Tetranuclear Group 7/8 Mixed-Metal and Open Trinuclear Group 7 Metal Carbonyl Clusters Bearing Bridging 2-mercapto-1-methylimidazole Ligands

The reactivity of group 7 metal dinuclear carbonyl complexes [M2(CO)6(μ-SN2C4H5)2] (1, M = Re; 2, M = Mn) toward group 8 metal trinuclear carbonyl clusters were examined. Reactions of 1 and 2 with [Os3(CO)10(NCMe)2] in refluxing benzene furnished the tetranuclear mixed-metal clusters [Os3Re(CO)13(μ3-SN2C4H5)] (3) and [Os3Mn(CO)13(μ3-SN2C4H5)] (4), respectively. Similar treatment of 1 and 2 with Ru3(CO)12 yielded the ruthenium analogs [Ru3Re(CO)13(μ3-SN2C4H5)] (5), and [Ru3Mn(CO)13(μ3-SN2C4H5)] (6), but in the case of 2 a secondary product [Mn3(CO)10(μ-Cl)(μ3-SN2C4H5)2] (7) was also formed. Compounds 3–6 have a butterfly core of four metal atoms with the M (Mn or Re) at a wingtip of the butterfly and containing a noncrystallographic mirror plane of symmetry. This result provides a potential method for the synthesis of a series of new group 7/8 mixed metal complexes containing a bifunctional heterocyclic ligand. Compound 7 is a unique example of a 54-electron trimanganese complex having bridging 2-mercapto-1-methylimidazolate and chloride ligands. Interestingly, the reaction of 1 with Fe3(CO)12 at 70–75 °C furnished the tri- and dirhenium complexes [Re3(CO)10(μ-H)(μ3-SN2C4H5)2] (8) and [Re2(CO)6(N2C4H5)(μ-SN2C4H5)2] (9), respectively instead of the expected formation of the mixed-metal clusters. The former is an interesting example of a 52-electron trirhenium-hydridic complex containing bridging 2-mercapto-1-methylimidazolate ligand, while the latter can be viewed as a 1-methylimidazole adduct of 1. No mixed Fe–Re complexes were produced in this reaction. The molecular structures of the new compounds 3–5 and 7–9 were established by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses and the DFT studies of compounds 5, 7 and 8 are reported

Aurora kinase A drives the evolution of resistance to third-generation EGFR inhibitors in lung cancer.

Although targeted therapies often elicit profound initial patient responses, these effects are transient due to residual disease leading to acquired resistance. How tumors transition between drug responsiveness, tolerance and resistance, especially in the absence of preexisting subclones, remains unclear. In epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutant lung adenocarcinoma cells, we demonstrate that residual disease and acquired resistance in response to EGFR inhibitors requires Aurora kinase A (AURKA) activity. Nongenetic resistance through the activation of AURKA by its coactivator TPX2 emerges in response to chronic EGFR inhibition where it mitigates drug-induced apoptosis. Aurora kinase inhibitors suppress this adaptive survival program, increasing the magnitude and duration of EGFR inhibitor response in preclinical models. Treatment-induced activation of AURKA is associated with resistance to EGFR inhibitors in vitro, in vivo and in most individuals with EGFR-mutant lung adenocarcinoma. These findings delineate a molecular path whereby drug resistance emerges from drug-tolerant cells and unveils a synthetic lethal strategy for enhancing responses to EGFR inhibitors by suppressing AURKA-driven residual disease and acquired resistance

Elucidation on the Effect of Operating Temperature to the Transport Properties of Polymeric Membrane Using Molecular Simulation Tool

Existing reports of gas transport properties within polymeric membrane as a direct consequence of operating temperature are in a small number and have arrived in diverging conclusion. The scarcity has been associated to challenges in fabricating defect free membranes and empirical investigations of gas permeation performance at the laboratory scale that are often time consuming and costly. Molecular simulation has been proposed as a feasible alternative of experimentally studied materials to provide insights into gas transport characteristic. Hence, a sequence of molecular modelling procedures has been proposed to simulate polymeric membranes at varying operating temperatures in order to elucidate its effect to gas transport behaviour. The simulation model has been validated with experimental data through satisfactory agreement. Solubility has shown a decrement in value when increased in temperature (an average factor of 1.78), while the opposite has been observed for gas diffusivity (an average factor of 1.32) when the temperature is increased from 298.15Â K to 323.15Â K. In addition, it is found that permeability decreases by 1.36 times as the temperature is increased

Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Cardiac End-Organ Damage in Women: Findings From an Echocardiographic Study Across the United States

BACKGROUND: People with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have been reported to have increased risk of clinical and subclinical cardiovascular disease. Existing studies have focused on men and often have been uncontrolled or lacked adequate HIV-negative comparators. METHODS: We performed echocardiography in the Women's Interagency HIV Study to investigate associations of HIV and HIV-specific factors with cardiac phenotypes, including left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD), isolated LV diastolic dysfunction (LVDD), left atrial enlargement (LAE), LV hypertrophy (LVH), and increased tricuspid regurgitation velocity (TRV). RESULTS: Of 1654 participants (age 51 ± 9 years), 70% had HIV. Sixty-three (5.4%) women with HIV (WWH) had LVSD; 71 (6.5%) had isolated LVDD. Compared with women without HIV (WWOH), WWH had a near-significantly increased risk of LVSD (adjusted relative risk = 1.69; 95% confidence interval = 1.00 to 2.86; P = .051). No significant association was noted for HIV seropositivity with other phenotypes, but there was a risk gradient for decreasing CD4+ count among WWH that approached or reached significance for isolated LVDD, LAE, and LVH. WWH with CD4+ count <200 cells/mm3 had significantly higher prevalence of LAE, LVH, and high TRV than WWOH. There were no consistent associations for viral suppression or antiretroviral drug exposure. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that WWH have a higher risk of LVSD compared with sociodemographically similar WWOH, but their risk for isolated LVDD, LAE, LVH, and high TRV is increased only with reduced CD4+ count. Although these findings warrant replication, they support the importance of cardiovascular risk-factor and HIV-disease control for heart disease prevention in this population

Tooling design and microwave curing technologies for the manufacturing of fiber-reinforced polymer composites in aerospace applications

The increasing demand for high-performance and quality polymer composite materials has led to international research effort on pursuing advanced tooling design and new processing technologies to satisfy the highly specialized requirements of composite components used in the aerospace industry. This paper reports the problems in the fabrication of advanced composite materials identified through literature survey, and an investigation carried out by the authors about the composite manufacturing status in China’s aerospace industry. Current tooling design technologies use tooling materials which cannot match the thermal expansion coefficient of composite parts, and hardly consider the calibration of tooling surface. Current autoclave curing technologies cannot ensure high accuracy of large composite materials because of the wide range of temperature gradients and long curing cycles. It has been identified that microwave curing has the potential to solve those problems. The proposed technologies for the manufacturing of fiber-reinforced polymer composite materials include the design of tooling using anisotropy composite materials with characteristics for compensating part deformation during forming process, and vacuum-pressure microwave curing technology. Those technologies are mainly for ensuring the high accuracy of anisotropic composite parts in aerospace applications with large size (both in length and thickness) and complex shapes. Experiments have been carried out in this on-going research project and the results have been verified with engineering applications in one of the project collaborating companies

Crop Updates 2005 - Cereals

This session covers thirty six papers from different authors: WHEAT AGRONOMY 1. Optimum sowing time of new wheat varieties in Western Australia, Darshan Sharma, Brenda Shackley, Mohammad Amjad, Christine M. Zaicou-Kunesch and Wal Anderson, Department of Agriculture 2. Wheat varieties updated in ‘Flowering Calculator’: A model predicting flowering time, B. Shackley, D. Tennant, D. Sharma and C.M. Zaicou-Kunesch, Department of Agriculture 3. Plant populations for wheat varieties, Christine M. Zaicou-Kunesch, Wal Anderson, Darshan Sharma, Brenda Shackley and Mohammad Amjad, Department of Agriculture 4. New wheat cultivars response to fertiliser nitrogen in four major agricultural regions of Western Australia, Mohammad Amjad, Wal Anderson, Brenda Shackley, Darshan Sharma and Christine Zaicou-Kunesch, Department of Agriculture 5. Agronomic package for EGA Eagle Rock, Steve Penny, Department of Agriculture 6. Field evaluation of eastern and western wheats in large-scale farmer’s trials, Mohammad Amjad, Ben Curtis and Veronika Reck, Department of Agriculture 7. New wheat varieties for a changing environment, Richard Richards, CSIRO Plant Industry; Canberra 8. Farmers can profitably minimise exposure to frost! Garren Knell, Steve Curtin and David Sermon, ConsultAg 9. National Variety Trials, Alan Bedggood, Australian Crops Accreditation System; Horsham 10. Preharvest-sprouting tolerance of wheat in the field, T.B. Biddulph1, T.L. Setter2, J.A. Plummer1 and D.J. Mares3; 1Plant Biology; FNAS, University of Western Australia; 2Department of Agriculture, 3School of Agriculture and Wine, University of Adelaide 11. Waterlogging induces high concentration of Mn and Al in wheat genotypes in acidic soils, H. Khabaz-Saberi, T. Setter, I. Waters and G. McDonald, Department of Agriculture 12. Agronomic responses of new wheat varieties in the Northern Agricultural Region, Christine M. Zaicou-Kunesch and Wal Anderson, Department of Agriculture 13. Agronomic responses of new wheat varieties in the Central Agricultural Region of WA, Darshan Sharma, Steve Penny and Wal Anderson, Department of Agriculture 14. EGA Eagle Rock tolerance to metribuzin and its mixtures, Harmohinder Dhammu, David Nicholson and Chris Roberts, Department of Agriculture 15. Herbicide tolerance of new bread wheats, Harmohinder Dhammu1 and David Nicholson2, Department of Agriculture NUTRITION 16. The impact of fertiliser placement, timing and rates on nitrogen-use efficiency, Stephen Loss, CSBP Ltd 17. Cereals deficient in potassium are most susceptible to some leaf diseases, Ross Brennan and Kith Jayasena, Department of Agriculture 18. Responses of cereal yields to potassium fertiliser type, placement and timing, Eddy Pol, CSBP Limited 19. Sulphate of Potash, the potash of choice at seeding, Simon Teakle, United Farmers Co-operative 20. Essential disease management for successful barley production, K. Jayasena, R. Loughman, C. Beard, B. Paynter, K. Tanaka, G. Poulish and A. Smith, Department of Agriculture 21. Genotypic differences in potassium efficiency of wheat, Paul Damon and Zed Rengel, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Western Australia 22. Genotypic differences in potassium efficiency of barley, Paul Damon and Zed Rengel, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, University of Western Australia 23. Investigating timing of nitrogen application in wheat, Darshan Sharma and Lionel Martin, Department of Agriculture, and Muresk Institute of Agriculture, Curtin University of Technology 24. Nutrient timing requirements for increased crop yields in the high rainfall cropping zone, Narelle Hill, Ron McTaggart, Dr Wal Anderson and Ray Tugwell, Department of Agriculture DISEASES 25. Integrate strategies to manage stripe rust risk, Geoff Thomas, Robert Loughman, Ciara Beard, Kith Jayasena and Manisha Shankar, Department of Agriculture 26. Effect of primary inoculum level of stripe rust on variety response in wheat, Manisha Shankar, John Majewski and Robert Loughman, Department of Agriculture 27. Disease resistance update for wheat varieties in WA, M. Shankar, J.M. Majewski, D. Foster, H. Golzar, J. Piotrowski and R. Loughman, Department of Agriculture 28. Big droplets for wheat fungicides, Rob Grima, Agronomist, Elders 29. On farm research to investigate fungicide applications to minimise leaf disease impacts in wheat, Jeff Russell and Angie Roe, Department of Agriculture, and Farm Focus Consultants PESTS 30. Rotations for nematode management, Vivien A. Vanstone, Sean J. Kelly, Helen F. Hunter and Mena C. Gilchrist, Department of Agriculture 31. Investigation into the adaqyacy of sealed farm silos in Western Australia to control phosphine-resistant Rhyzopertha dominica, C.R. Newman, Department of Agriculture 32.Insect contamination of cereal grain at harvest, Svetlana Micic and Phil Michael, Department of Agriculture 33. Phosure – Extending the life of phosphine, Gabrielle Coupland and Ern Kostas, Co-operative Bulk Handling SOIL 34. Optimum combinations of ripping depth and tine spacing for increasing wheat yield, Mohammed Hamza and Wal Anderson, Department of Agriculture 35. Hardpan penetration ability of wheat roots, Tina Botwright Acuña and Len Wade, School of Plant Biology, University of Western Australia MARKETS 36. Latin America: An emerging agricultural powerhouse, Ingrid Richardson, Food and Agribusiness Research, Rabobank; Sydne

A hybrid artificial bee colony algorithm-artificial neural network for forecasting the blast-produced ground vibration

Drilling and blasting is an inseparable part of the rock fragmentation process in open-pit mines. Prediction of blast-produced ground vibration is considered as an important issue in blasting works. The aim of this study is to propose a hybrid model for predicting blast-produced ground vibration in the Miduk copper mine, Iran, using combination of the artificial neural network (ANN) combined with artificial bee colony (ABC) (codename ABC-ANN). Here, ABC was used as an optimization algorithm to adjust weights and biases of the ANN. The predicted values of ground vibration by ANN and ABC-ANN models were also compared with several empirical models. In this regard, 89 blasting events were monitored and values of two influential factors on ground vibration, i.e., maximum charge weight used per delay (MC) and distance between monitoring station and blasting-point (DI) together with their peak particle velocity values (as an index of ground vibration) were carefully measured. The results of the predictive models have been compared with the data at hand using mean absolute percentage error, root mean squared error and coefficient of correlation (R2) criteria. Eventually, it was indicated that the constructed ABC-ANN model outperforms the other models in terms of the prediction accuracy and the generalization capability

PreS1 Mutations Alter the Large HBsAg Antigenicity of a Hepatitis B Virus Strain Isolated in Bangladesh

Mutations in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome can potentially lead to vaccination failure, diagnostic escape, and disease progression. However, there are no reports on viral gene expression and large hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) antigenicity alterations due to mutations in HBV isolated from a Bangladeshi population. Here, we sequenced the full genome of the HBV isolated from a clinically infected patient in Bangladesh. The open reading frames (ORFs) (P, S, C, and X) of the isolated HBV strain were successfully amplified and cloned into a mammalian expression vector. The HBV isolate was identified as genotype C (sub-genotype C2), serotype adr, and evolutionarily related to strains isolated in Indonesia, Malaysia, and China. Clinically significant mutations, such as preS1 C2964A, reverse transcriptase domain I91L, and small HBsAg N3S, were identified. The viral P, S, C, and X genes were expressed in HEK-293T and HepG2 cells by transient transfection with a native subcellular distribution pattern analyzed by immunofluorescence assay. Western blotting of large HBsAg using preS1 antibody showed no staining, and preS1 ELISA showed a significant reduction in reactivity due to amino acid mutations. This mutated preS1 sequence has been identified in several Asian countries. To our knowledge, this is the first report investigating changes in large HBsAg antigenicity due to preS1 mutations

X-ray diffraction structures of two isomeric decacarbonyltriosmium compounds of quinoxaline, [(μ-H)Os₃(CO)₁₀(μ-1, 8-η²-C₈H₅N₂)] and [(μ-H)Os₃(CO)₁₀(μ-1, 2-η²- C₈H₅N₂)]

1988-1994Treatment of [Os3(Co)10(MeCN)2] with quinoxaline at room temperature results in the isolation of two isomeric clusters &nbsp;[(μ-H)Os3(CO)10(μ-1, 8-η2-C8H5N2)]5 and [(μ-H)Os3(Co)10(μ-1, 2-η2- C8H5N2)]6 in 50 and 10% yields respectively. Compounds 5 and 6 have been characterized by spectroscopic data and single crystal X-ray diffraction studies. Compound 5 crystallizes in the triclinic space group P-1 with a= 7.895(2) Å, b = 9.187(2)Å, c = 16.741(3)Å, α= 75.494(12), β =88.60(2), γ = 66.57(2)o, Z = 2, V = 1074.8(4) Å3 and dcalc= 3.031 mg/m3; R1 = 0.0364, wR2 = 0.0870 for 2958 reflections with I&gt; 2ϭ (I). Compound 6 crystallizes together with an entirely independent molecule of the previously reported hydridehydroxy compound [(μ-H)Os3(CO)10(μ-OH)] 7 in the monoclinic space group P21/n with a= 9.255(2) Å, b = 16.864(3) Å, c = 26.243(7) Å, α = 90, β = 91.36(2), γ = 90°, Z = 4, V = 4094.8(16) Å3 and dcalc = 3.135 mg/m3 ; R1=0.0410, wR2 = 0.0749 for 2958 reflections with I&gt; 2ϭ (I). In 5, the quinoxaline ligand coordinates through the ring N(1) atom and the C(8) carbon atom of the carbocyclic ring, whereas in compound 6, the ligand coordinates through the ring N(1) atom and the C(2) carbon atom of the heterocyclic ring