Photochemistry of 3,3',4',5 - tetrachlorosalicylanilide and 3,4',5 - tribromosalicylanilide and their interactions with human serum albumin

Many substituted salicylanilides, particularly halogenated salicylanilides have strong anti-bacterial properties and in the past have been employed as bactericides in soaps. However, this has led to photoallergy causing serious adverse skin reactions. Although most photoallergens will elicit a response in only a small fraction of the people exposed 3,3',4',5-tetrachlorosalicylanilide (T₄CS-H) is unusual in inducing photoallergy in a high fraction of those exposed and displays a high specificity towards serum albumin. The proposed mechanism of the protein-photoallergen binding is thought to proceed via the formation of highly reactive species such as free radicals. The albumin in the skin is believed to be the carrier protein in the skin that binds with T₄CS⁻ to form an antigen. […continued

Topographically Induced Internal Waves and Enhanced Vertical Mixing in an Estuary

Stratified tidal flow over topographic features has often been thought to give rise to enhanced vertical mixing in estuaries. So far no estimates have been made of the transfer of energy from the barotropic tide to internal waves, and subsequently to increased potential energy of the water column. Observations have been made over a topographic depression at Cargreen in the Tamar Estuary. This work shows clearly the formation and evolution mechanisms for internal waves on the thermocline, on a neap and a spring tide. On a neap tide an internal wave formed as a nonlinear response to the tidal flow. It subsequently dissipated its energy to mixing through turbulence due to enhanced shear across the thermocline. On the spring tide the internal wave broke in situ in the form of a hydraulic jump. Estimates of the energy transfers are in excellent agreement with studies on the continental shelf edge, and in laboratory experiments of wave breaking, and are the first of their kind for estuaries. A nonlinear, hydrostatic, two-layer numerical model of the flow has been applied to the Cargreen topography, for the neap and spring tide observations. The model predicts the maximum wave heights and energies well, but fails to reproduce the more subtle details of the thermocline response. Other observations of the flow at Cargreen are put into a conceptual framework based on an internal Froude number, Fi, and it is indicated that Fi = 2 to 3 is appropriate for internal wave/hydraulic jump transitions at Cargreen.Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Deacon Laborator

A molecular target for viral killer toxin: TOK1 potassium channels.

Killer strains of S. cerevisiae harbor double-stranded RNA viruses and secrete protein toxins that kill virus-free cells. The K1 killer toxin acts on sensitive yeast cells to perturb potassium homeostasis and cause cell death. Here, the toxin is shown to activate the plasma membrane potassium channel of S. cerevisiae, TOK1. Genetic deletion of TOK1 confers toxin resistance; overexpression increases susceptibility. Cells expressing TOK1 exhibit toxin-induced potassium flux; those without the gene do not. K1 toxin acts in the absence of other viral or yeast products: toxin synthesized from a cDNA increases open probability of single TOK1 channels (via reversible destabilization of closed states) whether channels are studied in yeast cells or X. laevis oocytes

Enabling generative AI to produce SQL statements:a framework for the auto-generation of knowledge based on EBNF context-free grammars

The motivation of this paper is to be able to generate high-quality (Structured Query Language) SQL language sentences in terms of syntax and semantics so that they are intended to achieve a concrete predefined and well-known aim. For example, generating SQL sentences that are capable of detecting a cyber-attack from a set of metrics available in a database table. Two solutions are needed to achieve so, a tool that enables and performs the syntactically valid generation of SQL sentences and an (Artificial intelligence) AI algorithm able to guide the semantics of such generations to the achievement of the best sentences for the intended purpose. The main contribution of this manuscript is the first of these solutions. To be concrete, this paper proposes a tool to enable and generate syntactic-valid language sentences. The tool can deal with any language defined as an ANTLR4 EBNF (Extended Backus-Naur Form) grammar. The paper also provides a methodology to help achieve an EBNF grammar suitable for addressing concerns related to ambiguity and recursion as a direct result of the generation process. The paper further implements a prototype utilizing ANTLR4’s recognizer and its Augmented Transition Network for language generation using EBNF grammars. In-depth design and logic implementation are provided, showcasing areas of interest for AI integration. The achieved prototype showed an ability to easily generate syntactically valid SQL statements at various depths, with observable problems becoming more apparent during the exponential recursive growth. Our mitigation controls for such scenarios proved to be successful and were able to complete the recursion whilst also moving the push-down automata forward until query completion. Experimental validation was performed against a SQL EBNF grammar feeding the generated SQL statement into an SQL parser to validate the syntax