Neuroimaging evidence implicating cerebellum in support of sensory/cognitive processes associated with thirst.

Recent studies implicate the cerebellum, long considered strictly a motor control structure, in cognitive, sensory, and affective phenomenon. The cerebellum, a phylogenetically ancient structure, has reciprocal ancient connections to the hypothalamus, a structure important in vegetative functions. The present study investigated whether the cerebellum was involved in vegetative functions and the primal emotions engendered by them. Using positron emission tomography, we examined the effects on the cerebellum of the rise of plasma sodium concentration and the emergence of thirst in 10 healthy adults. The correlation of regional cerebral blood flow with subjects' ratings of thirst showed major activation in the vermal central lobule. During the development of thirst, the anterior and posterior quadrangular lobule, lingula, and the vermis were activated. At maximum thirst and then during irrigation of the mouth with water to alleviate dryness, the cerebellum was less activated. However, 3 min after drinking to satiation, the anterior quadrangular lobule and posterior cerebellum were highly activated. The increased cerebellar activity was not related to motor behavior as this did not occur. Instead, responses in ancient cerebellar regions (vermis, fastigal nucleus, archicerebellum) may be more directly related to vegetative and affective aspects of thirst experiences, whereas activity in neocerebellar (posterior) regions may be related to sensory and cognitive aspects. Moreover, the cerebellum is apparently not involved in the computation of thirst per se but rather is activated during changes in thirst/satiation state when the brain is "vigilant" and is monitoring its sensory systems. Some neocerebellar activity may also reflect an intentionality for gratification by drinking inherent in the consciousness of thirst

Charge Renormalization, Effective Interactions, and Thermodynamics of Deionized Colloidal Suspensions

Thermodynamic properties of charge-stabilised colloidal suspensions depend sensitively on the effective charge of the macroions, which can be substantially lower than the bare charge in the case of strong counterion-macroion association. A theory of charge renormalization is proposed, combining an effective one-component model of charged colloids with a thermal criterion for distinguishing between free and associated counterions. The theory predicts, with minimal computational effort, osmotic pressures of deionized suspensions of highly charged colloids in close agreement with large-scale simulations of the primitive model.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Effects of Ionospheric Damping on MHD Wave Mode Structure

We calculate the mode structure of magnetospheric MHD waves on a meridional plane. We have added the effect of ionospheric dissipation to the three-dimensional dipole field MHD model of Lee and Lysak (1999); this model allows a realistic Alfven speed profile for the plasmasphere and realistic boundary conditions at the outer boundaries that vary with respect to local time. Using power spectra and plots of spatial mode structure, we show that the two-dimensional transverse modes on the dipolar meridian are strongly affected by ionospheric damping, but the compressional modes are not. The location of field line resonances spreads wide as the damping increases, but the compressional mode structure remains stable

The Development of Techie Times

Summer 2020 provided the motivation and opportunity to move summer outreach programs into the virtual world. Faculty and students in the Purdue University School of Engineering Technology moved face-to-face programs into a middle school program called Techie Times. This program was designed to provide students with an organized platform occurring just before the school year started, allowing them to learn at home, working with family, or independently. The program was designed to take place nonconsecutively over eight days, covering five various STEM topics. Some of these activities were already a part of the middle school curriculum; others were not. That provided an opportunity to engage students and teach them principles that support various engineering technology curricula. Students were recruited from across the country. Students were placed into three cohorts sorted by biological age and then into smaller groups to enhance interactions. Volunteers moderated the smaller groups representing corporate engineering retirees, university professors, and others interested in helping. The volunteers were provided with information to support the principles being learned in the activity of the day. They asked the students to demonstrate what they did at home and then asked them questions about what they learned from the activity. In the older age groups, volunteers generated hypotheses and tested them to see if they worked, thus providing a challenge for the older and more experienced students. This camp proved to be well-timed on the summer calendar. Parents expressed their pleasure in their students becoming a bit more disciplined as they transitioned from their summer activities to the upcoming school year. This paper will review the program’s curriculum, observations by the parents/guardians, and feedback from the students. The program is an example of a well-transformed outreach program that engaged and enlightened students

Tribal Relationships in the Gesneriaceae: Evidence from DNA Sequences of the Chloroplast Gene \u3cem\u3endh\u3c/em\u3eF

The tribal relationships of the Gesneriaceae are investigated using ndhF sequences. A full analysis of 70 taxa including 16 species from the Scrophulariaceae, Bigoniaceae, and Acanthaceae as outgroups, resulted in two most-parsimonious trees of 5610 steps each. In all trees the Gesneriaceae were a monophyletic group and Paulownia was the closest single-species outgroup for the analysis. Further analyses eliminated all but the members of the Gesneriaceae and Paulownia in order to better asses relationships within the family. The smaller analysis resulted in a single most-parsimonious tree of 4613 steps. The Klugieae are identified as the sister to the remainder of the family and could potentially be separated as a distinct subfamily. The subfamilies Cyrtandroideae (excluding Klugieae) and Gesnerioideae are monophyletic. The placement of Coronallthereae in Cyrtandroideae does not have support from this analysis, whereas its placement in Gesnerioideae is supported. Alternatively Coronanthereae could be segregated as a seperate subfamily but in order to avoid a paraphyletic Gesnerioideae would either include the Napeantheae and Beslerieae or elevate these two tribes to an additional subfamily. Within Gesnerioideae the genus Sinningia is removed from the tribe Gloxinieae into the Sinningieae, which also contains the recently combined species Sinningia brasiliensis (Lietzia), as well as Paliavana and Vanhouttea. The Episcieae, Gesnerieae, Napeantheae, and Beslerieae are identified as monophyletic groups, as are the remainder of the Gloxineae with Sinningia sensu lato removed. Within Cyrtandroideae, several well-supported, monophyletic lineages within the large, heterogeneous tribe Didymocarpeae are identified, and with the current data the tribe Trichosporeae appears to be polyphyletic. The distribution of chromosome numbers, nodal anatomy, placental structure, and stem modification are examined based on these molecular trees

Random-Matrix Theory of Quantum Size Effects on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Metal Particles

The distribution function of the local density of states is computed exactly for the Wigner-Dyson ensemble of random Hamiltonians. In the absence of time-reversal symmetry, precise agreement is obtained with the "supersymmetry" theory by Efetov and Prigodin of the NMR lineshape in disordered metal particles. Upon breaking time-reversal symmetry, the variance of the Knight shift in the smallest particles is reduced by a universal factor of 2/3. ***To be published in Physical Review B.****Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX-3.0, 1 postscript figure, INLO-PUB-940819; [2017: figure included in text