Sephardiellinae, a new Middle Triassic conodont subfamily

Sephardiellinae (nov. subfam.) encompasses a Middle Triassic Gondolleloid lineage that originated in the Sephardic realm, westernmost shallow Neotethys, from where, in the course of the Ladinian and earliest Carnian, some of its species spread to the world oceans, before extinction as a result of the Carnian salinity crisis. It is composed of two genera, Sephardiella and Pseudofurnishius. Differential criteria in its septimembrate apparatus are the basal cavity structure of P1 element and morphological variations in the P2 and S3 elements.La nueva subfamilia Sephardiellinae está comprendida dentro del linaje de Gondolellidae del Triásico Medio y se originó en el Dominio Sefardí, la parte más occidental del Neotetis. Durante el Ladiniense-Carniense Inferior, algunas de sus especies irradian y se distribuyen por todos los océanos. Su extinción está relacionada con la crisis de salinidad que tuvo lugar en el Carniense. La nueva subfamilia está constituida por dos géneros, Sephardiella y Pseudofurnishius las diferencias morfológicas de su aparato septimembrado, como son la estructura de la cavidad basal del elemento P1 y las variaciones morfológicas de los elementos P2 y S3, constituyen el criterio utilizado

Magnetic long-range order induced by quantum relaxation in single-molecule magnets

Can magnetic interactions between single-molecule magnets (SMMs) in a crystal establish long-range magnetic order at low temperatures deep in the quantum regime, where the only electron spin-fluctuations are due to incoherent magnetic quantum tunneling (MQT)? Put inversely: can MQT provide the temperature dependent fluctuations needed to destroy the ordered state above some finite Tc, although it should basically itself be a T-independent process? Our experiments on two novel Mn4 SMMs provide a positive answer to the above, showing at the same time that MQT in the SMMs has to involve spin-lattice coupling at a relaxation rate equaling that predicted and observed recently for nuclear spin-mediated quantum relaxation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Thermal Soak Analysis of Earth Entry Vehicles

The Multi-Mission Earth Entry Vehicle project is developing an integrated tool called Multi Mission System Analysis for Planetary Entry Descent and Landing that will provide key technology solutions including mass sizing, aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, and thermal and structural analysis for any given sample return mission. Thermal soak analysis and temperature predictions of various components including the payload container of the entry vehicle are part of the solution that this tool will offer to mission designers. The present paper focuses on the thermal soak analysis of an entry vehicle design based on the Mars Sample Return entry vehicle geometry and discusses a technical approach to develop parametric models for thermal soak analysis that will be integrated into the tool

The ROCK inhibitor Fasudil prevents chronic restraint stress-induced depressive-like behaviors and dendritic spine loss in rat hippocampus

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.Background: Dendritic arbor simplification and dendritic spine loss in the hippocampus, a limbic structure implicated in mood disorders, are assumed to contribute to symptoms of depression. These morphological changes imply modifications in dendritic cytoskeleton. Rho GTPases are regulators of actin dynamics through their effector Rho kinase. We have reported that chronic stress promotes depressive-like behaviors in rats along with dendritic spine loss in apical dendrites of hippocampal pyramidal neurons, changes associated with Rho kinase activation. The present study proposes that the Rho kinase inhibitor Fasudil may prevent the stress-induced behavior and dendritic spine loss. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with saline or Fasudil (i.p., 10 mg/kg) starting 4 days prior to and maintained during the restraint stress procedure (2.5 h/d for 14 days). Nonstressed control animals were injected with saline or Fasudil for 18 days. At 24 hours after treatment, forced swimming test, Golgi-staining, and immuno-western blot were performed. Results: Fasudil prevented stress-induced immobility observed in the forced swimming test. On the other hand, Fasudiltreated control animals showed behavioral patterns similar to those of saline-treated controls. Furthermore, we observed that stress induced an increase in the phosphorylation of MYPT1 in the hippocampus, an exclusive target of Rho kinase. This change was accompanied by dendritic spine loss of apical dendrites of pyramidal hippocampal neurons. Interestingly, increased pMYPT1 levels and spine loss were both prevented by Fasudil administration. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Fasudil may prevent the development of abnormal behavior and spine loss induced by chronic stress by blocking Rho kinase activity.https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/article/20/4/336/263217

Depression symptoms and mortality in elderly peruvian navy veterans: a retrospective cohort study

Abstract: Our study was design to determine the association between depressive symptoms and mortality in adults over 60 years old Navy Peruvian Veterans. We performed a retrospective cohort study based on a previous cohort study. A total of 1681 patients over 60 years old were included between 2010–2015. Demographic information, self-reported information about falls, physical frailty assessment, tobacco consumption, hypertension, Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and was collected. Depression was assessed by the short form of the Geriatric Depression Scale. We found that depressive symptoms were present in 24.9% of the participants and 40.5% of them died. Mortality risk in patients with depressive symptoms, physical frailty, and male sex was: RR of 23.1 (95% CI: 11.7–45.7), 3.84 (95% CI: 2.16–6.82), and 1.37 (95% CI: 1.07–1.75) respectively. We concluded that depressive symptoms in Peruvian retired military personnel and their immediate relatives are high and are significatively associated with mortality. Also, being male and frail was associated with an increased risk of death. This reinforces that early detection and assessment of depressive symptoms could be an opportunity to improve the health status of older adults

USE OF MORINGA SEED (Moringa oleifera Lam.) AS A BIOCOAGULANT TO IMPROVE SURFACE WATER QUALITY

Using Moringa oleifera (Moringa oleifera Lam.) seed as a biocoagulant to enhance surface water's physical and chemical quality was the goal of this study. The methodology applied for the generation of experimental data was through the use of the Jar Test equipment, in a dose of 40 mg/L to 140 mg/L, then a fast mixing of 100 rpm for 1 minute and a slow mixing of 40 rpm for 10 minutes was performed, and sedimentation was left for 5 to 30 minutes, with 5 minutes intervals between each dose. The results show that an optimal biocoagulant dose of 100 mg/L at 20 minutes produced a turbidity reduction effectiveness of 97.06%. Hardness fell by 12% of its starting value, conductivity and total dissolved solids increased dramatically, and there was a 92.3% reduction in perceived colour, which showed that the use of Moringa seeds as a coagulant had a favourable effect on reducing the concentration of turbidity and colour. Because of this, Moringa (Moringa oleifera Lam.) can be used as a natural source to purify drinking water. The Tukey HSD test applied to the turbidity removal percentages, indicates that the means are not significantly different. However, the experimental evaluation indicates that after 20 minutes, the best results are obtained

Characterization of atmospheric aerosol size distributions at the Izaña station connections to new particle formation at a high altitude

Understanding the process of New Particle Formation (NPF) can help us both to protect human health and to fight climate change. On the one hand, nanometric particles can enter the lungs and penetrate into the blood circulation and cross the blood-brain barrier. On the other hand, they can act as cloud condensation nuclei, thus altering the properties and distribution of clouds, and interact with the solar radiation. Despite recent advances in the instrumentation to detect newly formed particles, the mechanism of NPF and the participating precursors are still under investigation, especially at high-altitude and mountain sites reaching the free troposphere. In fact, not only the instrument maintenance is complicated by the low atmospheric pressure there, but also the identification of the NPF events may be challenging due to the complex local topography affecting the spatial extent of the phenomenon. For example, changes of air mass can occur during daytime due to the transport of gases and particles from the lower altitude. To investigate NPF in marine free troposphere, we performed a three-month long measurement campaign between April 2nd, 2022, and June 27th, 2022, at the high-altitude mountain station of Izaña (2367 m a.s.l.), on the island of Tenerife, Spain. The observations included high time resolution size distribution measurements of particles with a diameter between 1.2 nm and 533 nm and of atmospheric ions with a diameter between 0.8 nm and 38 nm, which were detected using a Neutral cluster and Air Ion Spectrometer (NAIS), a nano-Condensation Nucleus Counter (nCNC), and a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS). After classifying the daily aerosol size distribution data into NPF events and non-events, the influence of the boundary layer dynamics to the process was explored. We compared the time evolution of the size distribution surface plots to the trends of meteorological variables and boundary layer tracers (i.e., black carbon, CO, and water mixing ratio). The results show the importance of the air masses from vertical transport on the process of NPF (an example is shown in Figure 1). We, thus, investigated the typical conditions under which NPF was detected. Furthermore, the role of ions in the NPF process will be investigated. We will also show the growth rates and formation rates for sub-10 nm particles in Izaña, which are important to understand the potential mechanisms that promote the gas-to-particle conversion above the marine stratocumulus layer. The role of the precursor vapor sulfuric acid to NPF will be discussed as well

Testing Gaussianity on Archeops Data

A Gaussianity analysis using a goodness-of-fit test and the Minkowski functionals on the sphere has been performed to study the measured Archeops Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) temperature anisotropy data for a 143 GHz Archeops bolometer. We consider large angular scales, greater than 1.8 degrees, and a large fraction of the North Galactic hemisphere, around 16%, with a galactic latitude b > 15 degrees. The considered goodness-of-fit test, first proposed by Rayner & Best (1989), has been applied to the data after a signal-to-noise decomposition. The three Minkowski functionals on the sphere have been used to construct a chi-square statistic using different thresholds. The first method has been calibrated using simulations of Archeops data containing the CMB signal and instrumental noise in order to check its asymptotic convergence. Two kind of maps produced with two different map-making techniques (coaddition and Mirage) have been analysed. Archeops maps for both Mirage and coaddition map-making, have been found to be compatible with Gaussianity. From these results we can exclude a dust and atmospheric contamination larger than 7.8% (90% CL). Also the non-linear coupling parameter f_{nl} can be constrained to be -800 < f_{nl} < 1100 at the 95% CL and on angular scales of 1.8 degrees. For comparison, the same method has been applied to data from the NASA WMAP satellite in the same region of sky. The 1-year and 3-year releases have been used. Results are compatible with those obtained with Archeops, implying in particular an upper limit for f_{nl} on degree angular scales.Comment: A&A accepted. The limits on the contamination and the fnl parameter have been improve

Measurement of total and differential cross sections of neutrino and antineutrino coherent pi(+/-) production on carbon

Neutrino induced coherent charged pion production on nuclei, (nu) over bar (mu)A -\u3e mu(+/-)pi(-/+) A, is a rare inelastic interaction in which the four-momentum squared transferred to the nucleus is nearly zero, leaving it intact. We identify such events in the scintillator of MINERvA by reconstructing vertical bar t vertical bar from the final state pion and muon momenta and by removing events with evidence of energetic nuclear recoil or production of other final state particles. We measure the total neutrino and antineutrino cross sections as a function of neutrino energy between 2 and 20 GeV and measure flux integrated differential cross sections as a function of Q(2), E-pi, and theta(pi). The Q(2) dependence and equality of the neutrino and antineutrino cross sections at finite Q(2) provide a confirmation of Adler\u27s partial conservation of axial current hypothesis

Aspects of the FM Kondo Model: From Unbiased MC Simulations to Back-of-an-Envelope Explanations

Effective models are derived from the ferromagnetic Kondo lattice model with classical corespins, which greatly reduce the numerical effort. Results for these models are presented. They indicate that double exchange gives the correct order of magnitude and the correct doping dependence of the Curie temperature. Furthermore, we find that the jump in the particle density previously interpreted as phase separation is rather explained by ferromagnetic polarons.Comment: Proceedings of Wandlitz Days of Magnetism 200