Field induced magnetic transition and metastability in Co substituted Mn2SbMn_{2}Sb

A detailed investigation of first order ferrimagnetic (FRI) to antiferromagnetic (AFM) transition in Co (15%) doped $Mn_2Sb$ is carried out. These measurements demonstrate anomalous thermomagnetic irreversibility and glass-like frozen FRI phase at low temperatures. The irreversibility arising between the supercooling and superheating spinodals is distinguised in an ingenious way from the irreversibility arising due to kinetic arrest. Field annealing measurements shows reentrant FRI-AFM-FRI transition with increasing temperature. These measurements also show that kinetic arrest band and supercooling band are anitcorrelated i.e regions which are kinetically arrested at higher temperature have lower supercooling temperature and vice versa.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Upregulation of brain renin angiotensin system by 27-hydroxycholesterol in Alzheimer's disease

In spite of the fact that cholesterol does not pass the blood-brain barrier, hypercholesterolemia has been linked to increase Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk. Hypertension is another risk factor and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) activity is known to be increased in AD. Furthermore, a lower incidence of AD has been reported in patients taking anti-hypertensive drugs. Here we show that the levels of angiotensinogen (AGT) and ACE are increased in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with mild cognitive impairment and AD. Moreover, we show ACE activity in the CSF to be positively correlated with both plasma and CSF levels of 27-hydroxycholesterol (27-OH), an oxysterol known to pass through the BBB and taken up from the circulation by the brain. In addition, treatment of rat primary neurons, astrocytes, and human neuroblastoma cells with 27-OH resulted in increased production of AGT. Our results demonstrate that upregulation of renin-angiotensin system (RAS) in AD brains occurs not only at the enzymatic level (ACE) but also at the substrate level (AGT). The possibility that 27-OH is part of a mechanism linking hypercholesterolemia with increased brain RAS activity and increased AD risk is discussed

A conserved arginine with non-conserved function is a key determinant of agonist selectivity in α7 nicotinic ACh receptors

The α7 and α4β2* (“*” denotes possibly assembly with another subunit) nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are the most abundant nAChRs in the mammalian brain. These receptors are the most targeted nAChRs in drug discovery programmes for brain disorders. However, the development of subtype-specific agonists remains challenging due to the high degree of sequence homology and conservation of function in nAChRs. We have developed C(10) variants of cytisine, a partial agonist of α4β2 nAChR that has been used for smoking cessation. The C(10) methyl analogue used in this study displays negligible affinity for α7 nAChR, while retaining high affinity for α4β2 nAChR.Fil: Minguez Viñas, Teresa. Oxford Brookes University; Reino UnidoFil: Nielsen, Beatriz Elizabeth. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Bahía Blanca. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmacia; ArgentinaFil: Shoemark, Deborah K.. University Of Bristol; Reino UnidoFil: Gotti, Cecilia. Università degli Studi di Milano; ItaliaFil: Sessions, Richard B.. University Of Bristol; Reino UnidoFil: Mulholland, Adrian J.. University Of Bristol; Reino UnidoFil: Bouzat, Cecilia Beatriz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Bahía Blanca. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y Farmacia; ArgentinaFil: Wonnacott, Susan. University of Bath; Reino UnidoFil: Gallagher, Timothy. University Of Bristol; Reino UnidoFil: Bermudez, Isabel. University of Oxford; Reino UnidoFil: Oliveira, Ana Sofia. University Of Bristol; Reino Unid

Cerebrospinal fluid neurogranin in an inducible mouse model of neurodegeneration: A translatable marker of synaptic degeneration

Synapse impairment is thought to be an early event in Alzheimer's disease (AD); dysfunction and loss of synapses are linked to cognitive symptoms that precede neuronal loss and neurodegeneration. Neurogranin (Ng) is a somatodendritic protein that has been shown to be reduced in brain tissue but increased in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of AD patients compared to age-matched controls. High levels of CSF Ng have been shown to reflect a more rapid AD progression. To gauge the translational value of Ng as a biomarker, we developed a new, highly sensitive, digital enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) on the Simoa platform to measure Ng in both mouse and human CSF. We investigated and confirmed that Ng levels are increased in the CSF of patients with AD compared to controls. In addition, we explored how Ng is altered in the brain and CSF of transgenic mice that display progressive neuronal loss and synaptic degeneration following the induction of p25 overexpression. In this model, we found that Ng levels increased in CSF when neurodegeneration was induced, peaking after 2 weeks, while they decreased in brain. Our data suggest that CSF Ng is a biomarker of synaptic degeneration with translational value

Deep Learning and Statistical Models for Time-Critical Pedestrian Behaviour Prediction

The time it takes for a classifier to make an accurate prediction can be crucial in many behaviour recognition problems. For example, an autonomous vehicle should detect hazardous pedestrian behaviour early enough for it to take appropriate measures. In this context, we compare the switching linear dynamical system (SLDS) and a three-layered bi-directional long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network, which are applied to infer pedestrian behaviour from motion tracks. We show that, though the neural network model achieves an accuracy of 80%, it requires long sequences to achieve this (100 samples or more). The SLDS, has a lower accuracy of 74%, but it achieves this result with short sequences (10 samples). To our knowledge, such a comparison on sequence length has not been considered in the literature before. The results provide a key intuition of the suitability of the models in time-critical problems

Characterization of endosperm proteins and bread-making quality in wheat breeding lines carrying resistance genes for Mayetiola destructor and/or Heterodera avenae.

The experimental material included thirteen bread wheat-breeding lines that carry genes for resistance to M. destruc¬tor and/or H. avenae. The sources of these resistances are the wild species Ae. triuncialis and Ae. ventricosa (lines TR and H-93, respectively) (Delibes et al. 1993, 1997; Romero et al. 1998). We have determined the composition in HMW-glutenin subunits (related with bread-making quality), puroindoline proteins (related with hardness of grain), and waxy proteins (related with starch viscosity). In addition to, of prolamins by electrophoresis SDS-PAGE indicated the homogeneity of the lines

Synthesis of fractal light pulses by quasi-direct space-to-time pulse shaping

This paper was published in OPTICS LETTERS and is made available as an electronic reprint with the permission of OSA. The paper can be found at the following URL on the OSA website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OL.37.001145. Systematic or multiple reproduction or distribution to multiple locations via electronic or other means is prohibited and is subject to penalties under law[EN] We demonstrated a simple diffractive method to map the self-similar structure shown in squared radial coordinate of any set of circularly symmetric fractal plates into self-similar light pulses in the corresponding temporal domain. The space-to-time mapping of the plates was carried out by means of a kinoform diffractive lens under femtosecond illumination. The spatio-temporal characteristics of the fractal pulses obtained in this way were measured by means of a spectral interferometry technique assisted by a fiber optics coupler (STARFISH). Our proposal allows synthesizing suited sequences of focused fractal femtosecond pulses potentially useful for several current applications, such as femtosecond material processing, atomic, and molecular control of chemical processes or generation of nonlinear effects. © 2012 Optical Society of America.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN) and FEDER, through the projects FIS2010-15746, DPI2008-02953, and SAUUL (CSD2007-00013) and the Fundació Caixa Castelló (P1-1B2010-26).Monsoriu Serra, JA.; Mendoza-Yero, O.; Alonso, B.; Minguez-Vega, G.; Sola, I.; Lancis, J. (2012). Synthesis of fractal light pulses by quasi-direct space-to-time pulse shaping. Optics Letters. 37(7):1145-1147. https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.37.001145S11451147377Berry, M. V. (1979). Diffractals. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General, 12(6), 781-797. doi:10.1088/0305-4470/12/6/008Allain, C., & Cloitre, M. (1987). Spatial spectrum of a general family of self-similar arrays. Physical Review A, 36(12), 5751-5757. doi:10.1103/physreva.36.5751Hamburger-Lidar, D. A. (1996). Elastic scattering by deterministic and random fractals: Self-affinity of the diffraction spectrum. Physical Review E, 54(1), 354-370. doi:10.1103/physreve.54.354Jaggard, A. D., & Jaggard, D. L. (1998). Scattering from fractal superlattices with variable lacunarity. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 15(6), 1626. doi:10.1364/josaa.15.001626Fermann, M. E., Kruglov, V. I., Thomsen, B. C., Dudley, J. M., & Harvey, J. D. (2000). Self-Similar Propagation and Amplification of Parabolic Pulses in Optical Fibers. Physical Review Letters, 84(26), 6010-6013. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.84.6010Kruglov, V. I., Peacock, A. C., Harvey, J. D., & Dudley, J. M. (2002). Self-similar propagation of parabolic pulses in normal-dispersion fiber amplifiers. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 19(3), 461. doi:10.1364/josab.19.000461Ilday, F. Ö., Buckley, J. R., Clark, W. G., & Wise, F. W. (2004). Self-Similar Evolution of Parabolic Pulses in a Laser. Physical Review Letters, 92(21). doi:10.1103/physrevlett.92.213902Dudley, J. M., Finot, C., Richardson, D. J., & Millot, G. (2007). Self-similarity in ultrafast nonlinear optics. Nature Physics, 3(9), 597-603. doi:10.1038/nphys705Vinoy, K. J., Jose, K. A., Varadan, V. K., & Varadan, V. V. (2001). Hilbert curve fractal antenna: A small resonant antenna for VHF/UHF applications. Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, 29(4), 215-219. doi:10.1002/mop.1136Matteo, J. A., & Hesselink, L. (2005). Fractal extensions of near-field aperture shapes for enhanced transmission and resolution. Optics Express, 13(2), 636. doi:10.1364/opex.13.000636Wang, S.-W., Chen, X., Lu, W., Li, M., & Wang, H. (2007). Fractal independently tunable multichannel filters. Applied Physics Letters, 90(21), 211113. doi:10.1063/1.2743380Saavedra, G., Furlan, W. D., & Monsoriu, J. A. (2003). Fractal zone plates. Optics Letters, 28(12), 971. doi:10.1364/ol.28.000971Tao, S. H., Yuan, X.-C., Lin, J., & Burge, R. E. (2006). Sequence of focused optical vortices generated by a spiral fractal zone plate. Applied Physics Letters, 89(3), 031105. doi:10.1063/1.2226995Furlan, W. D., Giménez, F., Calatayud, A., & Monsoriu, J. A. (2009). Devil’s vortex-lenses. Optics Express, 17(24), 21891. doi:10.1364/oe.17.021891Furlan, W. D., Saavedra, G., & Monsoriu, J. A. (2007). White-light imaging with fractal zone plates. Optics Letters, 32(15), 2109. doi:10.1364/ol.32.002109Mendoza-Yero, O., Fernández-Alonso, M., Mínguez-Vega, G., Lancis, J., Climent, V., & Monsoriu, J. A. (2009). Fractal generalized zone plates. Journal of the Optical Society of America A, 26(5), 1161. doi:10.1364/josaa.26.001161Mendoza-Yero, O., Mínguez-Vega, G., Fernández-Alonso, M., Lancis, J., Tajahuerce, E., Climent, V., & Monsoriu, J. A. (2009). Optical filters with fractal transmission spectra based on diffractive optics. Optics Letters, 34(5), 560. doi:10.1364/ol.34.000560Lavrinenko, A. V., Zhukovsky, S. V., Sandomirski, K. S., & Gaponenko, S. V. (2002). Propagation of classical waves in nonperiodic media: Scaling properties of an optical Cantor filter. Physical Review E, 65(3). doi:10.1103/physreve.65.036621Mínguez-Vega, G., Mendoza-Yero, O., Lancis, J., Gisbert, R., & Andrés, P. (2008). Diffractive optics for quasi-direct space-to-time pulse shaping. Optics Express, 16(21), 16993. doi:10.1364/oe.16.016993Alonso, B., Sola, Í. J., Varela, Ó., Hernández-Toro, J., Méndez, C., San Román, J., … Roso, L. (2010). Spatiotemporal amplitude-and-phase reconstruction by Fourier-transform of interference spectra of high-complex-beams. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 27(5), 933. doi:10.1364/josab.27.000933Lepetit, L., Chériaux, G., & Joffre, M. (1995). Linear techniques of phase measurement by femtosecond spectral interferometry for applications in spectroscopy. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 12(12), 2467. doi:10.1364/josab.12.002467Kavehrad, M., & Hamzeh, B. Y. (2004). Ultrashort-pulsed FSO communication system with wavelet fractal modulation. Performance, Quality of Service, and Control of Next-Generation Communication Networks II. doi:10.1117/12.57067

Synthesis and in vivo evaluation of non-hepatotoxic acetaminophen analogs

A series of acetaminophen (APAP) analogs, 2-(1,1-dioxido-3-oxo-1,2-benzisothiazol-2(3H)-yl)-N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)alkanecarboxamides, bearing a heterocyclic moiety linked to the p-acylaminophenol fragment, were prepared in a general project to develop APAP analogs with modulated pharmacokinetic profiles. Unexpectedly, the products described maintained the in vivo analgesic profile, while the characteristic hepatotoxicity of APAP was consistently reduced. One of the products, 5a, was studied in vivo in comparison with APAP. Compound 5a displayed an analgesic efficacy comparable to that of APAP. A relatively high acute oral dose of 5a (6 mmol/kg) produced no measurable toxicity, whereas the equimolar dose of APAP increased transaminase activity, depleted hepatic and renal glutathione, and resulted in mortality. In human hepatocytes (HEPG-2) and in human primary cultures of normal liver cells, APAP, but not 5a, was associated with apoptotic cell death, Fas-ligand up-regulation, and CAR (constitutive androstane receptor) activation, contributing to a favorable safety profile of 5a as an orally delivered analgesic.MDA972-03-C-010 (Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency-DARPA)Neurobiotechnology Program of Louisian

An assigned responsibility system for robotic teleoperation control

This paper proposes an architecture that explores a gap in the spectrum of existing strategies for robot control mode switching in adjustable autonomy. In situations where the environment is reasonably known and/or predictable, pre-planning these control changes could relieve robot operators of the additional task of deciding when and how to switch. Such a strategy provides a clear division of labour between the automation and the human operator(s) before the job even begins, allowing for individual responsibilities to be known ahead of time, limiting confusion and allowing rest breaks to be planned. Assigned Responsibility is a new form of adjustable autonomy-based teleoperation that allows the selective inclusion of automated control elements at key stages of a robot operation plan’s execution. Progression through these stages is controlled by automatic goal accomplishment tracking. An implementation is evaluated through engineering tests and a usability study, demonstrating the viability of this approach and offering insight into its potential applications