 age-, gender- and education-matched healthy controls. The following parameters were analyzed over the parietal-occipital regions in both groups: (i) latency of the maximum gamma response over a 0–800 ms time window; (ii) the maximum peak-to-peak amplitudes for each participant's averaged SEO and ERO gamma responses in 3 frequency ranges (25–30, 30–35, 40–48 Hz); and (iii) the maximum peak-to-peak amplitudes for each participant's averaged SEO and ERO gamma responses over a 0–800 ms time block containing four divided time windows (0–200, 200–400, 400–600, and 600–800 ms). There were main group effects in terms of both latency and peak-to-peak amplitudes of gamma ERO. However, peak-to-peak gamma ERO amplitude differences became noticeable only when the time block was divided into four time windows. SEO amplitudes in the 25–30 Hz frequency range of the 0–200 ms time window over the left hemisphere were greater in the healthy controls than in those with AD. Gamma target ERO latency was delayed up to 138 ms in AD patients when compared to healthy controls. This finding may be an effect of lagged neural signaling in cognitive circuits, which is reflected by the delayed gamma responses in those with AD. Based on the results of this study, we propose that gamma responses should be examined in a more detailed fashion using multiple frequency and time windows. PMID:26937378

Therapeutic time window and underlying therapeutic mechanism of breviscapine injection against cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury in rats.

PubMed

Guo, Chao; Zhu, Yanrong; Weng, Yan; Wang, Shiquan; Guan, Yue; Wei, Guo; Yin, Ying; Xi, Miaomaio; Wen, Aidong

2014-01-01

Breviscapine injection is a Chinese herbal medicine standardized product extracted from Erigeron breviscapus (Vant.) Hand.-Mazz. It has been widely used for treating cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. However, the therapeutic time window and the action mechanism of breviscapine are still unclear. The present study was designed to investigate the therapeutic time window and underlying therapeutic mechanism of breviscapine injection against cerebral ischemic/reperfusion injury. Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to middle cerebral artery occlusion for 2h followed by 24h of reperfusion. Experiment part 1 was used to investigate the therapeutic time window of breviscapine. Rats were injected intravenously with 50mg/kg breviscapine at different time-points of reperfusion. After 24h of reperfusion, neurologic score, infarct volume, brain water content and serum level of neuron specific enolase (NSE) were measured in a masked fashion. Part 2 was used to explore the therapeutic mechanism of breviscapine. 4-Hydroxy-2-nonenal (4-HNE), 8-hydroxyl-2'- deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and the antioxidant capacity of ischemia cortex were measured by ELISA and ferric-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, respectively. Immunofluorescence and western blot analysis were used to analyze the expression of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). Part 1: breviscapine injection significantly ameliorated neurologic deficit, reduced infarct volume and water content, and suppressed the levels of NSE in a time-dependent manner. Part 2: breviscapine inhibited the increased levels of 4-HNE and 8-OHdG, and enhanced the antioxidant capacity of cortex tissue. Moreover, breviscapine obviously raised the expression of Nrf2 and HO-1 proteins after 24h of reperfusion. The therapeutic time window of breviscapine injection for cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury seemed to be within 5h after reperfusion. By up-regulating the expression of Nrf2/HO-1 pathway might be involved in the therapeutic mechanism of breviscapine injection. © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Dynamic Aberration Correction for Conformal Window of High-Speed Aircraft Using Optimized Model-Based Wavefront Sensorless Adaptive Optics.

PubMed

Dong, Bing; Li, Yan; Han, Xin-Li; Hu, Bin

2016-09-02

For high-speed aircraft, a conformal window is used to optimize the aerodynamic performance. However, the local shape of the conformal window leads to large amounts of dynamic aberrations varying with look angle. In this paper, deformable mirror (DM) and model-based wavefront sensorless adaptive optics (WSLAO) are used for dynamic aberration correction of an infrared remote sensor equipped with a conformal window and scanning mirror. In model-based WSLAO, aberration is captured using Lukosz mode, and we use the low spatial frequency content of the image spectral density as the metric function. Simulations show that aberrations induced by the conformal window are dominated by some low-order Lukosz modes. To optimize the dynamic correction, we can only correct dominant Lukosz modes and the image size can be minimized to reduce the time required to compute the metric function. In our experiment, a 37-channel DM is used to mimic the dynamic aberration of conformal window with scanning rate of 10 degrees per second. A 52-channel DM is used for correction. For a 128 × 128 image, the mean value of image sharpness during dynamic correction is 1.436 × 10(-5) in optimized correction and is 1.427 × 10(-5) in un-optimized correction. We also demonstrated that model-based WSLAO can achieve convergence two times faster than traditional stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) method.

Beyond the Time Window of Intravenous Thrombolysis: Standing by or by Stenting?

PubMed Central

Liu, Xinfeng

2012-01-01

Intravenous administration of tissue plasminogen activator within 4.5 h of symptom onset is presently the ‘golden rule’ for treating acute ischemic stroke. However, many patients miss the time window and others reject this treatment due to a long list of contraindications. Mechanical embolectomy has recently progressed as a potential alternative for treating patients beyond the time window for IV thrombolysis. In this paper, recent progress in mechanical embolectomy, angioplasty, and stenting in acute stroke is reviewed. Despite worries concerning the long-term clinical outcomes and increased risk of intracranial hemorrhage, favorable clinical outcomes may be achieved after mechanical embolectomy in carefully selected patients even 4.5 h after stroke onset. Potential steps should be prepared and attempted in these patients whose opportunity for recovery will elapse in a flash. PMID:25187761

Hardware Implementation of a Bilateral Subtraction Filter

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Huertas, Andres; Watson, Robert; Villalpando, Carlos; Goldberg, Steven

2009-01-01

A bilateral subtraction filter has been implemented as a hardware module in the form of a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). In general, a bilateral subtraction filter is a key subsystem of a high-quality stereoscopic machine vision system that utilizes images that are large and/or dense. Bilateral subtraction filters have been implemented in software on general-purpose computers, but the processing speeds attainable in this way even on computers containing the fastest processors are insufficient for real-time applications. The present FPGA bilateral subtraction filter is intended to accelerate processing to real-time speed and to be a prototype of a link in a stereoscopic-machine- vision processing chain, now under development, that would process large and/or dense images in real time and would be implemented in an FPGA. In terms that are necessarily oversimplified for the sake of brevity, a bilateral subtraction filter is a smoothing, edge-preserving filter for suppressing low-frequency noise. The filter operation amounts to replacing the value for each pixel with a weighted average of the values of that pixel and the neighboring pixels in a predefined neighborhood or window (e.g., a 9 9 window). The filter weights depend partly on pixel values and partly on the window size. The present FPGA implementation of a bilateral subtraction filter utilizes a 9 9 window. This implementation was designed to take advantage of the ability to do many of the component computations in parallel pipelines to enable processing of image data at the rate at which they are generated. The filter can be considered to be divided into the following parts (see figure): a) An image pixel pipeline with a 9 9- pixel window generator, b) An array of processing elements; c) An adder tree; d) A smoothing-and-delaying unit; and e) A subtraction unit. After each 9 9 window is created, the affected pixel data are fed to the processing elements. Each processing element is fed the pixel value for its position in the window as well as the pixel value for the central pixel of the window. The absolute difference between these two pixel values is calculated and used as an address in a lookup table. Each processing element has a lookup table, unique for its position in the window, containing the weight coefficients for the Gaussian function for that position. The pixel value is multiplied by the weight, and the outputs of the processing element are the weight and pixel-value weight product. The products and weights are fed to the adder tree. The sum of the products and the sum of the weights are fed to the divider, which computes the sum of products the sum of weights. The output of the divider is denoted the bilateral smoothed image. The smoothing function is a simple weighted average computed over a 3 3 subwindow centered in the 9 9 window. After smoothing, the image is delayed by an additional amount of time needed to match the processing time for computing the bilateral smoothed image. The bilateral smoothed image is then subtracted from the 3 3 smoothed image to produce the final output. The prototype filter as implemented in a commercially available FPGA processes one pixel per clock cycle. Operation at a clock speed of 66 MHz has been demonstrated, and results of a static timing analysis have been interpreted as suggesting that the clock speed could be increased to as much as 100 MHz.

Frequency of open windows in motor vehicles under varying temperature conditions: a videotape survey in Central North Carolina during 2001.

PubMed

Long, Tom; Johnson, Ted; Ollison, Will

2004-07-01

Air pollution exposures in the motor vehicle cabin are significantly affected by air exchange rate, a function of vehicle speed, window position, vent status, fan speed, and air conditioning use. A pilot study conducted in Houston, Texas, during September 2000 demonstrated that useful information concerning the position of windows, sunroofs, and convertible tops as a function of temperature and vehicle speed could be obtained through the use of video recorders. To obtain similar data representing a wide range of temperature and traffic conditions, a follow-up study was conducted in and around Chapel Hill, North Carolina at five sites representing a central business district, an arterial road, a low-income commercial district, an interstate highway, and a rural road. Each site permitted an elevated view of vehicles as they proceeded through a turn, thereby exposing all windows to the stationary camcorder. A total of 32 videotaping sessions were conducted between February and October 2001, in which temperature varied from 41 degrees F to 93 degrees F and average vehicle speed varied from 21 to 77 mph. The resulting video tapes were processed to create a vehicle-specific database that included site location, date, time, vehicle type, vehicle color, vehicle age, window configuration, number of windows in each of three position categories (fully open, partially open, and closed), meteorological factors, and vehicle speed. Of the 4715 vehicles included in the database, 1905 (40.4%) were labeled as "open," indicating a window, sunroof, or convertible top was fully or partially open. Stepwise linear regression analyses indicated that "open" window status was affected by wind speed, relative humidity, vehicle speed, cloud cover, apparent temperature, day of week, time of day, vehicle type, vehicle age, vehicle color, number of windows, sunroofs, location, and air quality season. Open windows tended to occur less frequently when relative humidity was high, apparent temperature (a parameter incorporating wind chill and heat index) was below 50 degrees F, or the vehicle was relatively new. Although the effects of the identified parameters were relatively weak, they are statistically significant and should be considered by researchers attempting to model vehicle air exchange rates.

Activity Recognition on Streaming Sensor Data.

PubMed

Krishnan, Narayanan C; Cook, Diane J

2014-02-01

Many real-world applications that focus on addressing needs of a human, require information about the activities being performed by the human in real-time. While advances in pervasive computing have lead to the development of wireless and non-intrusive sensors that can capture the necessary activity information, current activity recognition approaches have so far experimented on either a scripted or pre-segmented sequence of sensor events related to activities. In this paper we propose and evaluate a sliding window based approach to perform activity recognition in an on line or streaming fashion; recognizing activities as and when new sensor events are recorded. To account for the fact that different activities can be best characterized by different window lengths of sensor events, we incorporate the time decay and mutual information based weighting of sensor events within a window. Additional contextual information in the form of the previous activity and the activity of the previous window is also appended to the feature describing a sensor window. The experiments conducted to evaluate these techniques on real-world smart home datasets suggests that combining mutual information based weighting of sensor events and adding past contextual information into the feature leads to best performance for streaming activity recognition.

WINCADRE INORGANIC (WINDOWS COMPUTER-AIDED DATA REVIEW AND EVALUATION)

EPA Science Inventory

WinCADRE (Computer-Aided Data Review and Evaluation) is a Windows -based program designed for computer-assisted data validation. WinCADRE is a powerful tool which significantly decreases data validation turnaround time. The electronic-data-deliverable format has been designed in...

14 CFR 1214.117 - Launch and orbit parameters for a standard launch.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

...) Launch at a time, selected by NASA, from a launch window of not less than 1 hour (a more restrictive launch window may be provided as an optional service). (b) For shared flights from KSC to the standard...

Neurodynamics of executive control processes in bilinguals: evidence from ERP and source reconstruction analyses.

PubMed

Heidlmayr, Karin; Hemforth, Barbara; Moutier, Sylvain; Isel, Frédéric

2015-01-01

The present study was designed to examine the impact of bilingualism on the neuronal activity in different executive control processes namely conflict monitoring, control implementation (i.e., interference suppression and conflict resolution) and overcoming of inhibition. Twenty-two highly proficient but non-balanced successive French-German bilingual adults and 22 monolingual adults performed a combined Stroop/Negative priming task while event-related potential (ERP) were recorded online. The data revealed that the ERP effects were reduced in bilinguals in comparison to monolinguals but only in the Stroop task and limited to the N400 and the sustained fronto-central negative-going potential time windows. This result suggests that bilingualism may impact the process of control implementation rather than the process of conflict monitoring (N200). Critically, our study revealed a differential time course of the involvement of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in conflict processing. While the ACC showed major activation in the early time windows (N200 and N400) but not in the latest time window (late sustained negative-going potential), the PFC became unilaterally active in the left hemisphere in the N400 and the late sustained negative-going potential time windows. Taken together, the present electroencephalography data lend support to a cascading neurophysiological model of executive control processes, in which ACC and PFC may play a determining role.

Neurodynamics of executive control processes in bilinguals: evidence from ERP and source reconstruction analyses

PubMed Central

Heidlmayr, Karin; Hemforth, Barbara; Moutier, Sylvain; Isel, Frédéric

2015-01-01

The present study was designed to examine the impact of bilingualism on the neuronal activity in different executive control processes namely conflict monitoring, control implementation (i.e., interference suppression and conflict resolution) and overcoming of inhibition. Twenty-two highly proficient but non-balanced successive French–German bilingual adults and 22 monolingual adults performed a combined Stroop/Negative priming task while event-related potential (ERP) were recorded online. The data revealed that the ERP effects were reduced in bilinguals in comparison to monolinguals but only in the Stroop task and limited to the N400 and the sustained fronto-central negative-going potential time windows. This result suggests that bilingualism may impact the process of control implementation rather than the process of conflict monitoring (N200). Critically, our study revealed a differential time course of the involvement of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in conflict processing. While the ACC showed major activation in the early time windows (N200 and N400) but not in the latest time window (late sustained negative-going potential), the PFC became unilaterally active in the left hemisphere in the N400 and the late sustained negative-going potential time windows. Taken together, the present electroencephalography data lend support to a cascading neurophysiological model of executive control processes, in which ACC and PFC may play a determining role. PMID:26124740

Robust sliding-window reconstruction for Accelerating the acquisition of MR fingerprinting.

PubMed

Cao, Xiaozhi; Liao, Congyu; Wang, Zhixing; Chen, Ying; Ye, Huihui; He, Hongjian; Zhong, Jianhui

2017-10-01

To develop a method for accelerated and robust MR fingerprinting (MRF) with improved image reconstruction and parameter matching processes. A sliding-window (SW) strategy was applied to MRF, in which signal and dictionary matching was conducted between fingerprints consisting of mixed-contrast image series reconstructed from consecutive data frames segmented by a sliding window, and a precalculated mixed-contrast dictionary. The effectiveness and performance of this new method, dubbed SW-MRF, was evaluated in both phantom and in vivo. Error quantifications were conducted on results obtained with various settings of SW reconstruction parameters. Compared with the original MRF strategy, the results of both phantom and in vivo experiments demonstrate that the proposed SW-MRF strategy either provided similar accuracy with reduced acquisition time, or improved accuracy with equal acquisition time. Parametric maps of T 1 , T 2 , and proton density of comparable quality could be achieved with a two-fold or more reduction in acquisition time. The effect of sliding-window width on dictionary sensitivity was also estimated. The novel SW-MRF recovers high quality image frames from highly undersampled MRF data, which enables more robust dictionary matching with reduced numbers of data frames. This time efficiency may facilitate MRF applications in time-critical clinical settings. Magn Reson Med 78:1579-1588, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Towards component-based validation of GATE: aspects of the coincidence processor.

PubMed

Moraes, Eder R; Poon, Jonathan K; Balakrishnan, Karthikayan; Wang, Wenli; Badawi, Ramsey D

2015-02-01

GATE is public domain software widely used for Monte Carlo simulation in emission tomography. Validations of GATE have primarily been performed on a whole-system basis, leaving the possibility that errors in one sub-system may be offset by errors in others. We assess the accuracy of the GATE PET coincidence generation sub-system in isolation, focusing on the options most closely modeling the majority of commercially available scanners. Independent coincidence generators were coded by teams at Toshiba Medical Research Unit (TMRU) and UC Davis. A model similar to the Siemens mCT scanner was created in GATE. Annihilation photons interacting with the detectors were recorded. Coincidences were generated using GATE, TMRU and UC Davis code and results compared to "ground truth" obtained from the history of the photon interactions. GATE was tested twice, once with every qualified single event opening a time window and initiating a coincidence check (the "multiple window method"), and once where a time window is opened and a coincidence check initiated only by the first single event to occur after the end of the prior time window (the "single window method"). True, scattered and random coincidences were compared. Noise equivalent count rates were also computed and compared. The TMRU and UC Davis coincidence generators agree well with ground truth. With GATE, reasonable accuracy can be obtained if the single window method option is chosen and random coincidences are estimated without use of the delayed coincidence option. However in this GATE version, other parameter combinations can result in significant errors. Copyright © 2014 Associazione Italiana di Fisica Medica. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Adaptive Window Zero-Crossing-Based Instantaneous Frequency Estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sekhar, S. Chandra; Sreenivas, TV

2004-12-01

We address the problem of estimating instantaneous frequency (IF) of a real-valued constant amplitude time-varying sinusoid. Estimation of polynomial IF is formulated using the zero-crossings of the signal. We propose an algorithm to estimate nonpolynomial IF by local approximation using a low-order polynomial, over a short segment of the signal. This involves the choice of window length to minimize the mean square error (MSE). The optimal window length found by directly minimizing the MSE is a function of the higher-order derivatives of the IF which are not available a priori. However, an optimum solution is formulated using an adaptive window technique based on the concept of intersection of confidence intervals. The adaptive algorithm enables minimum MSE-IF (MMSE-IF) estimation without requiring a priori information about the IF. Simulation results show that the adaptive window zero-crossing-based IF estimation method is superior to fixed window methods and is also better than adaptive spectrogram and adaptive Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD)-based IF estimators for different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

Temperature rise and Heat build up inside a parked Car

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coady, Rose; Maheswaranathan, Ponn

2001-11-01

We have studied the heat build up inside a parked car under the hot summer Sun. Inside and outside temperatures were monitored every ten seconds from 9 AM to about 4 PM for a 2000 Toyota Camry parked in a Winthrop University parking lot without any shades or trees. Two PASCO temperature sensors, one inside the car and the other outside the car, are used along with PASCO-750 interface to collect the data. Data were collected under the following conditions while keeping track of the outside weather: fully closed windows, slightly open windows, half way open windows, fully open windows, and with window shades inside and outside. Inside temperatures reached as high as 150 degrees Fahrenheit on a sunny day with outside high temperature of about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. These results will be presented along with results from car cover and window tint manufacturers and suggestions to keep your car cool next time you park it under the Sun.

Adaptive synchrosqueezing based on a quilted short-time Fourier transform

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Berrian, Alexander; Saito, Naoki

2017-08-01

In recent years, the synchrosqueezing transform (SST) has gained popularity as a method for the analysis of signals that can be broken down into multiple components determined by instantaneous amplitudes and phases. One such version of SST, based on the short-time Fourier transform (STFT), enables the sharpening of instantaneous frequency (IF) information derived from the STFT, as well as the separation of amplitude-phase components corresponding to distinct IF curves. However, this SST is limited by the time-frequency resolution of the underlying window function, and may not resolve signals exhibiting diverse time-frequency behaviors with sufficient accuracy. In this work, we develop a framework for an SST based on a "quilted" short-time Fourier transform (SST-QSTFT), which allows adaptation to signal behavior in separate time-frequency regions through the use of multiple windows. This motivates us to introduce a discrete reassignment frequency formula based on a finite difference of the phase spectrum, ensuring computational accuracy for a wider variety of windows. We develop a theoretical framework for the SST-QSTFT in both the continuous and the discrete settings, and describe an algorithm for the automatic selection of optimal windows depending on the region of interest. Using synthetic data, we demonstrate the superior numerical performance of SST-QSTFT relative to other SST methods in a noisy context. Finally, we apply SST-QSTFT to audio recordings of animal calls to demonstrate the potential of our method for the analysis of real bioacoustic signals.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ojeda-Gonzalez, A.; Prestes, A.; Klausner, V.

Spatio-temporal entropy (STE) analysis is used as an alternative mathematical tool to identify possible magnetic cloud (MC) candidates. We analyze Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) data using a time interval of only 10 days. We select a convenient data interval of 2500 records moving forward by 200 record steps until the end of the time series. For every data segment, the STE is calculated at each step. During an MC event, the STE reaches values close to zero. This extremely low value of STE is due to MC structure features. However, not all of the magnetic components in MCs have STEmore » values close to zero at the same time. For this reason, we create a standardization index (the so-called Interplanetary Entropy, IE, index). This index is a worthwhile effort to develop new tools to help diagnose ICME structures. The IE was calculated using a time window of one year (1999), and it has a success rate of 70% over other identifiers of MCs. The unsuccessful cases (30%) are caused by small and weak MCs. The results show that the IE methodology identified 9 of 13 MCs, and emitted nine false alarm cases. In 1999, a total of 788 windows of 2500 values existed, meaning that the percentage of false alarms was 1.14%, which can be considered a good result. In addition, four time windows, each of 10 days, are studied, where the IE method was effective in finding MC candidates. As a novel result, two new MCs are identified in these time windows.« less

Determination of seasonals using wavelets in terms of noise parameters changeability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klos, Anna; Bogusz, Janusz; Figurski, Mariusz

2015-04-01

The reliable velocities of GNSS-derived observations are becoming of high importance nowadays. The fact on how we determine and subtract the seasonals may all cause the time series autocorrelation and affect uncertainties of linear parameters. The periodic changes in GNSS time series are commonly assumed as the sum of annual and semi-annual changes with amplitudes and phases being constant in time and the Least-Squares Estimation (LSE) is used in general to model these sine waves. However, not only seasonals' time-changeability, but also their higher harmonics should be considered. In this research, we focused on more than 230 globally distributed IGS stations that were processed at the Military University of Technology EPN Local Analysis Centre (MUT LAC) in Bernese 5.0 software. The network was divided into 7 different sub-networks with few of overlapping stations and processed separately with newest models. Here, we propose a wavelet-based trend and seasonals determination and removal of whole frequency spectrum between Chandler and quarter-annual periods from North, East and Up components and compare it with LSE-determined values. We used a Meyer symmetric, orthogonal wavelet and assumed nine levels of decomposition. The details from 6 up to 9 were analyzed here as periodic components with frequencies between 0.3-2.5 cpy. The characteristic oscillations for each of frequency band were pointed out. The details lower than 6 summed together with detrended approximation were considered as residua. The power spectral densities (PSDs) of original and decomposed data were stacked for North, East and Up components for each of sub-networks so as to show what power was removed with each of decomposition levels. Moreover, the noises that the certain frequency band follows (in terms of spectral indices of power-law dependencies) were estimated here using a spectral method and compared for all processed sub-networks. It seems, that lowest frequencies up to 0.7 cpy are characterized by lower spectral indices in comparison to higher ones being close to white noise. Basing on the fact, that decomposition levels overlap each other, the frequency-window choice becomes a main point in spectral index estimation. Our results were compared with those obtained by Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) and possible differences as well as their impact on velocity uncertainties pointed out. The results show that the spectral indices estimated in time and frequency domains differ of 0.15 in maximum. Moreover, we compared the removed power basing on wavelet decomposition levels with the one subtracted with LSE, assuming the same periodicities. In comparison to LSE, the wavelet-based approach leaves the residua being closer to white noise with lower power-law amplitudes of them, what strictly reduces velocity uncertainties. The last approximation was analyzed here as long-term trend, being the non-linear and compared with LSE-determined linear one. It seems that these two trends differ at the level of 0.3 mm/yr in the most extreme case, what makes wavelet decomposition being useful for velocity determination.

Changes in seasonal streamflow extremes experienced in rivers of Northwestern South America (Colombia)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pierini, J. O.; Restrepo, J. C.; Aguirre, J.; Bustamante, A. M.; Velásquez, G. J.

2017-04-01

A measure of the variability in seasonal extreme streamflow was estimated for the Colombian Caribbean coast, using monthly time series of freshwater discharge from ten watersheds. The aim was to detect modifications in the streamflow monthly distribution, seasonal trends, variance and extreme monthly values. A 20-year length time moving window, with 1-year successive shiftments, was applied to the monthly series to analyze the seasonal variability of streamflow. The seasonal-windowed data were statistically fitted through the Gamma distribution function. Scale and shape parameters were computed using the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) and the bootstrap method for 1000 resample. A trend analysis was performed for each windowed-serie, allowing to detect the window of maximum absolute values for trends. Significant temporal shifts in seasonal streamflow distribution and quantiles (QT), were obtained for different frequencies. Wet and dry extremes periods increased significantly in the last decades. Such increase did not occur simultaneously through the region. Some locations exhibited continuous increases only at minimum QT.

SNS Proton Beam Window Disposal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Popova, Irina; Gallmeier, Franz X.; Trotter, Steven

2017-09-01

In order to support the disposal of the proton beam window assembly of the Spallation Neutron Source beamline to the target station, waste classification analyses are performed. The window has a limited life-time due to radiation-induced material damage. Analyses include calculation of the radionuclide inventory and shielding analyses for the transport package/container to ensure that the container is compliant with the transportation and waste management regulations. In order to automate this procedure and minimize manual work a script in Perl language was written.

Identification of Scattering Mechanisms from Measured Impulse Response Signatures of Several Conducting Objects.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-02-01

conducting sphere 35 compared to inverse transform of exact solution. 4-5. Measured impulse response of a conducting 2:1 right 37 circular cylinder with...frequency domain. This is equivalent to multiplication in the time domain by the inverse transform of w(n), which is shown in Figure 3-1 for N=15. The...equivalent pulse width from 0.066 T for the rectangular window to 0.10 T for the Hanning window. The inverse transform of the Hanning window is shown

Removal of Noise from a Voice Signal by Synthesis

DTIC Science & Technology

1973-05-01

for 102.4 millisecond windows is about five times as great as the cost of computing for 25.6 millisecond windows. Hammett in his work on an adaptive...spectrum analysis vocoder, has examined the selection of data window widths in detail [18]. The solution Hammett used to optimize the trade off between...result is: n s(t) E Ri(t - i . T) i-1 In this equation n is the number of impulse responses under consideration, s(t) is the resulting synthetic signal

Real-time 3-D contrast-enhanced transcranial ultrasound and aberration correction.

PubMed

Ivancevich, Nikolas M; Pinton, Gianmarco F; Nicoletto, Heather A; Bennett, Ellen; Laskowitz, Daniel T; Smith, Stephen W

2008-09-01

Contrast-enhanced (CE) transcranial ultrasound (US) and reconstructed 3-D transcranial ultrasound have shown advantages over traditional methods in a variety of cerebrovascular diseases. We present the results from a novel ultrasound technique, namely real-time 3-D contrast-enhanced transcranial ultrasound. Using real-time 3-D (RT3D) ultrasound and microbubble contrast agent, we scanned 17 healthy volunteers via a single temporal window and nine via the suboccipital window and report our detection rates for the major cerebral vessels. In 71% of subjects, both of our observers identified the ipsilateral circle of Willis from the temporal window, and in 59% we imaged the entire circle of Willis. From the suboccipital window, both observers detected the entire vertebrobasilar circulation in 22% of subjects, and in 44%, the basilar artery. After performing phase aberration correction on one subject, we were able to increase the diagnostic value of the scan, detecting a vessel not present in the uncorrected scan. These preliminary results suggest that RT3D CE transcranial US and RT3D CE transcranial US with phase aberration correction have the potential to greatly impact the field of neurosonology.

Real-Time 3D Contrast-Enhanced Transcranial Ultrasound and Aberration Correction

PubMed Central

Ivancevich, Nikolas M.; Pinton, Gianmarco F.; Nicoletto, Heather A.; Bennett, Ellen; Laskowitz, Daniel T.; Smith, Stephen W.

2008-01-01

Contrast-enhanced (CE) transcranial ultrasound (US) and reconstructed 3D transcranial ultrasound have shown advantages over traditional methods in a variety of cerebrovascular diseases. We present the results from a novel ultrasound technique, namely real-time 3D contrast-enhanced transcranial ultrasound. Using real-time 3D (RT3D) ultrasound and micro-bubble contrast agent, we scanned 17 healthy volunteers via a single temporal window and 9 via the sub-occipital window and report our detection rates for the major cerebral vessels. In 71% of subjects, both of our observers identified the ipsilateral circle of Willis from the temporal window, and in 59% we imaged the entire circle of Willis. From the sub-occipital window, both observers detected the entire vertebrobasilar circulation in 22% of subjects, and in 44% the basilar artery. After performing phase aberration correction on one subject, we were able to increase the diagnostic value of the scan, detecting a vessel not present in the uncorrected scan. These preliminary results suggest that RT3D CE transcranial US and RT3D CE transcranial US with phase aberration correction have the potential to greatly impact the field of neurosonology. PMID:18395321

Phenology-based, remote sensing of post-burn disturbance windows in rangelands

USGS Publications Warehouse

Sankeya, Joel B.; Wallace, Cynthia S.A.; Ravi, Sujith

2013-01-01

Wildland fire activity has increased in many parts of the world in recent decades. Ecological disturbance by fire can accelerate ecosystem degradation processes such as erosion due to combustion of vegetation that otherwise provides protective cover to the soil surface. This study employed a novel ecological indicator based on remote sensing of vegetation greenness dynamics (phenology) to estimate variability in the window of time between fire and the reemergence of green vegetation. The indicator was applied as a proxy for short-term, post-fire disturbance windows in rangelands; where a disturbance window is defined as the time required for an ecological or geomorphic process that is altered to return to pre-disturbance levels. We examined variability in the indicator determined for time series of MODIS and AVHRR NDVI remote sensing data for a database of ∼100 historical wildland fires, with associated post-fire reseeding treatments, that burned 1990–2003 in cold desert shrub steppe of the Great Basin and Columbia Plateau of the western USA. The indicator-based estimates of disturbance window length were examined relative to the day of the year that fires burned and seeding treatments to consider effects of contemporary variability in fire regime and management activities in this environment. A key finding was that contemporary changes of increased length of the annual fire season could have indirect effects on ecosystem degradation, as early season fires appeared to result in longer time that soils remained relatively bare of the protective cover of vegetation after fires. Also important was that reemergence of vegetation did not occur more quickly after fire in sites treated with post-fire seeding, which is a strategy commonly employed to accelerate post-fire vegetation recovery and stabilize soil. Future work with the indicator could examine other ecological factors that are dynamic in space and time following disturbance – such as nutrient cycling, carbon storage, microbial community composition, or soil hydrology – as a function of disturbance windows, possibly using simulation modeling and historical wildfire information.

Time and timing in the acoustic recognition system of crickets

PubMed Central

Hennig, R. Matthias; Heller, Klaus-Gerhard; Clemens, Jan

2014-01-01

The songs of many insects exhibit precise timing as the result of repetitive and stereotyped subunits on several time scales. As these signals encode the identity of a species, time and timing are important for the recognition system that analyzes these signals. Crickets are a prominent example as their songs are built from sound pulses that are broadcast in a long trill or as a chirped song. This pattern appears to be analyzed on two timescales, short and long. Recent evidence suggests that song recognition in crickets relies on two computations with respect to time; a short linear-nonlinear (LN) model that operates as a filter for pulse rate and a longer integration time window for monitoring song energy over time. Therefore, there is a twofold role for timing. A filter for pulse rate shows differentiating properties for which the specific timing of excitation and inhibition is important. For an integrator, however, the duration of the time window is more important than the precise timing of events. Here, we first review evidence for the role of LN-models and integration time windows for song recognition in crickets. We then parameterize the filter part by Gabor functions and explore the effects of duration, frequency, phase, and offset as these will correspond to differently timed patterns of excitation and inhibition. These filter properties were compared with known preference functions of crickets and katydids. In a comparative approach, the power for song discrimination by LN-models was tested with the songs of over 100 cricket species. It is demonstrated how the acoustic signals of crickets occupy a simple 2-dimensional space for song recognition that arises from timing, described by a Gabor function, and time, the integration window. Finally, we discuss the evolution of recognition systems in insects based on simple sensory computations. PMID:25161622

Ultra-broadband THz time-domain spectroscopy of common polymers using THz air photonics.

PubMed

D'Angelo, Francesco; Mics, Zoltán; Bonn, Mischa; Turchinovich, Dmitry

2014-05-19

Terahertz-range dielectric properties of the common polymers low-density polyethylene (LDPE), cyclic olefin/ethylene copolymer (TOPAS®), polyamide-6 (PA6), and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE or Teflon®) are characterized in the ultra-broadband frequency window 2-15 THz, using a THz time-domain spectrometer employing air-photonics for the generation and detection of single-cycle sub-50 fs THz transients. The time domain measurements provide direct access to both the absorption and refractive index spectra. The polymers LDPE and TOPAS® demonstrate negligible absorption and spectrally-flat refractive index across the entire spectroscopy window, revealing the high potential of these polymers for applications in THz photonics such as ultra-broadband polymer-based dielectric mirrors, waveguides, and fibers. Resonant high-frequency polar vibrational modes are observed and assigned in polymers PA6 and PTFE, and their dielectric functions in the complete frequency window 2-15 THz are theoretically reproduced. Our results demonstrate the potential of ultra-broadband air-photonics-based THz time domain spectroscopy as a valuable analytic tool for materials science.

The short time Fourier transform and local signals

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okumura, Shuhei

In this thesis, I examine the theoretical properties of the short time discrete Fourier transform (STFT). The STFT is obtained by applying the Fourier transform by a fixed-sized, moving window to input series. We move the window by one time point at a time, so we have overlapping windows. I present several theoretical properties of the STFT, applied to various types of complex-valued, univariate time series inputs, and their outputs in closed forms. In particular, just like the discrete Fourier transform, the STFT's modulus time series takes large positive values when the input is a periodic signal. One main point is that a white noise time series input results in the STFT output being a complex-valued stationary time series and we can derive the time and time-frequency dependency structure such as the cross-covariance functions. Our primary focus is the detection of local periodic signals. I present a method to detect local signals by computing the probability that the squared modulus STFT time series has consecutive large values exceeding some threshold after one exceeding observation following one observation less than the threshold. We discuss a method to reduce the computation of such probabilities by the Box-Cox transformation and the delta method, and show that it works well in comparison to the Monte Carlo simulation method.

Error analysis and new dual-cosine window for estimating the sensor frequency response function from the step response data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Shuang-Long; Liang, Li-Ping; Liu, Hou-De; Xu, Ke-Jun

2018-03-01

Aiming at reducing the estimation error of the sensor frequency response function (FRF) estimated by the commonly used window-based spectral estimation method, the error models of interpolation and transient errors are derived in the form of non-parameter models. Accordingly, window effects on the errors are analyzed and reveal that the commonly used hanning window leads to smaller interpolation error which can also be significantly eliminated by the cubic spline interpolation method when estimating the FRF from the step response data, and window with smaller front-end value can restrain more transient error. Thus, a new dual-cosine window with its non-zero discrete Fourier transform bins at -3, -1, 0, 1, and 3 is constructed for FRF estimation. Compared with the hanning window, the new dual-cosine window has the equivalent interpolation error suppression capability and better transient error suppression capability when estimating the FRF from the step response; specifically, it reduces the asymptotic property of the transient error from O(N-2) of the hanning window method to O(N-4) while only increases the uncertainty slightly (about 0.4 dB). Then, one direction of a wind tunnel strain gauge balance which is a high order, small damping, and non-minimum phase system is employed as the example for verifying the new dual-cosine window-based spectral estimation method. The model simulation result shows that the new dual-cosine window method is better than the hanning window method for FRF estimation, and compared with the Gans method and LPM method, it has the advantages of simple computation, less time consumption, and short data requirement; the actual data calculation result of the balance FRF is consistent to the simulation result. Thus, the new dual-cosine window is effective and practical for FRF estimation.

Accuracy of Single Frequency GPS Observations Processing In Near Real-time With Use of Code Predicted Products

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wielgosz, P. A.

In this year, the system of active geodetic GPS permanent stations is going to be estab- lished in Poland. This system should provide GPS observations for a wide spectrum of users, especially it will be a great opportunity for surveyors. Many of surveyors still use cheaper, single frequency receivers. This paper focuses on processing of single frequency GPS observations only. During processing of such observations the iono- sphere plays an important role, so we concentrated on the influence of the ionosphere on the positional coordinates. Twenty consecutive days of GPS data from 2001 year were processed to analyze the accuracy of a derived three-dimensional relative vec- tor position between GPS stations. Observations from two Polish EPN/IGS stations: BOGO and JOZE were used. In addition to, a new test station - IGIK was created. In this paper, the results of single frequency GPS observations processing in near real- time are presented. Baselines of 15, 27 and 42 kilometers and sessions of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 hours long were processed. While processing we used CODE (Centre for Orbit De- termination in Europe, Bern, Switzerland) predicted products: orbits and ionosphere info. These products are available in real-time and enable near real-time processing. Software Bernese v. 4.2 for Linux and BPE (Bernese Processing Engine) mode were used. These results are shown with a reference to dual frequency weekly solution (the best solution). Obtained GPS positional time and GPS baseline length dependency accuracy is presented for single frequency GPS observations.

Present-day deformation in Europe, as seen by the EPOS-GNSS prototype solution in double difference, and first co- and post-seismic displacements associated with 2016 Amatrice and Norcia earthquakes (Italy)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Socquet, Anne; Déprez, Aline; Cotte, Nathalie; Maubant, Louise; Walpersdorf, Andrea; Bato, Mary Grace

2017-04-01

We present here a new pan-European velocity field, obtained by processing 500+ cGPS stations in double difference, in the framework of the implementation phase of the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) project. This prototype solution spans the 2000-2016 period, and includes data from RING, NOA, RENAG and European Permanent Network (EPN) cGPS netwprks. The data set is first split into daily sub-networks (between 8 and 14 sub-networks). The sub-networks consist in about 40 stations, with 2 overlapping stations. For each day and for each sub-network, the GAMIT processing is conducted independently. Once each sub-network achieves satisfactory results, a daily combination is performed in order to produce SINEX files. The Chi square value associated with the combination allows us to evaluate its quality. Eventually, a multi year combination generates position time series for each station. Each time series is visualized and the jumps associated with material change (antenna or receiver) are estimated and corrected. This procedure allows us to generate daily solutions and position time series for all stations. The associated "interseismic" velocity field has then been estimated using a times series analysis using MIDAS software, and compared to another independent estimate obtained by Kalman filtering with globk software. In addition to this velocity field we made a specific zoom on Italy and present a strain rate map as well as time series showing co- and post- seismic movements associated with the 2016 Amatrice and Norcia earthquakes.

Dynamic Aberration Correction for Conformal Window of High-Speed Aircraft Using Optimized Model-Based Wavefront Sensorless Adaptive Optics

PubMed Central

Dong, Bing; Li, Yan; Han, Xin-li; Hu, Bin

2016-01-01

For high-speed aircraft, a conformal window is used to optimize the aerodynamic performance. However, the local shape of the conformal window leads to large amounts of dynamic aberrations varying with look angle. In this paper, deformable mirror (DM) and model-based wavefront sensorless adaptive optics (WSLAO) are used for dynamic aberration correction of an infrared remote sensor equipped with a conformal window and scanning mirror. In model-based WSLAO, aberration is captured using Lukosz mode, and we use the low spatial frequency content of the image spectral density as the metric function. Simulations show that aberrations induced by the conformal window are dominated by some low-order Lukosz modes. To optimize the dynamic correction, we can only correct dominant Lukosz modes and the image size can be minimized to reduce the time required to compute the metric function. In our experiment, a 37-channel DM is used to mimic the dynamic aberration of conformal window with scanning rate of 10 degrees per second. A 52-channel DM is used for correction. For a 128 × 128 image, the mean value of image sharpness during dynamic correction is 1.436 × 10−5 in optimized correction and is 1.427 × 10−5 in un-optimized correction. We also demonstrated that model-based WSLAO can achieve convergence two times faster than traditional stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) method. PMID:27598161

Long-term imaging in awake mice using removable cranial windows

PubMed Central

Glickfeld, Lindsey L.; Kerlin, Aaron M.; Reid, R. Clay; Bonin, Vincent; Schafer, Dorothy P.; Andermann, Mark L.

2015-01-01

Cranial window implants in head-fixed rodents are becoming a preparation of choice for stable optical access to large areas of cortex over extended periods of time. Here, we provide a highly detailed and reliable surgical protocol for a cranial window implantation procedure for chronic widefield and cellular imaging in awake, head-fixed mice, which enables subsequent window removal and replacement in the weeks and months following the initial craniotomy. This protocol has facilitated awake, chronic imaging in adolescent as well as adult mice over several months from a large number of cortical brain regions; targeted virus and tracer injections from data obtained using prior awake functional mapping; and functionally-targeted two-photon imaging across all cortical layers in awake mice using a microprism attachment to the cranial window. Collectively, these procedures extend the reach of chronic imaging of cortical function and dysfunction in behaving animals. PMID:25275789

Continuation of research into software for space operations support: Conversion of the display manager to X Windows/Motif, volume 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Collier, Mark D.; Killough, Ronnie; Martin, Nancy L.

1990-01-01

NASA is currently using a set of applications called the Display Builder and Display Manager. They run on Concurrent systems and heavily depend on the Graphic Kernel System (GKS). At this time however, these two applications would more appropriately be developed in X Windows, in which a low X is used for all actual text and graphics display and a standard widget set (such as Motif) is used for the user interface. Use of the X Windows will increase performance, improve the user interface, enhance portability, and improve reliability. Prototype of X Window/Motif based Display Manager provides the following advantages over a GKS based application: improved performance by using a low level X Windows, display of graphic and text will be more efficient; improved user interface by using Motif; Improved portability by operating on both Concurrent and Sun workstations; and Improved reliability.

Censored Glauber Dynamics for the Mean Field Ising Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ding, Jian; Lubetzky, Eyal; Peres, Yuval

2009-11-01

We study Glauber dynamics for the Ising model on the complete graph on n vertices, known as the Curie-Weiss Model. It is well known that at high temperature ( β<1) the mixing time is Θ( nlog n), whereas at low temperature ( β>1) it is exp ( Θ( n)). Recently, Levin, Luczak and Peres considered a censored version of this dynamics, which is restricted to non-negative magnetization. They proved that for fixed β>1, the mixing-time of this model is Θ( nlog n), analogous to the high-temperature regime of the original dynamics. Furthermore, they showed cutoff for the original dynamics for fixed β<1. The question whether the censored dynamics also exhibits cutoff remained unsettled. In a companion paper, we extended the results of Levin et al. into a complete characterization of the mixing-time for the Curie-Weiss model. Namely, we found a scaling window of order 1/sqrt{n} around the critical temperature β c =1, beyond which there is cutoff at high temperature. However, determining the behavior of the censored dynamics outside this critical window seemed significantly more challenging. In this work we answer the above question in the affirmative, and establish the cutoff point and its window for the censored dynamics beyond the critical window, thus completing its analogy to the original dynamics at high temperature. Namely, if β=1+ δ for some δ>0 with δ 2 n→∞, then the mixing-time has order ( n/ δ)log ( δ 2 n). The cutoff constant is (1/2+[2(ζ2 β/ δ-1)]-1), where ζ is the unique positive root of g( x)=tanh ( β x)- x, and the cutoff window has order n/ δ.

Using exposure windows to explore an elusive biomarker: blood manganese.

PubMed

Baker, Marissa G; Stover, Bert; Simpson, Christopher D; Sheppard, Lianne; Seixas, Noah S

2016-05-01

We sought to understand the time course between exposure to manganese (Mn) and uptake into the blood, to allow a more meaningful interpretation of exposure biomarker data, and to determine the utility of blood as a biomarker of Mn exposure. Welder trainees were monitored over the course of a five-quarter training program. Each quarter, trainees gave eight blood samples and had personal air monitoring four times. A mixed model was fit to obtain estimates of airborne exposure by welding type (fixed effect), adjusted for subject (random effect). Considering weekends and days absent as zero exposure, estimated exposures were summed over various exposure windows and related to measured blood manganese (MnB) using a mixed model. A relationship consistent with zero was found between MnB and modeled 1 or 7 days of exposure. After 30 days of preceding exposure, a 1 mg-days/m(3) increase in air Mn is associated with a 0.57 ng/mL increase in MnB (95% CI -0.04, 1.19). Considering a 90-day exposure window and a cumulative exposure window, a 1 mg-days/m(3) increase in air Mn is associated with a 0.26 (95% CI 0.005, 0.51) and 0.09 (95% CI 0.006, 0.17) ng/mL increase in MnB, respectively. From this analysis, MnB may begin to act as a biomarker of Mn exposure over longer time periods, or at higher levels of exposure. This novel study design allowed investigation of how MnB relates to different time windows of exposure, representing the most robust Mn exposure assessment in the biomarker literature.

Ultrafast time-stretch imaging at 932 nm through a new highly-dispersive fiber

PubMed Central

Wei, Xiaoming; Kong, Cihang; Sy, Samuel; Ko, Ho; Tsia, Kevin K.; Wong, Kenneth K. Y.

2016-01-01

Optical glass fiber has played a key role in the development of modern optical communication and attracted the biotechnology researcher’s great attention because of its properties, such as the wide bandwidth, low attenuation and superior flexibility. For ultrafast optical imaging, particularly, it has been utilized to perform MHz time-stretch imaging with diffraction-limited resolutions, which is also known as serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM). Unfortunately, time-stretch imaging with dispersive fibers has so far mostly been demonstrated at the optical communication window of 1.5 μm due to lack of efficient dispersive optical fibers operating at the shorter wavelengths, particularly at the bio-favorable window, i.e., <1.0 μm. Through fiber-optic engineering, here we demonstrate a 7.6-MHz dual-color time-stretch optical imaging at bio-favorable wavelengths of 932 nm and 466 nm. The sensitivity at such a high speed is experimentally identified in a slow data-streaming manner. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that all-optical time-stretch imaging at ultrahigh speed, high sensitivity and high chirping rate (>1 ns/nm) has been demonstrated at a bio-favorable wavelength window through fiber-optic engineering. PMID:28018737

Time-frequency analysis-based time-windowing algorithm for the inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging of ships

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Peng; Zhang, Xi; Sun, Weifeng; Dai, Yongshou; Wan, Yong

2018-01-01

An algorithm based on time-frequency analysis is proposed to select an imaging time window for the inverse synthetic aperture radar imaging of ships. An appropriate range bin is selected to perform the time-frequency analysis after radial motion compensation. The selected range bin is that with the maximum mean amplitude among the range bins whose echoes are confirmed to be contributed by a dominant scatter. The criterion for judging whether the echoes of a range bin are contributed by a dominant scatter is key to the proposed algorithm and is therefore described in detail. When the first range bin that satisfies the judgment criterion is found, a sequence composed of the frequencies that have the largest amplitudes in every moment's time-frequency spectrum corresponding to this range bin is employed to calculate the length and the center moment of the optimal imaging time window. Experiments performed with simulation data and real data show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and comparisons between the proposed algorithm and the image contrast-based algorithm (ICBA) are provided. Similar image contrast and lower entropy are acquired using the proposed algorithm as compared with those values when using the ICBA.

Ultrafast time-stretch imaging at 932 nm through a new highly-dispersive fiber.

PubMed

Wei, Xiaoming; Kong, Cihang; Sy, Samuel; Ko, Ho; Tsia, Kevin K; Wong, Kenneth K Y

2016-12-01

Optical glass fiber has played a key role in the development of modern optical communication and attracted the biotechnology researcher's great attention because of its properties, such as the wide bandwidth, low attenuation and superior flexibility. For ultrafast optical imaging, particularly, it has been utilized to perform MHz time-stretch imaging with diffraction-limited resolutions, which is also known as serial time-encoded amplified microscopy (STEAM). Unfortunately, time-stretch imaging with dispersive fibers has so far mostly been demonstrated at the optical communication window of 1.5 μm due to lack of efficient dispersive optical fibers operating at the shorter wavelengths, particularly at the bio-favorable window, i.e., <1.0 μm. Through fiber-optic engineering, here we demonstrate a 7.6-MHz dual-color time-stretch optical imaging at bio-favorable wavelengths of 932 nm and 466 nm. The sensitivity at such a high speed is experimentally identified in a slow data-streaming manner. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that all-optical time-stretch imaging at ultrahigh speed, high sensitivity and high chirping rate (>1 ns/nm) has been demonstrated at a bio-favorable wavelength window through fiber-optic engineering.

Classroom Amplification: Not Just for the Hearing Impaired Anymore.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dahlquist, Lori Hubble

This paper discusses the difficulties that children with central auditory processing difficulties can have in the classroom environment. Classroom acoustics that can hinder a child's accessibility to instruction are discussed, including open windows or windows not designed to be acoustic barriers, increased reverberation time in rooms with high…

Migration to Windows NT.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Doles, Daniel T.

In the constantly changing world of technology, migration is not only inevitable but many times necessary for survival, especially when the end result is simplicity for both users and IT support staff. This paper describes the migration at Franklin College (Indiana). It discusses the reasons for selecting Windows NT, the steps taken to complete…

Opening the Literature Window

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jago, Carol

2012-01-01

Great literature gives students a window to other places and times, but it often requires students to step outside their comfort zones and take on challenges they wouldn't usually attempt. Unfortunately, research shows that many schools are not assigning literature that pushes students beyond their current reading level. Jago encourages teachers…

Characterizing artifacts in RR stress test time series.

PubMed

Astudillo-Salinas, Fabian; Palacio-Baus, Kenneth; Solano-Quinde, Lizandro; Medina, Ruben; Wong, Sara

2016-08-01

Electrocardiographic stress test records have a lot of artifacts. In this paper we explore a simple method to characterize the amount of artifacts present in unprocessed RR stress test time series. Four time series classes were defined: Very good lead, Good lead, Low quality lead and Useless lead. 65 ECG, 8 lead, records of stress test series were analyzed. Firstly, RR-time series were annotated by two experts. The automatic methodology is based on dividing the RR-time series in non-overlapping windows. Each window is marked as noisy whenever it exceeds an established standard deviation threshold (SDT). Series are classified according to the percentage of windows that exceeds a given value, based upon the first manual annotation. Different SDT were explored. Results show that SDT close to 20% (as a percentage of the mean) provides the best results. The coincidence between annotators classification is 70.77% whereas, the coincidence between the second annotator and the automatic method providing the best matches is larger than 63%. Leads classified as Very good leads and Good leads could be combined to improve automatic heartbeat labeling.

Qualitative Features Extraction from Sensor Data using Short-time Fourier Transform

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Amini, Abolfazl M.; Figueroa, Fernando

2004-01-01

The information gathered from sensors is used to determine the health of a sensor. Once a normal mode of operation is established any deviation from the normal behavior indicates a change. This change may be due to a malfunction of the sensor(s) or the system (or process). The step-up and step-down features, as well as sensor disturbances are assumed to be exponential. An RC network is used to model the main process, which is defined by a step-up (charging), drift, and step-down (discharging). The sensor disturbances and spike are added while the system is in drift. The system runs for a period of at least three time-constants of the main process every time a process feature occurs (e.g. step change). The Short-Time Fourier Transform of the Signal is taken using the Hamming window. Three window widths are used. The DC value is removed from the windowed data prior to taking the FFT. The resulting three dimensional spectral plots provide good time frequency resolution. The results indicate distinct shapes corresponding to each process.

A Simulation Study of Paced TCP

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kulik, Joanna; Coulter, Robert; Rockwell, Dennis; Partridge, Craig

2000-01-01

In this paper, we study the performance of paced TCP, a modified version of TCP designed especially for high delay- bandwidth networks. In typical networks, TCP optimizes its send-rate by transmitting increasingly large bursts, or windows, of packets, one burst per round-trip time, until it reaches a maximum window-size, which corresponds to the full capacity of the network. In a network with a high delay-bandwidth product, however, Transmission Control Protocol's (TCPs) maximum window-size may be larger than the queue size of the intermediate routers, and routers will begin to drop packets as soon as the windows become too large for the router queues. The TCP sender then concludes that the bottleneck capacity of the network has been reached, and it limits its send-rate accordingly. Partridge proposed paced TCP as a means of solving the problem of queueing bottlenecks. A sender using paced TCP would release packets in multiple, small bursts during a round-trip time in which ordinary TCP would release a single, large burst of packets. This approach allows the sender to increase its send-rate to the maximum window size without encountering queueing bottlenecks. This paper describes the performance of paced TCP in a simulated network and discusses implementation details that can affect the performance of paced TCP.

Evaluation of cognitive behaviors in young offspring of C57BL/6J mice after gestational nicotine exposure during different time-windows.

PubMed

Alkam, Tursun; Kim, Hyoung-Chun; Mamiya, Takayoshi; Yamada, Kiyofumi; Hiramatsu, Masayuki; Nabeshima, Toshitaka

2013-12-01

Gestational nicotine exposure is associated with cognitive abnormalities in young offspring. However, practical strategies for prevention or treatment of impaired cognitive behaviors of offspring are not available due to the lack of systematic investigation of underlying mechanism. Therefore, this study aimed at examining the effects of gestational and/or perinatal nicotine exposure (GPNE) on cognitive behaviors in offspring of C57BL/6J mice to provide systematic behavioral data. Pregnant mice were exposed to nicotine via sweetened drinking water during six time-windows, including gestational day 0 to day 13 (G0-G13), G14-postnatal day 0 (P0), G0-P0, G14-P7, G0-P7, and P0-P7. During P42-P56 days, both male and female offspring were given a battery of behavioral tests. Depending on the time of exposure, GPNE impaired working memory, object-based attention, and prepulse inhibition in male and female offspring to different extents. Nicotine exposure during G14-P0 also decreased norepinephrine turnover in the prefrontal cortex on P28 and P56. Overall results indicate that nicotine exposure during any time-windows of development impairs cognitive behaviors in offspring, and suggest that certain time-windows, e.g., G14-P0, should be selected for further studies on the underlying neurochemical or molecular mechanisms.

[Real-time detection and processing of medical signals under windows using Lcard analog interfaces].

PubMed

Kuz'min, A A; Belozerov, A E; Pronin, T V

2008-01-01

Multipurpose modular software for an analog interface based on Lcard 761 is considered. Algorithms for pipeline processing of medical signals under Windows with dynamic control of computational resources are suggested. The software consists of user-friendly completable modifiable modules. The module hierarchy is based on object-oriented heritage principles, which make it possible to construct various real-time systems for long-term detection, processing, and imaging of multichannel medical signals.

Determination of Vertical Borehole and Geological Formation Properties using the Crossed Contour Method.

PubMed

Leyde, Brian P; Klein, Sanford A; Nellis, Gregory F; Skye, Harrison

2017-03-01

This paper presents a new method called the Crossed Contour Method for determining the effective properties (borehole radius and ground thermal conductivity) of a vertical ground-coupled heat exchanger. The borehole radius is used as a proxy for the overall borehole thermal resistance. The method has been applied to both simulated and experimental borehole Thermal Response Test (TRT) data using the Duct Storage vertical ground heat exchanger model implemented in the TRansient SYstems Simulation software (TRNSYS). The Crossed Contour Method generates a parametric grid of simulated TRT data for different combinations of borehole radius and ground thermal conductivity in a series of time windows. The error between the average of the simulated and experimental bore field inlet and outlet temperatures is calculated for each set of borehole properties within each time window. Using these data, contours of the minimum error are constructed in the parameter space of borehole radius and ground thermal conductivity. When all of the minimum error contours for each time window are superimposed, the point where the contours cross (intersect) identifies the effective borehole properties for the model that most closely represents the experimental data in every time window and thus over the entire length of the experimental data set. The computed borehole properties are compared with results from existing model inversion methods including the Ground Property Measurement (GPM) software developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the Line Source Model.

Towards a portable Raman spectrometer using a concave grating and a time-gated CMOS SPAD.

PubMed

Li, Zhiyun; Deen, M Jamal

2014-07-28

A low-cost, compact Raman spectrometer suitable for the on-line water monitoring applications is explored. A custom-designed concave grating for wavelength selection was fabricated and tested. The detection of the Raman signal is accomplished with a time-gated single photon avalanche diode (TG-SPAD). A fixed gate window of 3.5ns is designed and applied to the TG-SPAD. The temporal resolution of the SPAD was ~60ps when tested with a 7ps, 532nm solid-state laser. To test the efficiency of the gating in fluorescence signal suppression, different detection windows (3ns-0.25ns) within the 3.5ns gate window are used to measure the Raman spectra of Rhodamine B. Strong Raman peaks are resolved with this low-cost system.

Phase locking route behind complex periodic windows in a forced oscillator

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jan, Hengtai; Tsai, Kuo-Ting; Kuo, Li-wei

2013-09-01

Chaotic systems have complex reactions against an external driving force; even in cases with low-dimension oscillators, the routes to synchronization are diverse. We proposed a stroboscope-based method for analyzing driven chaotic systems in their phase space. According to two statistic quantities generated from time series, we could realize the system state and the driving behavior simultaneously. We demonstrated our method in a driven bi-stable system, which showed complex period windows under a proper driving force. With increasing periodic driving force, a route from interior periodic oscillation to phase synchronization through the chaos state could be found. Periodic windows could also be identified and the circumstances under which they occurred distinguished. Statistical results were supported by conditional Lyapunov exponent analysis to show the power in analyzing the unknown time series.

Simultaneous Chandra/EHT/NuSTAR Monitoring of Sgr A* Flares

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Garmire, Gordon

2017-09-01

EHT will observe SgrA* at 0.85 mm during the period 2017 April 5-14 UT. These will be the first mm VLBI observations with sufficient effective area and angular resolution to produce time-resolved images of the event horizon of a black hole, enabling tests of general relativity in the strong gravity regime and a search for structural variability, especially during flares. Chandra Flight Ops has identified windows on four dates when Chandra can observe SgrA* uninterrupted for 33 ks simultaneous with EHT. NuSTAR will coordinate to observe simultaneously in these windows. This Cycle 19 observation will cover one of the four windows. The other three will be covered by splitting 100 ks of Cycle 18 time currently in ObsIDs 19726 and 19727 into three observations (Proposal 18620742).

Using applet-servlet communication for optimizing window, level and crop for DICOM to JPEG conversion.

PubMed

Kamauu, Aaron W C; DuVall, Scott L; Wiggins, Richard H; Avrin, David E

2008-09-01

In the creation of interesting radiological cases in a digital teaching file, it is necessary to adjust the window and level settings of an image to effectively display the educational focus. The web-based applet described in this paper presents an effective solution for real-time window and level adjustments without leaving the picture archiving and communications system workstation. Optimized images are created, as user-defined parameters are passed between the applet and a servlet on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant teaching file server.

Seismicity in the Wake of the April 2016 Pedernales Earthquake

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meltzer, A.; Beck, S. L.; Ruiz, M. C.; Hernandez, S.; Alvarado, A. P.; Regnier, M. M.; Rietbrock, A.; Font, Y.; Charvis, P.; Yepes, H. A.; Lynner, C.; Porritt, R. W.

2016-12-01

On April 16th 2016 a Mw7.8 earthquake struck along the Colombia-Ecuador trench near Pedernales, Ecuador. The epicentral region lies just north of the intersection of the Carnegie Ridge with the subduction zone where the orientation of the trench shifts from N20°E to N32°E. This portion of the subduction zone has ruptured on decadal time scales; Mw7.8 (1942), Mw 7.7 (1958), and Mw 8.8 (1906). The rupture zone of the 2016 Pedernales earthquake falls within the rupture area of the 1906 event and appears to overlap with the previous 1942 event. In the wake of the earthquake an international response coordinated by the Instituto Geofisico EPN in Quito deployed accelerometers, seismometers, OBS, and GPS receivers to record aftershocks and post-seismic deformation. These data provide the opportunity to examine the persistence of asperities for large to great earthquakes over multiple seismic cycles, the role of asperities in promoting or inhibiting rupture propagation, and the relationship between locked and creeping parts of the subduction interface. Onland, a dense array of 64 broadband and intermediate period seismometers cover the 2016 rupture zone, extending north to the section that ruptured in 1958 and covers the contiguous area that ruptured in 1906. The US portion of the response supported by the NSF includes 19 broadband seismic stations to record aftershocks for a year, an eGPS survey, and five cGPS stations to enhance the existing network in Ecuador. Data from the NSF supported stations are open access. We examine the distribution of seismicity from the aftershock deployment in relationship to the 1942, 1958, and 1906 ruptures. Preliminary locations from the IG-EPN aftershock catalog outline the rupture zone and initially exhibited an abrupt termination to the north at 1°N. Along this northern boundary a series of aftershocks that took place over a period of several hours along a very linear trend culminated in one of several ≥Mw 6.0 aftershocks. To the south, a significant cluster of events is observed 100 km south of the area that ruptured in the mainshock. This area lies south of an area of low coupling observed in GPS data suggesting that stress is being transmitted across a zone that is freely slipping. In July a series of events occurred north of the rupture zone close to the edge of the segment that ruptured in 1958.

The rarefaction wave propagation in transparent windows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glam, B.; Porat, E.; Horovitz, Y.; Yosef-Hai, A.

2017-01-01

The radial (lateral) rarefaction wave velocity of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and Lithium Fluoride (LiF) windows were studied by plate impact experiments that were carried out at Soreq NRC up to a pressure of 146 kbar in the PMMA and 334 kbar in the LiF. The windows were glued to Lead targets that were impacted by a copper impactor. The VISAR measurement was done in the window interface with the target. This information was utilized to identify the radial rarefaction arrival time at the center of different diameter windows after the shock event, and served as a measurement to the radial wave velocity in the shocked material. It was found that for both windows, LiF or PMMA, the measured radial wave velocity increases with the pressure. Furthermore, this velocity is significantly higher compared to the expected longitudinal sound velocity at the same pressure, calculated by the Steinberg EOS in the PMMA and by ab initio calculation in the LiF. Here we present the experimental results and a comparison with analytical calculation of the sound velocity using the Steinberg EOS.

Window decompression in laser-heated MagLIF targets

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Woodbury, Daniel; Peterson, Kyle; Sefkow, Adam

2015-11-01

The Magnetized Liner Inertial Fusion (MagLIF) concept requires pre-magnetized fuel to be pre-heated with a laser before undergoing compression by a thick solid liner. Recent experiments and simulations suggest that yield has been limited to date by poor laser preheat and laser-induced mix in the fuel region. In order to assess laser energy transmission through the pressure-holding window, as well as resultant mix, we modeled window disassembly under different conditions using 1D and 2D simulations in both Helios and HYDRA. We present results tracking energy absorption, time needed for decompression, risk of laser-plasma interaction (LPI) that may scatter laser light, and potential for mix from various window thicknesses, laser spot sizes and gas fill densities. These results indicate that using thinner windows (0.5-1 μm windows) and relatively large laser spot radii (600 μm and above) can avoid deleterious effects and improve coupling with the fuel. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the National Nuclear Security Administration under DE-AC04- 94AL85000.

SU-G-IeP4-12: Performance of In-111 Coincident Gamma-Ray Counting: A Monte Carlo Simulation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pahlka, R; Kappadath, S; Mawlawi, O

2016-06-15

Purpose: The decay of In-111 results in a non-isotropic gamma-ray cascade, which is normally imaged using a gamma camera. Creating images with a gamma camera using coincident gamma-rays from In-111 has not been previously studied. Our objective was to explore the feasibility of imaging this cascade as coincidence events and to determine the optimal timing resolution and source activity using Monte Carlo simulations. Methods: GEANT4 was used to simulate the decay of the In-111 nucleus and to model the gamma camera. Each photon emission was assigned a timestamp, and the time delay and angular separation for the second gamma-ray inmore » the cascade was consistent with the known intermediate state half-life of 85ns. The gamma-rays are transported through a model of a Siemens dual head Symbia “S” gamma camera with a 5/8-inch thick crystal and medium energy collimators. A true coincident event was defined as a single 171keV gamma-ray followed by a single 245keV gamma-ray within a specified time window (or vice versa). Several source activities (ranging from 10uCi to 5mCi) with and without incorporation of background counts were then simulated. Each simulation was analyzed using varying time windows to assess random events. The noise equivalent count rate (NECR) was computed based on the number of true and random counts for each combination of activity and time window. No scatter events were assumed since sources were simulated in air. Results: As expected, increasing the timing window increased the total number of observed coincidences albeit at the expense of true coincidences. A timing window range of 200–500ns maximizes the NECR at clinically-used source activities. The background rate did not significantly alter the maximum NECR. Conclusion: This work suggests coincident measurements of In-111 gamma-ray decay can be performed with commercial gamma cameras at clinically-relevant activities. Work is ongoing to assess useful clinical applications.« less

An algorithm for a single machine scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup times and scheduling windows

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moore, J. E.

1975-01-01

An enumeration algorithm is presented for solving a scheduling problem similar to the single machine job shop problem with sequence dependent setup times. The scheduling problem differs from the job shop problem in two ways. First, its objective is to select an optimum subset of the available tasks to be performed during a fixed period of time. Secondly, each task scheduled is constrained to occur within its particular scheduling window. The algorithm is currently being used to develop typical observational timelines for a telescope that will be operated in earth orbit. Computational times associated with timeline development are presented.

Progesterone in experimental permanent stroke: a dose-response and therapeutic time-window study

PubMed Central

Wali, Bushra; Ishrat, Tauheed; Won, Soonmi; Stein, Donald G.

2014-01-01

Currently, the only approved treatment for ischaemic stroke is tissue plasminogen activator, a clot-buster. This treatment can have dangerous consequences if not given within the first 4 h after stroke. Our group and others have shown progesterone to be beneficial in preclinical studies of stroke, but a progesterone dose-response and time-window study is lacking. We tested male Sprague-Dawley rats (12 months old) with permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion or sham operations on multiple measures of sensory, motor and cognitive performance. For the dose-response study, animals received intraperitoneal injections of progesterone (8, 16 or 32 mg/kg) at 1 h post-occlusion, and subcutaneous injections at 6 h and then once every 24 h for 7 days. For the time-window study, the optimal dose of progesterone was given starting at 3, 6 or 24 h post-stroke. Behavioural recovery was evaluated at repeated intervals. Rats were killed at 22 days post-stroke and brains extracted for evaluation of infarct volume. Both 8 and 16 mg/kg doses of progesterone produced attenuation of infarct volume compared with the placebo, and improved functional outcomes up to 3 weeks after stroke on locomotor activity, grip strength, sensory neglect, gait impairment, motor coordination and spatial navigation tests. In the time-window study, the progesterone group exhibited substantial neuroprotection as late as 6 h after stroke onset. Compared with placebo, progesterone showed a significant reduction in infarct size with 3- and 6-h delays. Moderate doses (8 and 16 mg/kg) of progesterone reduced infarct size and improved functional deficits in our clinically relevant model of stroke. The 8 mg/kg dose was optimal in improving motor, sensory and memory function, and this effect was observed over a large therapeutic time window. Progesterone shows promise as a potential therapeutic agent and should be examined for safety and efficacy in a clinical trial for ischaemic stroke. PMID:24374329

Time-localized wavelet multiple regression and correlation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fernández-Macho, Javier

2018-02-01

This paper extends wavelet methodology to handle comovement dynamics of multivariate time series via moving weighted regression on wavelet coefficients. The concept of wavelet local multiple correlation is used to produce one single set of multiscale correlations along time, in contrast with the large number of wavelet correlation maps that need to be compared when using standard pairwise wavelet correlations with rolling windows. Also, the spectral properties of weight functions are investigated and it is argued that some common time windows, such as the usual rectangular rolling window, are not satisfactory on these grounds. The method is illustrated with a multiscale analysis of the comovements of Eurozone stock markets during this century. It is shown how the evolution of the correlation structure in these markets has been far from homogeneous both along time and across timescales featuring an acute divide across timescales at about the quarterly scale. At longer scales, evidence from the long-term correlation structure can be interpreted as stable perfect integration among Euro stock markets. On the other hand, at intramonth and intraweek scales, the short-term correlation structure has been clearly evolving along time, experiencing a sharp increase during financial crises which may be interpreted as evidence of financial 'contagion'.

Developing the Planetary Science Virtual Observatory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Erard, Stéphane; Cecconi, Baptiste; Le Sidaner, Pierre; Henry, Florence; Chauvin, Cyril; Berthier, Jérôme; André, Nicolas; Génot, Vincent; Schmitt, Bernard; Capria, Teresa; Chanteur, Gérard

2015-08-01

In the frame of the Europlanet-RI program, a prototype Virtual Observatory dedicated to Planetary Science has been set up. Most of the activity was dedicated to the definition of standards to handle data in this field. The aim was to facilitate searches in big archives as well as sparse databases, to make on-line data access and visualization possible, and to allow small data providers to make their data available in an interoperable environment with minimum effort. This system makes intensive use of studies and developments led in Astronomy (IVOA), Solar Science (HELIO), and space archive services (IPDA).The current architecture connects existing data services with IVOA or IPDA protocols whenever relevant. However, a more general standard has been devised to handle the specific complexity of Planetary Science, e.g. in terms of measurement types and coordinate frames. This protocol, named EPN-TAP, is based on TAP and includes precise requirements to describe the contents of a data service (Erard et al Astron & Comp 2014). A light framework (DaCHS/GAVO) and a procedure have been identified to install small data services, and several hands-on sessions have been organized already. The data services are declared in standard IVOA registries. Support to new data services in Europe will be provided during the proposed Europlanet H2020 program, with a focus on planetary mission support (Rosetta, Cassini…).A specific client (VESPA) has been developed at VO-Paris (http://vespa.obspm.fr). It is able to use all the mandatory parameters in EPN-TAP, plus extra parameters from individual services. A resolver for target names is also available. Selected data can be sent to VO visualization tools such as TOPCAT or Aladin though the SAMP protocol.Future steps will include the development of a connection between the VO world and GIS tools, and integration of heliophysics, planetary plasma and reference spectroscopic data.The EuroPlaNet-RI project was funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Program, grant 228319 "Capacities Specific Programme".

Brain dynamics of visual attention during anticipation and encoding of threat- and safe-cues in spider-phobic individuals.

PubMed

Michalowski, Jaroslaw M; Pané-Farré, Christiane A; Löw, Andreas; Hamm, Alfons O

2015-09-01

This study systematically investigated the sensitivity of the phobic attention system by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) in spider-phobic and non-phobic volunteers in a context where spider and neutral pictures were presented (phobic threat condition) and in contexts where no phobic but unpleasant and neutral or only neutral pictures were displayed (phobia-irrelevant conditions). In a between-group study, participants were assigned to phobia-irrelevant conditions either before or after the exposure to spider pictures (pre-exposure vs post-exposure participants). Additionally, each picture was preceded by a fixation cross presented in one of three different colors that were informative about the category of an upcoming picture. In the phobic threat condition, spider-phobic participants showed a larger P1 than controls for all pictures and signal cues. Moreover, individuals with spider phobia who were sensitized by the exposure to phobic stimuli (i.e. post-exposure participants) responded with an increased P1 also in phobia-irrelevant conditions. In contrast, no group differences between spider-phobic and non-phobic individuals were observed in the P1-amplitudes during viewing of phobia-irrelevant stimuli in the pre-exposure group. In addition, cues signaling neutral pictures elicited decreased stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) compared with cues signaling emotional pictures. Moreover, emotional pictures and cues signaling emotional pictures evoked larger early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) than neutral stimuli. Spider phobics showed greater selective attention effects than controls for phobia-relevant pictures (increased EPN and LPP) and cues (increased LPP and SPN). Increased sensitization of the attention system observed in spider-phobic individuals might facilitate fear conditioning and promote generalization of fear playing an important role in the maintenance of anxiety disorders. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

75 FR 80471 - Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities; St. George Reef Light Station...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-12-22

... maintenance activities. SGRLPS proposes to transport visitors to the Station during the Sunday work window... two times per year within the proposed work window. Scheduled light maintenance activities would... light. For each emergency repair event, the SGRLPS proposes to conduct a maximum of four flights (two...

Window Presentation Styles and User's Spatial Ability.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bastecki, Victoria L.; Berry, Louis H.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of spatial ability level and window presentation style of tiled and overlapped computer displays on the achievement of dental hygiene students. Participants were 43 first-term Dental Hygiene students enrolled full-time at a University School of Dental Medicine. Phase one of this project…

Long-term, high-resolution imaging in the mouse neocortex through a chronic cranial window

PubMed Central

Holtmaat, Anthony; Bonhoeffer, Tobias; Chow, David K; Chuckowree, Jyoti; De Paola, Vincenzo; Hofer, Sonja B; Hübener, Mark; Keck, Tara; Knott, Graham; Lee, Wei-Chung A; Mostany, Ricardo; Mrsic-Flogel, Tom D; Nedivi, Elly; Portera-Cailliau, Carlos; Svoboda, Karel; Trachtenberg, Joshua T; Wilbrecht, Linda

2011-01-01

To understand the cellular and circuit mechanisms of experience-dependent plasticity, neurons and their synapses need to be studied in the intact brain over extended periods of time. Two-photon excitation laser scanning microscopy (2PLSM), together with expression of fluorescent proteins, enables high-resolution imaging of neuronal structure in vivo. In this protocol we describe a chronic cranial window to obtain optical access to the mouse cerebral cortex for long-term imaging. A small bone flap is replaced with a coverglass, which is permanently sealed in place with dental acrylic, providing a clear imaging window with a large field of view (∼0.8–12 mm2). The surgical procedure can be completed within ∼1 h. The preparation allows imaging over time periods of months with arbitrary imaging intervals. The large size of the imaging window facilitates imaging of ongoing structural plasticity of small neuronal structures in mice, with low densities of labeled neurons. The entire dendritic and axonal arbor of individual neurons can be reconstructed. PMID:19617885

Adaptive early detection ML/PDA estimator for LO targets with EO sensors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chummun, Muhammad R.; Kirubarajan, Thiagalingam; Bar-Shalom, Yaakov

2000-07-01

The batch Maximum Likelihood Estimator, combined with Probabilistic Data (ML-PDA), has been shown to be effective in acquiring low observable (LO) - low SNR - non-maneuvering targets in the presence of heavy clutter. The use of signal strength or amplitude information (AI) in the ML-PDA estimator with AI in a sliding-window fashion, to detect high- speed targets in heavy clutter using electro-optical (EO) sensors. The initial time and the length of the sliding-window are adjusted adaptively according to the information content of the received measurements. A track validation scheme via hypothesis testing is developed to confirm the estimated track, that is, the presence of a target, in each window. The sliding-window ML-PDA approach, together with track validation, enables early detection by rejecting noninformative scans, target reacquisition in case of temporary target disappearance and the handling of targets with speeds evolving over time. The proposed algorithm is shown to detect the target, which is hidden in as many as 600 false alarms per scan, 10 frames earlier than the Multiple Hypothesis Tracking (MHT) algorithm.

Representative locations from time series of soil water content using time stability and wavelet analysis.

PubMed

Rivera, Diego; Lillo, Mario; Granda, Stalin

2014-12-01

The concept of time stability has been widely used in the design and assessment of monitoring networks of soil moisture, as well as in hydrological studies, because it is as a technique that allows identifying of particular locations having the property of representing mean values of soil moisture in the field. In this work, we assess the effect of time stability calculations as new information is added and how time stability calculations are affected at shorter periods, subsampled from the original time series, containing different amounts of precipitation. In doing so, we defined two experiments to explore the time stability behavior. The first experiment sequentially adds new data to the previous time series to investigate the long-term influence of new data in the results. The second experiment applies a windowing approach, taking sequential subsamples from the entire time series to investigate the influence of short-term changes associated with the precipitation in each window. Our results from an operating network (seven monitoring points equipped with four sensors each in a 2-ha blueberry field) show that as information is added to the time series, there are changes in the location of the most stable point (MSP), and that taking the moving 21-day windows, it is clear that most of the variability of soil water content changes is associated with both the amount and intensity of rainfall. The changes of the MSP over each window depend on the amount of water entering the soil and the previous state of the soil water content. For our case study, the upper strata are proxies for hourly to daily changes in soil water content, while the deeper strata are proxies for medium-range stored water. Thus, different locations and depths are representative of processes at different time scales. This situation must be taken into account when water management depends on soil water content values from fixed locations.

Ocean Engineering Studies Compiled 1991. Volume 7. Acrylic Windows- Diverse Design Features and Types of Service

DTIC Science & Technology

1991-01-01

acrylic plastic windows in chambers for human occupancy, the design stress should not exceed 800 psi (i.e., conversion factor of 20). 3. installed...pressure vessels for human occupancy Is 10 yr based on the conserva- tive assumption that in that length of time even stressed acrylic in a tropioal...the Safety Standard for Pressure Ves- sels for Human Oc-upancy (ASME PVHO-1 Safety Standard). Since that time, this ASME Safety Standard has

An Airlift Hub-and-Spoke Location-Routing Model with Time Windows: Case Study of the CONUS-to-Korea Airlift Problem

DTIC Science & Technology

1998-03-01

a point of embarkation to a point of debarkation. This study develops an alternative hub-and-spoke combined location-routing integer linear...programming prototype model, and uses this model to determine what advantages a hub-and-spoke system offers, and in which scenarios it is better-suited than the...extension on the following works: the hierarchical model of Perl and Daskin (1983), time windows features of Chan (1991), combining subtour-breaking and range

Exponential Decay of Reconstruction Error from Binary Measurements of Sparse Signals

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-08-01

that the required condition of Corollary 9, namely q ≥ Cδ−4s̃ log(n/s̃), is still satisfied. The result follows from massaging the equations, as...study of the relationship of heart attacks to various factors may test whether certain subjects have heart attacks in a short window of time and other...subjects have heart attacks in a long window of time. The main message of this paper is that by carefully choosing this threshold the accuracy of

A shot through the window.

PubMed

Burnett, B R

2001-03-01

At issue in this case was whether an unusual window defect seen in two of the crime scene photographs was due to a bullet and if so, if that same bullet fatally wounded the victim. The window appeared to have been cracked prior to the apparent shot through it. A .22 bullet recovered from autopsy, when examined only by light microscopy, failed to show associated glass fragments. A previously cracked test window was shot a number of times with .22 caliber bullets near the cracks in an effort to simulate the window defect seen in the crime scene photographs. Several of the defects produced by the test window shots appeared similar to the crime scene window defect. The .22 bullet taken from the victim and several of the test bullets (collected by a cotton box) were examined by scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The test bullets showed glass particles on and embedded in their surfaces. Particles of similar size and composition were found embedded in the surface of the bullet from the victim. The bullet likely struck the window prior to hitting the victim. It was apparent by the morphology of some of the mushroomed test .22 bullets that they hit the window crack. These bullets showed that the glass on one side of a crack often fails before the other side during the strike. Aggregations of powdered glass on many of the mushroomed surfaces of the .22 bullets suggest that as the bullet mushrooms during impact on the window surface, the glass in contact with the bullet powderizes and coats the mushroomed surface of the bullet with a layer of fine glass particles.

Affective facilitation of early visual cortex during rapid picture presentation at 6 and 15 Hz

PubMed Central

Bekhtereva, Valeria

2015-01-01

The steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP), a neurophysiological marker of attentional resource allocation with its generators in early visual cortex, exhibits enhanced amplitude for emotional compared to neutral complex pictures. Emotional cue extraction for complex images is linked to the N1-EPN complex with a peak latency of ∼140–160 ms. We tested whether neural facilitation in early visual cortex with affective pictures requires emotional cue extraction of individual images, even when a stream of images of the same valence category is presented. Images were shown at either 6 Hz (167 ms, allowing for extraction) or 15 Hz (67 ms per image, causing disruption of processing by the following image). Results showed SSVEP amplitude enhancement for emotional compared to neutral images at a presentation rate of 6 Hz but no differences at 15 Hz. This was not due to featural differences between the two valence categories. Results strongly suggest that individual images need to be displayed for sufficient time allowing for emotional cue extraction to drive affective neural modulation in early visual cortex. PMID:25971598

The effects of chromium VI on the fitness and on the beta-tubulin genes during in vivo development of the nematode Steinernema feltiae.

PubMed

Boyle, Stephen; Kakouli-Duarte, Thomais

2008-10-01

The entomopathogenic nematode (EPN), Steinernema feltiae, is a commonly occurring nematode in the soil in Ireland. Consequently, we have conducted investigations as to the utility of this species as a candidate organism for the detection of chromium in Irish soils. These experiments have demonstrated that S. feltiae can survive and reproduce in the presence of high concentrations of chromium VI. It was observed that concentrations as high as 1000 ppm have little effect on the ability of this organism to produce large numbers of progeny. Nematodes were not observed to reproduce above 1800 ppm. However, an increase in development times for the nematode in vivo was noted at concentrations of 400 ppm upwards. This paper also illustrates the effects upon the beta-tubulin genes within nematode populations exposed to chromium VI in vivo. DNA sequencing has shown that elevated levels of variations occur among the population treatments, although these variations do not appear to be dependent upon chromium concentration. These findings constitute this organism appropriate for further investigation for the development of sub-lethal end points and biomarkers for the detection and biomonitoring of chromium VI contamination in soil.

Fixation to features and neural processing of facial expressions in a gender discrimination task

PubMed Central

Neath, Karly N.; Itier, Roxane J.

2017-01-01

Early face encoding, as reflected by the N170 ERP component, is sensitive to fixation to the eyes. Whether this sensitivity varies with facial expressions of emotion and can also be seen on other ERP components such as P1 and EPN, was investigated. Using eye-tracking to manipulate fixation on facial features, we found the N170 to be the only eye-sensitive component and this was true for fearful, happy and neutral faces. A different effect of fixation to features was seen for the earlier P1 that likely reflected general sensitivity to face position. An early effect of emotion (~120 ms) for happy faces was seen at occipital sites and was sustained until ~350 ms post-stimulus. For fearful faces, an early effect was seen around 80 ms followed by a later effect appearing at ~150 ms until ~300 ms at lateral posterior sites. Results suggests that in this emotion-irrelevant gender discrimination task, processing of fearful and happy expressions occurred early and largely independently of the eye-sensitivity indexed by the N170. Processing of the two emotions involved different underlying brain networks active at different times. PMID:26277653

Improved artificial bee colony algorithm for vehicle routing problem with time windows

PubMed Central

Yan, Qianqian; Zhang, Mengjie; Yang, Yunong

2017-01-01

This paper investigates a well-known complex combinatorial problem known as the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW). Unlike the standard vehicle routing problem, each customer in the VRPTW is served within a given time constraint. This paper solves the VRPTW using an improved artificial bee colony (IABC) algorithm. The performance of this algorithm is improved by a local optimization based on a crossover operation and a scanning strategy. Finally, the effectiveness of the IABC is evaluated on some well-known benchmarks. The results demonstrate the power of IABC algorithm in solving the VRPTW. PMID:28961252

Apelin as a marker for monitoring the tumor vessel normalization window during antiangiogenic therapy.

PubMed

Zhang, Li; Takara, Kazuhiro; Yamakawa, Daishi; Kidoya, Hiroyasu; Takakura, Nobuyuki

2016-01-01

Antiangiogenic agents transiently normalize tumor vessel structure and improve vessel function, thereby providing a window of opportunity for enhancing the efficacy of chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Currently, there are no reliable predictors or markers reflecting this vessel normalization window during antiangiogenic therapy. Apelin, the expression of which is regulated by hypoxia, and which has well-described roles in tumor progression, is an easily measured secreted protein. Here, we show that apelin can be used as a marker for the vessel normalization window during antiangiogenic therapy. Mice bearing s.c. tumors resulting from inoculation of the colon adenocarcinoma cell line HT29 were treated with a single injection of bevacizumab, a mAb neutralizing vascular endothelial growth factor. Tumor growth, vessel density, pericyte coverage, tumor hypoxia, and small molecule delivery were determined at four different times after treatment with bevacizumab (days 1, 3, 5, and 8). Tumor growth and vessel density were significantly reduced after bevacizumab treatment, which also significantly increased tumor vessel maturity, and improved tumor hypoxia and small molecule delivery between days 3 and 5. These effects abated by day 8, suggesting that a time window for vessel normalization was opened between days 3 and 5 during bevacizumab treatment in this model. Apelin mRNA expression and plasma apelin levels decreased transiently at day 5 post-treatment, coinciding with vessel normalization. Thus, apelin is a potential indicator of the vessel normalization window during antiangiogenic therapy. © 2015 The Authors. Cancer Science published by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd on behalf of Japanese Cancer Association.

Localization of interictal epileptic spikes with MEG: optimization of an automated beamformer screening method (SAMepi) in a diverse epilepsy population

PubMed Central

Scott, Jonathan M.; Robinson, Stephen E.; Holroyd, Tom; Coppola, Richard; Sato, Susumu; Inati, Sara K.

2016-01-01

OBJECTIVE To describe and optimize an automated beamforming technique followed by identification of locations with excess kurtosis (g2) for efficient detection and localization of interictal spikes in medically refractory epilepsy patients. METHODS Synthetic Aperture Magnetometry with g2 averaged over a sliding time window (SAMepi) was performed in 7 focal epilepsy patients and 5 healthy volunteers. The effect of varied window lengths on detection of spiking activity was evaluated. RESULTS Sliding window lengths of 0.5–10 seconds performed similarly, with 0.5 and 1 second windows detecting spiking activity in one of the 3 virtual sensor locations with highest kurtosis. These locations were concordant with the region of eventual surgical resection in these 7 patients who remained seizure free at one year. Average g2 values increased with increasing sliding window length in all subjects. In healthy volunteers kurtosis values stabilized in datasets longer than two minutes. CONCLUSIONS SAMepi using g2 averaged over 1 second sliding time windows in datasets of at least 2 minutes duration reliably identified interictal spiking and the presumed seizure focus in these 7 patients. Screening the 5 locations with highest kurtosis values for spiking activity is an efficient and accurate technique for localizing interictal activity using MEG. SIGNIFICANCE SAMepi should be applied using the parameter values and procedure described for optimal detection and localization of interictal spikes. Use of this screening procedure could significantly improve the efficiency of MEG analysis if clinically validated. PMID:27760068

Tuneable complementary metamaterial structures based on graphene for single and multiple transparency windows

PubMed Central

Ding, Jun; Arigong, Bayaner; Ren, Han; Zhou, Mi; Shao, Jin; Lu, Meng; Chai, Yang; Lin, Yuankun; Zhang, Hualiang

2014-01-01

Novel graphene-based tunable plasmonic metamaterials featuring single and multiple transparency windows are numerically studied in this paper. The designed structures consist of a graphene layer perforated with quadrupole slot structures and dolmen-like slot structures printed on a substrate. Specifically, the graphene-based quadrupole slot structure can realize a single transparency window, which is achieved without breaking the structure symmetry. Further investigations have shown that the single transparency window in the proposed quadrupole slot structure is more likely originated from the quantum effect of Autler-Townes splitting. Then, by introducing a dipole slot to the quadrupole slot structure to form the dolmen-like slot structure, an additional transmission dip could occur in the transmission spectrum, thus, a multiple-transparency-window system can be achieved (for the first time for graphene-based devices). More importantly, the transparency windows for both the quadrupole slot and the dolmen-like slot structures can be dynamically controlled over a broad frequency range by varying the Fermi energy levels of the graphene layer (through electrostatic gating). The proposed slot metamaterial structures with tunable single and multiple transparency windows could find potential applications in many areas such as multiple-wavelength slow-light devices, active plasmonic switching, and optical sensing. PMID:25146672

Tuneable complementary metamaterial structures based on graphene for single and multiple transparency windows.

PubMed

Ding, Jun; Arigong, Bayaner; Ren, Han; Zhou, Mi; Shao, Jin; Lu, Meng; Chai, Yang; Lin, Yuankun; Zhang, Hualiang

2014-08-22

Novel graphene-based tunable plasmonic metamaterials featuring single and multiple transparency windows are numerically studied in this paper. The designed structures consist of a graphene layer perforated with quadrupole slot structures and dolmen-like slot structures printed on a substrate. Specifically, the graphene-based quadrupole slot structure can realize a single transparency window, which is achieved without breaking the structure symmetry. Further investigations have shown that the single transparency window in the proposed quadrupole slot structure is more likely originated from the quantum effect of Autler-Townes splitting. Then, by introducing a dipole slot to the quadrupole slot structure to form the dolmen-like slot structure, an additional transmission dip could occur in the transmission spectrum, thus, a multiple-transparency-window system can be achieved (for the first time for graphene-based devices). More importantly, the transparency windows for both the quadrupole slot and the dolmen-like slot structures can be dynamically controlled over a broad frequency range by varying the Fermi energy levels of the graphene layer (through electrostatic gating). The proposed slot metamaterial structures with tunable single and multiple transparency windows could find potential applications in many areas such as multiple-wavelength slow-light devices, active plasmonic switching, and optical sensing.

Next generation smart window display using transparent organic display and light blocking screen.

PubMed

Kim, Gyeong Woo; Lampande, Raju; Choe, Dong Cheol; Ko, Ik Jang; Park, Jin Hwan; Pode, Ramchandra; Kwon, Jang Hyuk

2018-04-02

Transparent organic light emitting diodes (TOLED) have widespread applications in the next-generation display devices particularly in the large size transparent window and interactive displays. Herein, we report high performance and stable attractive smart window displays using facile process. Advanced smart window display is realized by integrating the high performance light blocking screen and highly transparent white OLED panel. The full smart window display reveals a maximum transmittance as high as 64.2% at the wavelength of 600 nm and extremely good along with tunable ambient contrast ratio (171.94:1) compared to that of normal TOLED (4.54:1). Furthermore, the performance decisive light blocking screen has demonstrated an excellent optical and electrical characteristics such as i) high transmittance (85.56% at 562nm) at light-penetrating state, ii) superior absorbance (2.30 at 562nm) in light interrupting mode, iii) high optical contrast (85.50 at 562 nm), iv) high optical stability for more than 25,000 cycle of driving, v) fast switching time of 1.9 sec, and vi) low driving voltage of 1.7 V. The experimental results of smart window display are also validated using optical simulation. The proposed smart window display technology allows us to adjust the intensity of daylight entering the system quickly and conveniently.

Characterization of lithium fluoride windows at 450 K for shock wave experiments: Hugoniot curves and refractive index at 532 nm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fraizier, E.; Antoine, P.; Godefroit, J.-L.; Lanier, G.; Roy, G.; Voltz, C.

Lithium fluoride (LiF) windows are extensively used in traditional shock wave experiments because of their transparency beyond 100 GPa along [100] axis. A correct knowledge of the optical and mechanical properties of these windows is essential in order to analyze the experimental data and to determine the equation of state on a large variety of metals. This in mind, the windows supply is systematically characterized in order to determine the density, the thermal expansion and the crystalline orientation. Furthermore, an experimental campaign is conducted in order to characterize the windows properties under shock loading at 300 K and preheated conditions (450 K). This article describes the experiments, details the analysis and presents the results. Particle velocity measurements are carried out at the interface of a multiple windows stack using interferometer diagnostic (VISAR and IDL) at 532 nm wavelength. Shock velocity is calculated as a function of the time of flight through each window. The optical correction is calculated as the ratio of the apparent velocity gap and the particle velocity at the free surface. To go further, the Rankine-Hugoniot relations are applied to calculate the pressure and the density. Then, the results and uncertainties are presented and compared with literature data.

Methodology of mixed load customized bus lines and adjustment based on time windows

PubMed Central

Song, Rui

2018-01-01

Custom bus routes need to be optimized to meet the needs of a customized bus for personalized trips of different passengers. This paper introduced a customized bus routing problem in which trips for each depot are given, and each bus stop has a fixed time window within which trips should be completed. Treating a trip as a virtual stop was the first consideration in solving the school bus routing problem (SBRP). Then, the mixed load custom bus routing model was established with a time window that satisfies its requirement and the result were solved by Cplex software. Finally, a simple network diagram with three depots, four pickup stops, and five delivery stops was structured to verify the correctness of the model, and based on the actual example, the result is that all the buses ran 124.42 kilometers, the sum of kilometers was 10.35 kilometers less than before. The paths and departure times of the different busses that were provided by the model were evaluated to meet the needs of the given conditions, thus providing valuable information for actual work. PMID:29320505

Dynamic correlations at different time-scales with empirical mode decomposition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nava, Noemi; Di Matteo, T.; Aste, Tomaso

2018-07-01

We introduce a simple approach which combines Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) and Pearson's cross-correlations over rolling windows to quantify dynamic dependency at different time scales. The EMD is a tool to separate time series into implicit components which oscillate at different time-scales. We apply this decomposition to intraday time series of the following three financial indices: the S&P 500 (USA), the IPC (Mexico) and the VIX (volatility index USA), obtaining time-varying multidimensional cross-correlations at different time-scales. The correlations computed over a rolling window are compared across the three indices, across the components at different time-scales and across different time lags. We uncover a rich heterogeneity of interactions, which depends on the time-scale and has important lead-lag relations that could have practical use for portfolio management, risk estimation and investment decisions.

Counter tube window and X-ray fluorescence analyzer study

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hertel, R.; Holm, M.

1973-01-01

A study was performed to determine the best design tube window and X-ray fluorescence analyzer for quantitative analysis of Venusian dust and condensates. The principal objective of the project was to develop the best counter tube window geometry for the sensing element of the instrument. This included formulation of a mathematical model of the window and optimization of its parameters. The proposed detector and instrument has several important features. The instrument will perform a near real-time analysis of dust in the Venusian atmosphere, and is capable of measuring dust layers less than 1 micron thick. In addition, wide dynamic measurement range will be provided to compensate for extreme variations in count rates. An integral pulse-height analyzer and memory accumulate data and read out spectra for detail computer analysis on the ground.

Cubic spline interpolation with overlapped window and data reuse for on-line Hilbert Huang transform biomedical microprocessor.

PubMed

Chang, Nai-Fu; Chiang, Cheng-Yi; Chen, Tung-Chien; Chen, Liang-Gee

2011-01-01

On-chip implementation of Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) has great impact to analyze the non-linear and non-stationary biomedical signals on wearable or implantable sensors for the real-time applications. Cubic spline interpolation (CSI) consumes the most computation in HHT, and is the key component for the HHT processor. In tradition, CSI in HHT is usually performed after the collection of a large window of signals, and the long latency violates the realtime requirement of the applications. In this work, we propose to keep processing the incoming signals on-line with small and overlapped data windows without sacrificing the interpolation accuracy. 58% multiplication and 73% division of CSI are saved after the data reuse between the data windows.

"Smart inhibition": electrophysiological evidence for the suppression of conflict-generating task rules during task switching.

PubMed

Meiran, Nachshon; Hsieh, Shulan; Chang, Chi-Chih

2011-09-01

A major challenge for task switching is maintaining a balance between high task readiness and effectively ignoring irrelevant task rules. This calls for finely tuned inhibition that targets only the source of interference without adversely influencing other task-related representations. The authors show that irrelevant task rules generating response conflict are inhibited, causing their inefficient execution on the next trial (indicating the presence of competitor rule suppression[CRS];Meiran, Hsieh, & Dimov, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 36, 992-1002, 2010). To determine whether CRS influences task rules, rather than target stimuli or responses, the authors focused on the processing of the task cue before the target stimulus was presented and before the response could be chosen. As was predicted, CRS was found in the event-related potentials in two time windows during task cue processing. It was also found in three time windows after target presentation. Source localization analyses suggest the involvement of the right dorsal prefrontal cortex in all five time windows.

Inhibition of Neutrophil Collagenase/MMP-8 and Gelatinase B/MMP-9 and Protection against Endotoxin Shock

PubMed Central

Qiu, Zheng; Chen, Jianghai; Xu, Hanmei; Van den Steen, Philippe E.; Opdenakker, Ghislain; Wang, Min

2014-01-01

Endotoxin shock is a life-threatening disorder, associated with the rapid release of neutrophil enzymes, including neutrophil collagenase/matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8) and gelatinase B/matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9). After activation, these enzymes cleave extracellular matrix components and cytokines and thus may contribute to shock syndrome development. MMP inhibitors have been suggested as immunotherapy of endotoxin shock. However, little is known about the therapeutic time window of MMP inhibition. Here, a sublethal endotoxin shock mouse model was used to evaluate the effect of an MMP inhibiting peptide (P2) after intravenous or intraperitoneal injection and to study the time window between LPS and inhibitor injections. With the use of a specific ELISA the plasma P2 concentrations were monitored. Whereas we corroborated the treatment strategy of MMP targeting in endotoxin shock with a new inhibitor, we also demonstrated that the time window, within which effective MMP inhibition increased the survival rates, is rather limited. PMID:25762310

Micromirror-based manipulation of synchrotron x-ray beams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walko, D. A.; Chen, Pice; Jung, I. W.; Lopez, D.; Schwartz, C. P.; Shenoy, G. K.; Wang, Jin

2017-08-01

Synchrotron beamlines typically use macroscopic, quasi-static optics to manipulate x-ray beams. We present the use of dynamic microelectromechanical systems-based optics (MEMS) to temporally modulate synchrotron x-ray beams. We demonstrate this concept using single-crystal torsional MEMS micromirrors oscillating at frequencies of 75 kHz. Such a MEMS micromirror, with lateral dimensions of a few hundred micrometers, can interact with x rays by operating in grazing-incidence reflection geometry; x rays are deflected only when an x-ray pulse is incident on the rotating micromirror under appropriate conditions, i.e., at an angle less than the critical angle for reflectivity. The time window for such deflections depends on the frequency and amplitude of the MEMS rotation. We demonstrate that reflection geometry can produce a time window of a few microseconds. We further demonstrate that MEMS optics can isolate x rays from a selected synchrotron bunch or group of bunches. With ray-trace simulations we explain the currently achievable time windows and suggest a path toward improvements.

Influence of coatings on the thermal and mechanical processes at insulating glass units

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Penkova, Nina; Krumov, Kalin; Surleva, Andriana; Geshkova, Zlatka

2017-09-01

Different coatings on structural glass are used in the advances transparent facades and window systems in order to increase the thermal performance of the glass units and to regulate their optical properties. Coated glass has a higher absorptance in the solar spectrum which leads to correspondent higher temperature in the presence of solar load compared to the uncoated one. That process results in higher climatic loads at the insulating glass units (IGU) and in thermal stresses in the coated glass elements. Temperature fields and gradients in glass panes and climatic loads at IGU in window systems are estimated at different coating of glazed system. The study is implemented by numerical simulation of conjugate heat transfer in the window systems at summer time and presence of solar irradiation, as well as during winter night time.