Antiepileptogenic effects of trilostane in the kainic acid model of temporal lobe epilepsy

Objective: Epileptogenesis after status epilepticus (SE) has a faster onset in rats treated to reduce brain levels of the anticonvulsant neurosteroid allopregnanolone with the 5α-reductase inhibitor finasteride; however, it still has to be evaluated whether treatments aimed at increasing allopregnanolone levels could result in the opposite effect of delaying epileptogenesis. This possibility could be tested using the peripherally active inhibitor of 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase/Δ5-4 isomerase trilostane, which has been shown repeatedly to increase allopregnanolone levels in the brain. Methods: Trilostane (50 mg/kg) was administered subcutaneously once daily for up to six consecutive days, starting 10 min after intraperitoneal administration of kainic acid (15 mg/kg). Seizures were evaluated by video-electrocorticographic recordings for 70 days maximum, and endogenous neurosteroid levels were assessed by liquid chromatography–electrospray tandem mass spectrometry. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to evaluate the presence of brain lesions. Results: Trilostane did not alter the latency of kainic acid-induced SE onset or its overall duration. When compared to the vehicle-treated group, rats receiving six daily trilostane injections presented a remarkable delay of the first spontaneous electrocorticographic seizure and subsequent tonic–clonic spontaneous recurrent seizures (SRSs). Conversely, rats treated with only the first trilostane injection during SE did not differ from vehicle-treated rats in developing the SRSs. Notably, trilostane did not modify neuronal cell densities or the overall damage in the hippocampus. In comparison to the vehicle group, repeated administration of trilostane significantly decreased the activated microglia morphology in the subiculum. As expected, allopregnanolone and other neurosteroid levels were remarkably increased in the hippocampus and neocortex of rats treated for 6 days with trilostane, but pregnanolone was barely detectable. Neurosteroids returned to basal levels after a week of trilostane washout.. Significance: Overall, these results suggest that trilostane led to a remarkable increase in allopregnanolone brain levels, which was associated with protracted effects on epileptogenesis

A new proof of Frank-Weissenborn inequality

A new proof of the Frank-Weissenborn inequality is given. This proof uses the theory of algebroid functions

P-AMENABLE LOCALLY COMPACT HYPERGROUPS

Abstract. Let K be a locally compact hypergroup with left Haar measure and let We say that K is P-amenable if there exists a left invariant mean on C(P 1 (K)), the space of all bounded continuous functions on P 1 (K). In this note, we consider the Pamenability of hypergroups. The P-amenability of hypergroup joins K = H ∨ J where H is a compact hypergroup and J is a discrete hypergroup with H ∩ J = {e} is characterized. It is also shown that Z-hypergroups are P-amenable if Z(K) ∩ G(K) is compact

Gravitation on a Homogeneous Domain

Among all plastic deformations of the gravitational Lorentz vacuum \cite{wr1} a particular role is being played by conformal deformations. These are conveniently described by using the homogeneous space for the conformal group SU(2,2)/S(U(2)x U(2)) and its Shilov boundary - the compactified Minkowski space \tilde{M} [1]. In this paper we review the geometrical structure involved in such a description. In particular we demonstrate that coherent states on the homogeneous Kae}hler domain give rise to Einstein-like plastic conformal deformations when extended to \tilde{M} [2].Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure; four misprints in the original version corrected: one lacking closing parenthesis, two letters, and an overall sign in front of the primitive function on p.

Intelligent approach for attracting churning customers in banking industry based on collaborative filtering

During recent years, increased competition among banks has caused many developments in banking experiences and technology, while leading to even more churning customers due to their desire of having the best services. Therefore, it is an extremely significant issue for the banks to identify churning customers and attract them to the banking system again. In order to tackle this issue, this paper proposes a novel personalized collaborating filtering recommendation approach joint with the user clustering technology. In the proposed approach, first a hybrid algorithm based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and K-mean cluster the loyal customers. The clusters of loyal customers are used to identify the features of the churning customers. Finally, the list of appropriate banking services are recommended for the churning customers based on a collaborative filtering recommendation system. The recommendation system uses the information of loyal customers to offer appropriate services for the churning customers. We applied successfully the proposed intelligent approach to return the churning customers of an Iranian bank.http://www.jise.ir/article_16171.htm

Cyber-physical systems design for runtime trustworthiness maintenance supported by tools

The trustworthiness of cyber-physical systems is a critical factor for establishing wide-spread adoption of these systems. Hence, especially the behavior of safety-critical software components needs to be monitored and managed during system operation. Runtime trustworthiness maintenance should be planned and prepared in early requirements and design phases. This involves the identification of threats that may occur and affect user’s trust at runtime, as well as related controls that can be executed to mitigate the threats. Furthermore, observable and measureable system quality properties have to be identified as indicators of threats, and interfaces for reporting these properties as well as for executing controls have to be designed and implemented. This paper presents a process model for preparing and designing systems for runtime trustworthiness maintenance, which is supported by several tools that facilitate the tasks to be performed by requirements engineers and system designer

A tool for monitoring and maintaining system trustworthiness at runtime

Trustworthiness of software systems is a key factor in their acceptance and effectiveness. This is especially the case for cyber-physical systems, where incorrect or even sub-optimal functioning of the system may have detrimental effects. In addition to designing systems with trustworthiness in mind, monitoring and maintaining trustworthiness at runtime is critical to identify issues that could negatively affect a system's trustworthiness. In this paper, we present a fully operational tool for system trustworthiness maintenance, covering a comprehensive set of quality attributes. It automatically detects, and in some cases mitigates, trustworthiness threatening events. The use of such a tool can enable complex software systems to support runtime adaptation and self-healing, thus reducing the overall upkeep cost and complexity

A transient formulation of Newton’s cooling law for spherical bodies

Newton's law of cooling is shown to underestimate the heat flux between a spherical body (droplet) and a homogeneous gas after this body is suddenly immersed into the gas. This problem is rectified by replacing the gas thermal conductivity by the effective thermal conductivity. The latter reduces to the gas thermal conductivity in the limit of t→ϱ, but can be substantially higher in the limit of t→0. In the case of fuel droplet heating in a medium duty truck Diesel engine the gas thermal conductivity may need to be increased by more than 100 percent at the initial stage of calculations to account for transient effects during the process of droplet heating