Similar mechanisms of temporary bindings for identity and location of objects in healthy ageing:An eye tracking study with naturalistic scenes

The ability to maintain visual working memory (VWM) associations about the identity and location of objects has at times been found to decrease with age. To date, however, this age-related difficulty was mostly observed in artificial visual contexts (e.g., object arrays), and so it is unclear whether it may manifest in naturalistic contexts, and in which ways. In this eye-tracking study, 26 younger and 24 healthy older adults were asked to detect changes in a critical object situated in a photographic scene (192 in total), about its identity (the object becomes a different object but maintains the same position), location (the object only changes position) or both (the object changes in location and identity). Aging was associated with a lower change detection performance. A change in identity was harder to detect than a location change, and performance was best when both features changed, especially in younger adults. Eye movements displayed minor differences between age groups (e.g., shorter saccades in older adults) but were similarly modulated by the type of change. Latencies to the first fixation were longer and the amplitude of incoming saccades was larger when the critical object changed in location. Once fixated, the target object was inspected for longer when it only changed in identity compared to location. Visually salient objects were fixated earlier, but saliency did not affect any other eye movement measures considered, nor did it interact with the type of change. Our findings suggest that even though aging results in lower performance, it does not selectively disrupt temporary bindings of object identity, location, or their association in VWM, and highlight the importance of using naturalistic contexts to discriminate the cognitive processes that undergo detriment from those that are instead spared by aging

Decidability and complexity of the fragments of the modal logic of Allen's relations over the rationals

Interval temporal logics provide a natural framework for temporal reasoning about interval structures over linearly ordered domains, where intervals are taken as first-class citizens. Their expressive power and computational behaviour mainly depend on two parameters: the set of modalities they feature and the linear orders over which they are interpreted. In this paper, we consider all fragments of Halpern and Shoham's interval temporal logic hs with a decidable satisfiability problem over the rationals, and we provide a complete classification of them in terms of their expressiveness and computational complexity by solving the last few open problems

Clogging the Ubiquitin-Proteasome Machinery with Marine Natural Products: Last Decade Update.

The ubiquitin-proteasome pathway (UPP) is the central protein degradation system in eukaryotic cells, playing a key role in homeostasis maintenance, through proteolysis of regulatory and misfolded (potentially harmful) proteins. As cancer cells produce proteins inducing cell proliferation and inhibiting cell death pathways, UPP inhibition has been exploited as an anticancer strategy to shift the balance between protein synthesis and degradation towards cell death. Over the last few years, marine invertebrates and microorganisms have shown to be an unexhaustive factory of secondary metabolites targeting the UPP. These chemically intriguing compounds can inspire clinical development of novel antitumor drugs to cope with the incessant outbreak of side effects and resistance mechanisms induced by currently approved proteasome inhibitors (e.g., bortezomib). In this review, we report about (a) the role of the UPP in anticancer therapy, (b) chemical and biological properties of UPP inhibitors from marine sources discovered in the last decade, (c) high-throughput screening techniques for mining natural UPP inhibitors in organic extracts. Moreover, we will tell about the fascinating story of salinosporamide A, the first marine natural product to access clinical trials as a proteasome inhibitor for cancer treatment

M31N 2008-05d: A M 31 disk nova with a dipping supersoft X-ray light curve

Classical novae (CNe) represent a major class of supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) in the central region of our neighbouring galaxy M 31. Significantly different SSS properties of CNe in the M 31 bulge and disk were indicated by recent X-ray population studies, which however considered only a small number of disk novae. We initiated a target of opportunity (ToO) program with XMM-Newton to observe the SSS phases of CNe in the disk of M 31 and improve the database for further population studies. We analysed two XMM-Newton ToO observations triggered in Aug 2011 and Jan 2012, respectively, and extracted X-ray spectra and light curves. We report the discovery of an X-ray counterpart to the M 31 disk nova M31N 2008-05d. The X-ray spectrum of the object allows us to classify it as a SSS parametrised by a blackbody temperature of 32+/-6 eV. More than three years after the nova outburst, the X-ray light curve of the SSS exhibits irregular, broad dip features. These dips affect primarily the very soft part of the X-ray spectrum, which might indicate absorption effects. Dipping SSS light curves are rarely observed in M 31 novae. As well as providing an unparalleled statistical sample, the M 31 population of novae with SSS counterparts produces frequent discoveries of unusual objects, thereby underlining the importance of regular monitoring.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysic

X-ray monitoring of classical novae in the central region of M31. III. Autumn and winter 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12

[Abridged] Classical novae (CNe) represent the major class of supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) in the central region of our neighbouring galaxy M31. We performed a dedicated monitoring of the M31 central region, aimed to detect SSS counterparts of CNe, with XMM-Newton and Chandra between Nov and Mar of the years 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12. In total we detected 24 novae in X-rays. Seven of these sources were known from previous observations, including the M31 nova with the longest SSS phase, M31N~1996-08b, which was found to fade below our X-ray detection limit 13.8 yr after outburst. Of the new discoveries several novae exhibit significant variability in their short-term X-ray light curves with one object showing a suspected period of about 1.3 h. We studied the SSS state of the most recent outburst of a recurrent nova which had previously shown the shortest time ever observed between two outbursts (about 5 yr). The total number of M31 novae with X-ray counterpart was increased to 79 and we subjected this extended catalogue to detailed statistical studies. Four previously indicated correlations between optical and X-ray parameters could be confirmed and improved. We found indications that the multi-dimensional parameter space of nova properties might be dominated by a single physical parameter. We discuss evidence for a different X-ray behaviour of novae in the M31 bulge and disk. Exploration of the multi-wavelength parameter space of optical and X-ray measurements is shown to be a powerful tool for examining properties of extragalactic nova populations. While there are hints that the different stellar populations of M31 (bulge vs disk) produce dissimilar nova outbursts, there is also growing evidence that the overall behaviour of an average nova might be understood in surprisingly simple terms.Comment: 39 pages (half of them for 9 tables), 14 figures, accepted for publication in A&A; updated after language editing stag

Economic Growth, Productivity, and Public Education Funding: Is South Carolina a Death Spiral State?

As a result of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, most states experienced declines in employment, consumer spending, and economic productivity

Nova M31N 2007-12b: Supersoft X-rays reveal an intermediate polar?

For the He/N nova M31N 2007-12b, we analyzed XMM-Newton EPIC and Chandra HRC-I observations of our monitoring program performed at intervals of ten days and added results of a XMM-Newton target of opportunity observation and Swift XRT observations. The supersoft source (SSS) emission started between 21 and 30 d after the optical outburst and ended between 60 and 120 d after outburst, making M31N 2007-12b one of the few novae with the shortest SSS phase known. The X-ray spectrum was supersoft and can be fitted with a white dwarf (WD) atmosphere model with solar abundances absorbed by the Galactic foreground. The temperature of the WD atmosphere seems to increase at the beginning of the SSS phase from ~70 to ~80 eV. The luminosity of M31N 2007-12b during maximum was at the Eddington limit of a massive WD and dropped by ~30% in the observation 60 d after outburst. The radius of the emission region is ~6x10^8 cm. In the four bright state observations, we detected a stable 1110 s pulsation, which we interpret as the WD rotation period. In addition, we detect dips in three observations that might represent a 4.9 h or 9.8 h binary period of the system. Nova envelope models with <50% mixing between solar-like accreted material and the degenerate core of the WD can be used to describe the data. We derive a WD mass of 1.2 Msun, as well as an ejected and burned mass of 2.0x10^{-6} Msun} and 0.2x10^{-6} Msun, respectively. The observed periodicities indicate that nova M31N 2007-12b erupted in an intermediate polar (IP) system. The WD photospheric radius seems to be larger than expected for a non-magnetic WD but in the range for magnetic WDs in an IP system. (abridged)Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, A&A accepte

Unveiling metabolic vulnerability and plasticity of human osteosarcoma stem and differentiated cells to improve cancer therapy

Defining the metabolic phenotypes of cancer-initiating cells or cancer stem cells and of their differentiated counterparts might provide fundamental knowledge for improving or developing more effective therapies. In this context we extensively characterized the metabolic profiles of two osteosarcoma-derived cell lines, the 3AB-OS cancer stem cells and the parental MG-63 cells. To this aim Seahorse methodology-based metabolic flux analysis under a variety of conditions complemented with real time monitoring of cell growth by impedentiometric technique and confocal imaging were carried out. The results attained by selective substrate deprivation or metabolic pathway inhibition clearly show reliance of 3AB-OS on glycolysis and of MG-63 on glutamine oxidation. Treatment of the osteosarcoma cell lines with cisplatin resulted in additive inhibitory effects in MG-63 cells depleted of glutamine whereas it antagonized under selective withdrawal of glucose in 3AB-OS cells thereby manifesting a paradoxical pro-survival, cell-cycle arrest in S phase and antioxidant outcome. All together the results of this study highlight that the efficacy of specific metabolite starvation combined with chemotherapeutic drugs depends on the cancer compartment and suggest cautions in using it as a generalizable curative strategy

Imaging Photoelectron Transmission through Self-Assembled Monolayers: The Work-Function of Alkanethiols Coated Gold

In this paper, we present a new approach for studying the electronic properties of self-assembled monolayers and their interaction with a conductive substrate, the low-energy photoelectron imaging spectroscopy (LEPIS). LEPIS relies on imaging of photoelectrons ejected from a conductive substrate and subsequently transmitted through organic monolayers. Using this method, we measure the relative work-function of alkanethiols of different length on gold substrate, and we are able to follow the changes occurring when the surface coverage is varied. We also computed the work-function of model alkanethiols using a plane-wave density functional theory approach, in order to demonstrate the correlation between changes in the work-function with the monolayer organization and density

Supersoft X-rays reveal a classical nova in the M 31 globular cluster Bol 126

[Abridged] Classical novae (CNe) represent the main class of supersoft X-ray sources (SSSs) in the central region of our neighbouring galaxy M 31. Only three confirmed novae and three SSSs have been discovered in globular clusters (GCs) of any galaxy so far, of which one nova and two SSSs (including the nova) were found in M 31 GCs. To study the SSS state of CNe we carried out a high-cadence X-ray monitoring of the M 31 central area with XMM-Newton and Chandra. We analysed X-ray and optical data of a new transient X-ray source in the M 31 GC Bol 126, discovered serendipitously in Swift observations. Our optical data set was based on regular M 31 monitoring programmes from five different small telescopes. Additionally, we made use of Pan-STARRS 1 data obtained during the PAndromeda survey. Our observations reveal that the X-ray source in Bol 126 is the third SSS in an M 31 GC and can be confirmed as the second CN in the M 31 GC system. This nova is named M31N 2010-10f. Its properties in the X-ray and optical regimes agree with a massive white dwarf (M_WD >~ 1.3 M_sun) in the binary system. Incorporating the data on previously found (suspected) novae in M 31 GCs we used our high-cadence X-ray monitoring observations to estimate a tentative nova rate in the M 31 GC system of 0.05 /yr/GC. An optical estimate, based on the recent 10.5-year WeCAPP survey, gives a lower nova rate, which is compatible with the X-ray rate on the 95% confidence level. There is growing evidence that the nova rate in GCs is higher than expected from primordial binary formation and under conditions as in the field. Dynamical binary formation and/or additional accretion from the intracluster medium are possible scenarios for an increased nova rate, but observational confirmation for this enhancement has been absent, so far. Regular X-ray monitoring observations of M 31 provide a promising strategy to find these novae.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables; accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysic