Available Coal Resources of the Booneville 7.5–Minute Quadrangle, Owsley County, Kentucky

The Booneville Quadrangle lies within the Southwestern Reserve District of the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field. Six coal beds in the quadrangle have been commercially developed, mainly by surface mining methods, and comprise the basis of this Coal Availability Study. These beds are, in descending stratigraphic order, Copland, Whitesburg, Amburgy, Upper Elkhorn No. 3, Jellico and Manchester. A computerized Geographic Information System (GRASS) was used to calculate estimates of original, mined-out and remaining resources, restrictions to mining and available resources

A Novel 110-kDa Receptor Protein is Involved in Endocytic Uptake of Decorin by Human Skin Fibroblasts

The small leucine-rich proteoglycan (SLRP) decorin is efficiently internalized by a variety of cultured cells. A 51-kDa protein has previously been described as a receptor mediating endocytosis of decorin and of the structurally related SLRP biglycan. Recent findings suggest that endocytosis of SLRPs may also be mediated by additional receptors. The class-A scavenger receptor, the endocytic mannose receptor, the epidermal growth factor receptor, and insulin-like growth factor-I receptor have emerged as candidates. We used a combined approach of immunoprecipitation and photoactivated cross-linking to identify endocytosis receptors for decorin in human skin fibroblasts. Decorin was purified by HPLC-DEAE-ion exchange chromatography from the secretions of human skin fibroblasts under nondenaturing conditions. Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy revealed that both biotinylated decorin and decorin conjugated to the heterobifunctional cross-linker sulfosuccinimidyl 2-(p-azidosalicylamido)ethyl-1-3'-dithiopropionate (SASD) were endocytosed with equal efficiency. SASD-conjugated decorin was added to [35S]-methionine-labeled fibroblasts and cross-linked intracellularly to receptor molecules by photoactivation on endocytic uptake. Cross-linked decorin-receptor complexes were purified from the extracts of trypsin-treated fibroblasts by anion exchange chromatography and immunoprecipitation with a decorin-specific antiserum. Analysis by 2D electrophoresis and autoradiography revealed that decorin was specifically cross-linked to a protein of 110 kDa, which exhibited an isoelectric point of 5.5. In a second approach, unlabeled fibroblasts were subjected to decorin endocytosis and photoactivated cross-linking followed by Western blotting of DEAE-purified cell extracts. A shift of biotinylated decorin immunoreactivity from 165 kDa (decorin-receptor complex) to 54 kDa (SASD-conjugated biotinylated decorin) was noted on reductive cleavage of the cross-linker, representing a difference in molecular weight of approximately 110 kDa. The identification of a 110-kDa protein as a novel endocytosis receptor for decorin provides further support for the emerging concept of a redundancy of receptor molecules in the endocytosis of SLRP

Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity.

Atrophy of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in the pathophysiology of depression and related disorders. The ability to promote both structural and functional plasticity in the PFC has been hypothesized to underlie the fast-acting antidepressant properties of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine. Here, we report that, like ketamine, serotonergic psychedelics are capable of robustly increasing neuritogenesis and/or spinogenesis both in vitro and in vivo. These changes in neuronal structure are accompanied by increased synapse number and function, as measured by fluorescence microscopy and electrophysiology. The structural changes induced by psychedelics appear to result from stimulation of the TrkB, mTOR, and 5-HT2A signaling pathways and could possibly explain the clinical effectiveness of these compounds. Our results underscore the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and, importantly, identify several lead scaffolds for medicinal chemistry efforts focused on developing plasticity-promoting compounds as safe, effective, and fast-acting treatments for depression and related disorders

Motor Qualification for Long-Duration Mars Missions

Qualification of motors for deep space under extreme thermal environments to be encountered during the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is required to verify the reliability and validate mission assurance requirements. The motor assembly must survive all ground operations, plus the nominal 670 Martian-day (or sol) mission that includes summer and winter seasons of the Mars environment. The motor assembly was tested and characterized under extreme temperature conditions with reference to hardware requirements. The motor assembly has been proved to be remarkably robust and displayed no sign of degradation due to the 3 X (three times per JPL design principles) thermal environmental exposure to the punishing Mars surface operations cycles. The motor characteristics obtained before, during, and post-test comparisons for the surface operations cycles are within measurement error of one another. The motors withstood/survived 2,010 extreme temperature cycles with a Delta T of 190 C deep temperature cycles, representing three times the expected thermal cycling exposure during the MSL surface operations. The qualification test hardware elements (A200 motor assembly, encoders, and resolver) have not shown any signs of degradation due to the PQV (Package Qualification and Verification) testing. The test hardware has demonstrated sufficient life to survive the deep thermal cycles associated with MSL mission surface operations for three lives

Slope and amplitude asymmetry effects on low frequency capacitively coupled carbon tetrafluoride plasmas

We report investigations of capacitively coupled carbon tetrafluoride (CF4) plasmas excited with tailored voltage waveforms containing up to five harmonics of a base frequency of 5.5 MHz. The impact of both the slope asymmetry, and the amplitude asymmetry, of these waveforms on the discharge is examined by combining experiments with particle-in-cell simulations. For all conditions studied herein, the discharge is shown to operate in the drift-ambipolar mode, where a comparatively large electric field in the plasma bulk (outside the sheaths) is the main mechanism for electron power absorption leading to ionization. We show that both types of waveform asymmetries strongly influence the ion energy at the electrodes, with the particularity of having the highest ion flux on the electrode where the lowest ion energy is observed. Even at the comparatively high pressure (600 mTorr) and low fundamental frequency of 5.5 MHz used here, tailoring the voltage waveforms is shown to efficiently create an asymmetry of both the ion energy and the ion flux in geometrically symmetric reactors

Differential Forms on Log Canonical Spaces

The present paper is concerned with differential forms on log canonical varieties. It is shown that any p-form defined on the smooth locus of a variety with canonical or klt singularities extends regularly to any resolution of singularities. In fact, a much more general theorem for log canonical pairs is established. The proof relies on vanishing theorems for log canonical varieties and on methods of the minimal model program. In addition, a theory of differential forms on dlt pairs is developed. It is shown that many of the fundamental theorems and techniques known for sheaves of logarithmic differentials on smooth varieties also hold in the dlt setting. Immediate applications include the existence of a pull-back map for reflexive differentials, generalisations of Bogomolov-Sommese type vanishing results, and a positive answer to the Lipman-Zariski conjecture for klt spaces.Comment: 72 pages, 6 figures. A shortened version of this paper has appeared in Publications math\'ematiques de l'IH\'ES. The final publication is available at http://www.springerlink.co

Control of cambium initiation and activity in Arabidopsis by the transcriptional regulator AHL15

Plant secondary growth, which is the basis of wood formation, includes the production of secondary xylem, which is derived from meristematic cambium cells embedded in vascular tissue. Here, we identified an important role for the Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis) AT-HOOK MOTIF CONTAINING NUCLEAR LOCALIZED 15 (AHL15) transcriptional regulator in controlling vascular cambium activity. The limited secondary xylem development in inflorescence stems of herbaceous Arabidopsis plants was significantly reduced in ahl15 loss-of-function mutants, whereas constitutive or vascular meristem-specific AHL15 overexpression produced woody inflorescence stems. AHL15 was required for enhanced secondary xylem formation in the woody suppressor of overexpression of constans 1 (soc1) fruitfull (ful) double loss-of-function mutant. Moreover, we found that AHL15 induces vascular cambium activity downstream of the repressing SOC1 and FUL transcription factors, most likely similar to how it enhances lateral branching by promoting biosynthesis of the hormone cytokinin. Our results uncover a novel pathway driving cambium development, in which AHL15 expression levels act in parallel to and are dependent on the well-established TDIF-PXY-WOX pathway to differentiate between herbaceous and woody stem growth.Plant science

An autonomous chemically fuelled small-molecule motor

Molecular machines are among the most complex of all functional molecules and lie at the heart of nearly every biological process. A number of synthetic small-molecule machines have been developed, including molecular muscles, synthesizers, pumps, walkers, transporters and light-driven and electrically driven rotary motors. However, although biological molecular motors are powered by chemical gradients or the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), so far there are no synthetic small-molecule motors that can operate autonomously using chemical energy (that is, the components move with net directionality as long as a chemical fuel is present). Here we describe a system in which a small molecular ring (macrocycle) is continuously transported directionally around a cyclic molecular track when powered by irreversible reactions of a chemical fuel, 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl chloride. Key to the design is that the rate of reaction of this fuel with reactive sites on the cyclic track is faster when the macrocycle is far from the reactive site than when it is near to it. We find that a bulky pyridine-based catalyst promotes carbonate-forming reactions that ratchet the displacement of the macrocycle away from the reactive sites on the track. Under reaction conditions where both attachment and cleavage of the 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl groups occur through different processes, and the cleavage reaction occurs at a rate independent of macrocycle location, net directional rotation of the molecular motor continues for as long as unreacted fuel remains. We anticipate that autonomous chemically fuelled molecular motors will find application as engines in molecular nanotechnology.</p