Hemodynamic and inotropic effects of endothelin-1 in vivo

Endothelin-1 (ET-1) is known to have strong vasoactive properties. Contradictory results have been reported with regard to its inotropic effects. This study examined the dose-dependent (500, 1000, 2500, 5000 and 10,000 ng ET-1/kg vs. NaCl controls) hemodynamic and inotropic effects of ET-1 in 53 open-chest rats during and after a 7-min infusion. Besides measurements in the intact circulation the myocardial function was examined by isovolumic registrations independent of peripheral vascular effects. A transient ET-1 induced (500, 1000, 2500, 5000 ng ET-1/kg) decrease of the left ventricular systolic pressure (LVSP) and the mean aortic pressure (AoPmean) was followed by a dose-related rise of these pressures (LVSP: -1%, -1%, +8%, +16% vs. preinfusion values; AoPmean: -11%, +9%, +39%, +52%). Heart rate (HR) was not influenced by ET-1. Due to the dose-dependent decrease of the stroke volume (SV) the cardiac output (CO) was reduced (CO: -8%, -23%, -40%, -50%). After an initial vasodilatation ET-1 elevates the total peripheral resistance (TPR: -1%, +49%, +139%, +215%) dose-dependently. 10,000 ng ET-1/kg was a lethal dose resulting in cardiac failure within minutes (low output). Since the maximum of the isovolumic LVSP (peak LVSP) and the corresponding dP/dtmax (peak dP/dtmax) were unchanged under ET-1, the isovolumic measurements do not indicate a positive inotropic effect of ET-1 in vivo in contrast to published results of in vitro experiments. It may be possible that a direct positive inotropic effect of ET-1 observed in in vitro studies is counterbalanced in vivo by an indirect negative inotropic effect due to the coronary-constrictive effect of ET-1

Probing the centre of the large circumstellar disc in M17

We investigated the nature of the hitherto unresolved elliptical infrared emission in the centre of the ~20000 AU disc silhouette in M 17. We combined high-resolution JHKsL'M' band imaging carried out with NAOS/CONICA at the VLT with [Fe II] narrow band imaging using SOFI at the NTT. The analysis is supported by Spitzer/GLIMPSE archival data and by already published SINFONI/VLT Integral Field Spectroscopy data. For the first time, we resolve the elongated central infrared emission into a point-source and a jet-like feature that extends to the northeast in the opposite direction of the recently discovered collimated H2 jet. They are both orientated almost perpendicular to the disc plane. In addition, our images reveal a curved southwestern emission nebula whose morphology resembles that of the previously detected northeastern one. Both nebulae are located at a distance of 1500 AU from the disc centre. We describe the infrared point-source in terms of a protostar that is embedded in circumstellar material producing a visual extinction of 60 <= Av <= 82. The observed Ks band magnitude is equivalent to a stellar mass range of 2.8 Msun <= Mstar <= 8 Msun adopting conversions for a main-sequence star. Altogether, we suggest that the large M 17 accretion disc is forming an intermediate to high-mass protostar. Part of the accreted material is expelled through a symmetric bipolar jet/outflow.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted by MNRAS (16 May 2008

Multi-Modal Pre-Training for Automated Speech Recognition

Traditionally, research in automated speech recognition has focused on local-first encoding of audio representations to predict the spoken phonemes in an utterance. Unfortunately, approaches relying on such hyper-local information tend to be vulnerable to both local-level corruption (such as audio-frame drops, or loud noises) and global-level noise (such as environmental noise, or background noise) that has not been seen during training. In this work, we introduce a novel approach which leverages a self-supervised learning technique based on masked language modeling to compute a global, multi-modal encoding of the environment in which the utterance occurs. We then use a new deep-fusion framework to integrate this global context into a traditional ASR method, and demonstrate that the resulting method can outperform baseline methods by up to 7% on Librispeech; gains on internal datasets range from 6% (on larger models) to 45% (on smaller models).Comment: Presented at ICASSP 202

Ectomycorrhizal influence on the dynamics of sesquiterpene release by Tricholoma vaccinum

Tricholoma vaccinum is an ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete with high host specificity. The slow-growing fungus is able to produce twenty sesquiterpenes, including α-barbatene, sativene, isocaryophyllene, α-cuprenene, β-cedrene, ß-copaene, 4-epi-α-acoradiene, and chamigrene in axenic culture. For the three major compounds, Δ(6)-protoilludene, β-barbatene, and an unidentified oxygenated sesquiterpene (m/z 218.18), changed production during co-cultivation with the ectomycorrhizal partner tree, Picea abies, could be shown with distinct dynamics. During the mycorrhizal growth of T. vaccinum–P. abies, Δ(6)-protoilludene and the oxygenated sesquiterpene appeared at similar times, which warranted further studies of potential biosynthesis genes. In silico analyses identified a putative protoilludene synthesis gene, pie1, as being up-regulated in the mycorrhizal stage, in addition to the previously identified, co-regulated geosmin synthase, ges1. We therefore hypothesize that the sesquiterpene synthase pie1 has an important role during mycorrhization, through Δ(6)-protoilludene and/or its accompanied oxygenated sesquiterpene production

Real-time Monitoring of High-speed Spindle Operations Using Infrared Data Transmission

AbstractHigh-performance cutting is carried out with high cutting and feed speeds. Particularly, the use of heavy cutting tools (e.g. in planing machines), it is important to monitor the clamping and balance condition of the mounted tool, as well as the process forces. Therefore, a real-time monitoring system for high-speed operations based on the IrDA protocol was developed. It could be shown that infrared data transmission systems allow shorter reaction times compared to conventional wireless LAN applications. The presented monitoring system provides a reaction time of 7.14 ms at a bandwidth of 42.5 kHz and a data rate of 4.1 MBit/s

Period changes in six semi-detached Algol-type binaries

Six semi-detached Algol-type binaries lacking a period analysis were chosen to test for a presence of a third body. The O-C diagrams of these binaries were analyzed with the least-squares method by using all available times of minima. Also fourteen new minima, obtained from our observations, were included in the present research. The light-time effect was adopted as a main factor for the detailed description of the long-term period changes. Third bodies were found with orbital periods from 46 up to 84 years, and eccentricities from 0.0 to 0.78 for the selected binaries. The mass functions and the minimal masses of such bodies were also calculated.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Radial Velocity Studies of Close Binary Stars.III

Radial velocity measurements and simple sine-curve fits to the orbital velocity variations are presented for the third set of ten contact binary systems: CN And, HV Aqr, AO Cam, YY CrB, FU Dra, RZ Dra, UX Eri, RT LMi, V753 Mon, OU Ser. All systems but two are contact, double-line spectroscopic binaries with four of them (YY CrB, FU Dra, V753 Mon, OU Ser) being the recent discoveries of the Hipparcos satellite project. The most interesting object is V753 Mon with the mass-ratio closest to unity among all contact systems (q = 0.970 pm 0.003) and large total mass ((M1+M2)sin^3i = 2.93 pm 0.06). Several of the studied systems are prime candidates for combined light and radial-velocity synthesis solutions.Comment: submitted for publication in Astronomical Journal; 3 figures, 2 table

Variable stars in the Open Cluster M11 (NGC 6705)

V-band time-series CCD photometric observations of the intermediate-age open cluster M11 were performed to search for variable stars. Using these time-series data, we carefully examined light variations of all stars in the observing field. A total of 82 variable stars were discovered, of which 39 stars had been detected recently by Hargis et al. (2005). On the basis of observational properties such as variable period, light curve shape, and position on a color-magnitude diagram, we classified their variable types as 11 delta Scuti-type pulsating stars, 2 gamma Doradus-type pulsating stars, 40 W UMa-type contact eclipsing binaries, 13 Algol-type detached eclipsing binaries, and 16 eclipsing binaries with long period. Cluster membership for each variable star was deduced from the previous proper motion results (McNamara et al. 1977) and position on the color-magnitude diagram. Many pulsating stars and eclipsing binaries in the region of M11 are probable members of the cluster.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, and accepted for publication in PAS