INVESTIGATION OF THE HOMOGENIZATION EFFICIENCY OF THE SCREW AGITATOR, HELICAL RIBBON AGITATOR, GATE TYPE ANCHOR IMPELLER AND THE MULTI-PADDLE AGITATOR IN THE MIXING OF HIGH-VISCOSITY NEWTONIAN LIQUIDS

Presented by Prof. Dr. P. FOLDE

Experimental investigations of control principles of involuntary movement: a comprehensive review of the Kohnstamm phenomenon

The Kohnstamm phenomenon refers to the observation that if one pushes the arm hard outwards against a fixed surface for about 30 s, and then moves away from the surface and relaxes, an involuntary movement of the arm occurs, accompanied by a feeling of lightness. Central, peripheral and hybrid theories of the Kohnstamm phenomenon have been advanced. Afferent signals may be irrelevant if purely central theories hold. Alternatively, according to peripheral accounts, altered afferent signalling actually drives the involuntary movement. Hybrid theories suggest afferent signals control a centrally-programmed aftercontraction via negative position feedback control or positive force feedback control. The Kohnstamm phenomenon has provided an important scientific method for comparing voluntary with involuntary movement, both with respect to subjective experience, and for investigating whether involuntary movements can be brought under voluntary control. A full review of the literature reveals that a hybrid model best explains the Kohnstamm phenomenon. On this model, a central adaptation interacts with afferent signals at multiple levels of the motor hierarchy. The model assumes that a Kohnstamm generator sends output via the same pathways as voluntary movement, yet the resulting movement feels involuntary due to a lack of an efference copy to cancel against sensory inflow. This organisation suggests the Kohnstamm phenomenon could represent an amplification of neuromotor processes normally involved in automatic postural maintenance. Future work should determine which afferent signals contribute to the Kohnstamm phenomenon, the location of the Kohnstamm generator, and the principle of feedback control operating during the aftercontraction

Neural dynamics of illusory tactile pulling sensations

Directional tactile pulling sensations are integral to everyday life, but their neural mechanisms remain unknown. Prior accounts hold that primary somatosensory (SI) activity is sufficient to generate pulling sensations, with alternative proposals suggesting that amodal frontal or parietal regions may be critical. We combined high-density EEG with asymmetric vibration, which creates an illusory pulling sensation, thereby unconfounding pulling sensations from unrelated sensorimotor processes. Oddballs that created opposite direction pulls to common stimuli were compared to the same oddballs after neutral common stimuli (symmetric vibration) and to neutral oddballs. We found evidence against the sensory-frontal N140 and in favor of the midline P200 tracking the emergence of pulling sensations, specifically contralateral parietal lobe activity 264-320ms, centered on the intraparietal sulcus. This suggests that SI is not sufficient to generate pulling sensations, which instead depend on the parietal association cortex, and may reflect the extraction of orientation information and related spatial processing

Some experiments on the effects of animal hormones on plants

RESP-106

Fruit and vegetable juice fermentation with Bifidobacteria

Consumers are becoming more interested in healthy nutrition. To meet consumer requirements, the possibility of the fruit and vegetable juice fermentation by bifidobacteria was investigated. Sour cherry, orange, carrot, and tomato juice was fermented with five Bifidobacterium strains (from human origin and starter culture). The tested strains have grown well in orange, carrot, and tomato juices. The B. longum Bb-46 strain demonstrated the best growth activities. It was found that ratio of the produced acetic and lactic acids are dependent on the Bifidobacterium strain rather than on the fermentation medium. The most intensive inhibition was observed against the Campylobacter jejuni strain. In course of the fermentation the antioxidant capacities slightly decreased, except when the orange juice was fermented with B. lactis Bb-12 and B. longum A4.8. The obtained results may contribute to the design of a novel functional food product

Hidden Lorentz symmetry of the Hořava–Lifshitz gravity

In this Letter it is shown that the Hořava–Lifshitz gravity theory admits Lorentz symmetry preserving preferred global time foliation of the spacetime

Dynamics of test bodies with spin in de Sitter spacetime

We study the motion of spinning test bodies in the de Sitter spacetime of constant positive curvature. With the help of the 10 Killing vectors, we derive the 4-momentum and the tensor of spin explicitly in terms of the spacetime coordinates. However, in order to find the actual trajectories, one needs to impose the so-called supplementary condition. We discuss the dynamics of spinning test bodies for the cases of the Frenkel and Tulczyjew conditions.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex forma