Statistical Properties and Predictability of Extreme Epileptic Events

The use of extreme events theory for the analysis of spontaneous epileptic brain activity is a relevant multidisciplinary problem. It allows deeper understanding of pathological brain functioning and unraveling mechanisms underlying the epileptic seizure emergence along with its predictability. The latter is a desired goal in epileptology which might open the way for new therapies to control and prevent epileptic attacks. With this goal in mind, we applied the extreme event theory for studying statistical properties of electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings of WAG/Rij rats with genetic predisposition to absence epilepsy. Our approach allowed us to reveal extreme events inherent in this pathological spiking activity, highly pronounced in a particular frequency range. The return interval analysis showed that the epileptic seizures exhibit a highly-structural behavior during the active phase of the spiking activity. Obtained results evidenced a possibility for early (up to 7 s) prediction of epileptic seizures based on consideration of EEG statistical properties

Ecological Features of Pollen Dispersal in Populations of Pinus brutia var. pityusa (Steven) Silba Mountain Crimea

Вылет и распространение пыльцы является важнейшим этапом репродуктивного цикла различных видов анемофильных растений и играет существенную роль в процессах естественного воспроизводства их природных популяций. Ее качественные и количественные характеристики определяют эффективность формирования семян, стабильность смены поколений и поддержания внутривидового разнообразия. В работе приведены результаты исследований особенностей распространения пыльцы в связи с динамикой условий произрастания в природных популяциях P. brutia var. pityusa Горного Крыма. При проведении исследований использовали методы таксации и фенологических наблюдений. Выявлены некоторые особенности прохождения фенофазы пыления в западной и восточной части распространения P. brutia var. pityusa в Горном Крыму. Установлено, что в природных популяциях P. brutia var. pityusa Горного Крыма начало высыпания и распространения пыльцы происходит в конце апреля – начале мая. В западных территориях произрастания этот процесс начинается раньше в сравнении с восточными. Выявлено изменение фенофазы пыления с увеличением высоты местопроизрастания древостоев, в верхнем поясе она наступает позже и увеличивается по продолжительности. Сумма активных температур выше 5° в период начала пыления в прибрежной зоне произрастания P. brutia var. pityusa в западных территориях изменяется в пределах 467°– 493°, в восточных варьирует от 418° до 439°. На основе анализа многолетних данных выявлены тенденции повышения среднемесячных температур весеннего периода. Общий рост среднемесячной температуры апреля в течение 190 лет в западных территориях проведения наблюдений составил 1,3°, в восточных этот показатель за 140 лет увеличился на 2,0°. Значительное изменение температурного режима во временных масштабах, сопоставимых с продолжительностью жизни отдельных деревьев, оказывает влияние на состояние и демографическую структуру популяций. Дальнейший рост температур может вызвать фенологическую дивергенцию – смещение во времени биоэкологических оптимумов лета пыльцы и рецептивной фазы женской шишки на неопределенный срок, что снижает возможности реализации последующих этапов репродуктивного цикла. С учетом данных явлений наиболее кризисная ситуация в настоящее время складывается в восточной части природных популяций P. brutia var. pityusa Горного КрымаPollen emission and dispersal is the major stage of the reproductive cycle of anemophilous plants critical for sustaining their natural populations. Qualitative and quantitative characteristics of pollen determine the efficiency of seed formation, stability of generational change and maintenance of intraspecific diversity. This paper studies the process of pollen flight in connection with the dynamics of growth conditions in natural populations of P. brutia var. pityusa in the Crimean Mountains. Methods of forest inventory and phenological observations were used. Some features of the pollen emission phenophase in the western and eastern coastal habitats of P. brutia var. pityusa in the Crimean Mountains were revealed. It has been established that in the natural populations of P. brutia var. pityusa in the Crimean Mountains, the onset of pollination occurs in late April – early May. In the western areas, this process begins earlier in comparison with the eastern ones. It was revealed that the pollination phenophase changes with an increase in the altitude of the forest stands; in the upper zone, it occurs later and increases in duration. The sum of active temperatures above 5° at the beginning of P. brutia var. pityusa pollination in its coastal growth area varies within 467°–493° in the western territories, and from 418° to 439° in the eastern territories. Based on the analysis of the long-term data on average monthly temperatures in spring, trends to their increase were revealed. The total increase in the average monthly temperature in April was 1.3° in the western territories based on 190 years of observations, and in the eastern territories this parameter has increased by 2.0° over 140 years. A significant change in the temperature regimen within a lifespan of individual trees affects the state and demographic structure of populations. A further increase in temperature can cause phenological divergence – a shift of the bioecological optimums of pollen flight and the receptive phase of the female cone for an unpredictable time period, which reduces the chances of implementing the subsequent stages of the reproductive cycle. Taking into account these phenomena, a critical situation is currently developing in the eastern part of the natural populations of P. brutia var. pityusa in the Crimean Mountain

Emission Monitoring Mobile Experiment (EMME): An overview and first results of the St. Petersburg megacity campaign 2019

Global climate change is one of the most important scientific, societal and economic contemporary challenges. Fundamental understanding of the major processes driving climate change is the key problem which is to be solved not only on a global but also on a regional scale. The accuracy of regional climate modelling depends on a number of factors. One of these factors is the adequate and comprehensive information on the anthropogenic impact which is highest in industrial regions and areas with dense population – modern megacities. Megacities are not only “heat islands”, but also significant sources of emissions of various substances into the atmosphere, including greenhouse and reactive gases. In 2019, the mobile experiment EMME (Emission Monitoring Mobile Experiment) was conducted within the St. Petersburg agglomeration (Russia) aiming to estimate the emission intensity of greenhouse (CO$_{2}$, CH$_{4}$) nd reactive (CO, NO$_{x}$) gases for St. Petersburg, which is the largest northern megacity. St. Petersburg State University (Russia), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) and the University of Bremen (Germany) jointly ran this experiment. The core instruments of the campaign were two portable Bruker EM27/SUN Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers which were used for ground-based remote sensing measurements of the total column amount of CO$_{2}$, CH$_{4}$ and CO at upwind and downwind locations on opposite sides of the city. The NO$_{2}$ tropospheric column amount was observed along a circular highway around the city by continuous mobile measurements of scattered solar visible radiation with an OceanOptics HR4000 spectrometer using the differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) technique. Simultaneously, air samples were collected in air bags for subsequent laboratory analysis. The air samples were taken at the locations of FTIR observations at the ground level and also at altitudes of about 100 m when air bags were lifted by a kite (in case of suitable landscape and favourable wind conditions). The entire campaign consisted of 11 mostly cloudless days of measurements in March–April 2019. Planning of measurements for each day included the determination of optimal location for FTIR spectrometers based on weather forecasts, combined with the numerical modelling of the pollution transport in the megacity area. The real-time corrections of the FTIR operation sites were performed depending on the actual evolution of the megacity NO$_{x}$ plume as detected by the mobile DOAS observations. The estimates of the St. Petersburg emission intensities for the considered greenhouse and reactive gases were obtained by coupling a box model and the results of the EMME observational campaign using the mass balance approach. The CO$_{2}$ emission flux for St. Petersburg as an area source was estimated to be 89 ± 28 ktkm$^{-2}$ yr $^{-2}$ , which is 2 times higher than the corresponding value in the EDGAR database. The experiment revealed the CH$_{4}$ emission flux of 135 ± 68 tkm $^{-2}$ yr $^{-1}$, which is about 1 order of magnitude greater than the value reported by the official inventories of St. Petersburg emissions (∼ 25 tkm$^{-2}$ yr $^{-1}$ or 2017). At the same time, for the urban territory of St. Petersburg, both the EMME experiment and the official inventories for 2017 give similar results for the CO anthropogenic flux (251 ± 104 tkm $^{-2}$ yr $^{-1}$ s. 410 tkm $^{-2}$ yr $^{-1}$) nd for the NO$_{x}$ anthropogenic flux (66 ± 28 tkm$^{-2}$ yr $^{-1}$ vs. 69 tkm $^{-2}$ yr $^{-1}$)

Increasing Human Performance by Sharing Cognitive Load Using Brain-to-Brain Interface

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) attract a lot of attention because of their ability to improve the brain's efficiency in performing complex tasks using a computer. Furthermore, BCIs can increase human's performance not only due to human-machine interactions, but also thanks to an optimal distribution of cognitive load among all members of a group working on a common task, i.e., due to human-human interaction. The latter is of particular importance when sustained attention and alertness are required. In every day practice, this is a common occurrence, for example, among office workers, pilots of a military or a civil aircraft, power plant operators, etc. Their routinely work includes continuous monitoring of instrument readings and implies a heavy cognitive load due to processing large amounts of visual information. In this paper, we propose a brain-to-brain interface (BBI) which estimates brain states of every participant and distributes a cognitive load among all members of the group accomplishing together a common task. The BBI allows sharing the whole workload between all participants depending on their current cognitive performance estimated from their electrical brain activity. We show that the team efficiency can be increased due to redistribution of the work between participants so that the most difficult workload falls on the operator who exhibits maximum performance. Finally, we demonstrate that the human-to-human interaction is more efficient in the presence of a certain delay determined by brain rhythms. The obtained results are promising for the development of a new generation of communication systems based on neurophysiological brain activity of interacting people. Such BBIs will distribute a common task between all group members according to their individual physical conditions

Molecular Alliance of Lymantria dispar Multiple Nucleopolyhedrovirus and a Short Unmodified Antisense Oligonucleotide of Its Anti-Apoptotic IAP-3 Gene: A Novel Approach for Gypsy Moth Control

Baculovirus IAP (inhibitor-of-apoptosis) genes originated by capture of host genes. Unmodified short antisense DNA oligonucleotides (oligoDNAs) from baculovirus IAP genes can down-regulate specific gene expression profiles in both baculovirus-free and baculovirus-infected insects. In this study, gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) larvae infected with multiple nucleopolyhedrovirus (LdMNPV), and LdMNPV-free larvae, were treated with oligoDNA antisense to the RING (really interesting new gene) domain of the LdMNPV IAP-3 gene. The results with respect to insect mortality, biomass accumulation, histological studies, RT-PCR, and analysis of DNA apoptotic fragmentation suggest that oligoRING induced increased apoptotic processes in both LdMNPV-free and LdMNPV-infected insect cells, but were more pronounced in the latter. These data open up possibilities for promising new routes of insect pest control using antisense phosphodiester DNA oligonucleotides

A Study of the Feasibility of Using Ammonium Sulfate in Copper—Nickel Ore Processing

The possibility of applying a combined concentration and metallurgical method for processing low-grade and refractory copper–nickel ores was considered. The resulting rougher and scavenger flotation concentrate contained 2.07% nickel and 0.881% copper at a recovery of 85.44% and 89.91%, respectively. The concentrate was then roasted with ammonium sulfate, followed by aqueous leaching of clinker to dissolve nickel and copper. The roasting temperature, the ratio of concentrate to (NH4)2SO4 in the mixture, and the temperature were varied. Based on the study findings, the following process conditions were found to be optimal: roasting temperature 400 °C, rougher concentrate to ammonium sulfate ratio 1:7, and grinding size −40 μm. A roasting temperature of 400 °C is significantly lower than the temperature applied in conventional pyrometallurgical processes. The possibility of collecting off-gases allows the reagent to be regenerated and makes the process even more cost-effective. End-to-end recovery into pregnant solution was 81.42% for nickel and 82.81% for copper. The resulting solutions can be processed by known hydrometallurgical methods

Assortative mixing in spatially-extended networks

Abstract We focus on spatially-extended networks during their transition from short-range connectivities to a scale-free structure expressed by heavy-tailed degree-distribution. In particular, a model is introduced for the generation of such graphs, which combines spatial growth and preferential attachment. In this model the transition to heterogeneous structures is always accompanied by a change in the graph’s degree-degree correlation properties: while high assortativity levels characterize the dominance of short distance couplings, long-range connectivity structures are associated with small amounts of disassortativity. Our results allow to infer that a disassortative mixing is essential for establishing long-range links. We discuss also how our findings are consistent with recent experimental studies of 2-dimensional neuronal cultures

Reactibodies generated by kinetic selection couple chemical reactivity with favorable protein dynamics

Igs offer a versatile template for combinatorial and rational design approaches to the de novo creation of catalytically active proteins. We have used a covalent capture selection strategy to identify biocatalysts from within a human semisynthetic antibody variable fragment library that uses a nucleophilic mechanism. Specific phosphonylation at a single tyrosine within the variable light-chain framework was confirmed in a recombinant IgG construct. High-resolution crystallographic structures of unmodified and phosphonylated Fabs display a 15-Å-deep two-chamber cavity at the interface of variable light (VL) and variable heavy (VH) fragments having a nucleophilic tyrosine at the base of the site. The depth and structure of the pocket are atypical of antibodies in general but can be compared qualitatively with the catalytic site of cholinesterases. A structurally disordered heavy chain complementary determining region 3 loop, constituting a wall of the cleft, is stabilized after covalent modification by hydrogen bonding to the phosphonate tropinol moiety. These features and presteady state kinetics analysis indicate that an induced fit mechanism operates in this reaction. Mutations of residues located in this stabilized loop do not interfere with direct contacts to the organophosphate ligand but can interrogate second shell interactions, because the H3 loop has a conformation adjusted for binding. Kinetic and thermodynamic parameters along with computational docking support the active site model, including plasticity and simple catalytic components. Although relatively uncomplicated, this catalytic machinery displays both stereo- and chemical selectivity. The organophosphate pesticide paraoxon is hydrolyzed by covalent catalysis with rate-limiting dephosphorylation. This reactibody is, therefore, a kinetically selected protein template that has enzyme-like catalytic attributes