Selectivity of linopirdine (DuP 996), a neurotransmitter release enhancer, in blocking voltage-dependent and calcium-activated potassium currents in hippocampal neurons.

ABSTRACT Linopirdine [DuP 996, 3,-1-phenylindolin-2-one], a putative cognition enhancing drug, increases acetylcholine release in rat brain tissue and improves performance in animal models of learning and memory. The mechanism whereby linopirdine enhances acetylcholine release has been proposed to involve inhibition of the M-type K ϩ current (I M ). Our study examines the selectivity of linopirdine for I M by determining its effects on other ionic currents present in rat hippocampal CA 1 neurons using patch clamp techniques. Linopirdine was found to block voltage-gated, calcium-activated and leak K ϩ currents in a dose-dependent manner. Of the seven currents measured, linopirdine was most selective for I M with an IC 50 of 2.4 Ϯ 0.4 M, followed by I C (measured as a medium afterhyperpolarization tail current, I mAHP ) with an IC 50 of 16.3 Ϯ 2.

Draft Genome Sequence of Burkholderia sp. MR1, a Methylarsenate-Reducing Bacterial Isolate from Florida Golf Course Soil

To elucidate the environmental organoarsenical biocycle, we isolated a soil organism, Burkholderia sp. MR1, which reduces relatively nontoxic pentavalent methylarsenate to the more toxic trivalent methylarsenite, with the goal of identifying the gene for the reductase. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Burkholderia sp. MR1

Chiral Anomaly and γ3π\gamma 3\pi

Measurement of the $\gamma 3\pi$ process has revealed a possible conflict with what should be a solid prediction generated by the chiral anomaly. We show that inclusion of appropirate energy-momentum dependence in the matrix element reduces the discrepancy.Comment: 8 page standard Latex fil

Radiative force from optical cycling on a diatomic molecule

We demonstrate a scheme for optical cycling in the polar, diatomic molecule strontium monofluoride (SrF) using the X ^2\Sigma^+\toA^2\Pi_{1/2} electronic transition. SrF's highly diagonal Franck-Condon factors suppress vibrational branching. We eliminate rotational branching by employing a quasi-cycling $N=1\to N^\prime=0$ type transition in conjunction with magnetic field remixing of dark Zeeman sublevels. We observe cycling fluorescence and deflection through radiative force of an SrF molecular beam using this scheme. With straightforward improvements our scheme promises to allow more than $10^5$ photon scatters, possibly enabling the direct laser cooling of SrF

Dealing with mobility: Understanding access anytime, anywhere

The rapid and accelerating move towards the adoption and use of mobile technologies has increasingly provided people and organisations with the ability to work away from the office and on the move. The new ways of working afforded by these technologies are often characterised in terms of access to information and people ‘anytime, anywhere’. This paper presents a study of mobile workers that highlights different facets of access to remote people and information, and different facets of anytime, anywhere. Four key factors in mobile work are identified from the study: the role of planning, working in ‘dead time’, accessing remote technological and informational resources, and monitoring the activities of remote colleagues. By reflecting on these issues, we can better understand the role of technology and artefact use in mobile work and identify the opportunities for the development of appropriate technological solutions to support mobile workers

GALEX UV Color Relations for Nearby Early-Type Galaxies

We use GALEX/optical photometry to construct color-color relationships for early-type galaxies sorted by morphological type. We have matched objects in the GALEX GR1 public release and the first IR1.1 internal release, with the RC3 early-type galaxies having a morphological type -5.5<T<-1.5 with mean error in T<1.5, and mean error on (B-V)T<0.05. After visual inspection of each match, we are left with 130 galaxies with a reliable GALEX pipeline photometry in the far-UV and near-UV bands. This sample is divided into Ellipticals (-5.5<T<-3.5) and Lenticulars (-3.5<T<-1.5). After correction for the Galactic extinction, the color-color diagrams FUV-NUV vs. (B-V)_{Tc} are plotted for the two subsamples. We find a tight anti-correlation between the FUV-NUV and (B-V)_{Tc} colors for Ellipticals, the UV color getting bluer when the (B-V)_{Tc} get redder. This relationship very likely is an extension of the color-metallicity relationship into the GALEX NUV band. We suspect that the main source of the correlation is metal line blanketing in the NUV band. The FUV-NUV vs B-V correlation has larger scatter for lenticular galaxies; we speculate this reflects the presence of low level star formation. If the latter objects (i.e. those that are blue both in FUV-NUV and B-V) are interpreted as harboring recent star formation activity, this would be the case for a few percent (~4%) of Ellipticals and ~15% of Lenticulars; this would make about 10% of early-type galaxies with residual star formation in our full sample of 130 early-type galaxies. We also plot FUV-NUV vs. the Mg_2 index and central velocity dispersion. We find a tight anti-correlation between FUV-NUV and the Mg_2 index(...).Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJS (abstract abridged), typos corrected in section 2.

Leadership in the British civil service: an interpretation

This article is essentially a polemic. The argument is that when politicians and officials now talk of ‘leadership’ in the British civil service they do not use that word in the way in which it was previously used. In the past leading civil servants, acting in partnership with ministers and within constitutional constraints, exercised leadership in the sense of setting example, inspiring confidence and encouraging loyalty. The loosening of traditional constitutional patterns, the marginalization of senior officials in the policy process and the emergence of business methods as the preferred model for public ­administration have led to a political and administrative environment in which leadership in the British civil service is now about encouraging patterns of behaviour which fit in with these changes. Leadership skills are now about ‘delivery’; they are not about motivation. It is time for politicians, officials and scholars to be open about this

Renormalization Group Running of Lepton Mixing Parameters in See-Saw Models with S4S_4 Flavor Symmetry

We study the renormalization group running of the tri-bimaximal mixing predicted by the two typical $S_4$ flavor models at leading order. Although the textures of the mass matrices are completely different, the evolution of neutrino mass and mixing parameters is found to display approximately the same pattern. For both normal hierarchy and inverted hierarchy spectrum, the quantum corrections to both atmospheric and reactor neutrino mixing angles are so small that they can be neglected. The evolution of the solar mixing angle $\theta_{12}$ depends on $\tan\beta$ and neutrino mass spectrum, the deviation from its tri-bimaximal value could be large. Taking into account the renormalization group running effect, the neutrino spectrum is constrained by experimental data on $\theta_{12}$ in addition to the self-consistency conditions of the models, and the inverted hierarchy spectrum is disfavored for large $\tan\beta$. The evolution of light-neutrino masses is approximately described by a common scaling factor.Comment: 23 pages, 6figure