Recent Developments in Cold Formed Steel

During the last fifteen years the author has been working in the development of new products in cold formed steel, mainly in building applications. Cold formed steel makes possible practically an infinite variety of shapes, one for each need and function. This possibility is a continuous challenge for designers in finding, among many alternatives, the optimal solution for each problem. The author describes briefly a set of six proposals, which are either an already tested and proven product, or just its phase of design. As in any human doing, the author is conscious that these proposals may be accomplished and deserve further investigations and improvements. However, the intention of this Paper is to show possibilities of cold formed steel applications and how far cold formed steel may invade fields where other construction materials have done the job until now. The author believes hat cold formed steel can also do it, and probably better

Humanized Foxp2 accelerates learning by enhancing transitions from declarative to procedural performance

The acquisition of language and speech is uniquely human, but how genetic changes might have adapted the nervous system to this capacity is not well understood. Two human-specific amino acid substitutions in the transcription factor forkhead box P2 (FOXP2) are outstanding mechanistic candidates, as they could have been positively selected during human evolution and as FOXP2 is the sole gene to date firmly linked to speech and language development. When these two substitutions are introduced into the endogenous Foxp2 gene of mice (Foxp2[superscript hum]), cortico-basal ganglia circuits are specifically affected. Here we demonstrate marked effects of this humanization of Foxp2 on learning and striatal neuroplasticity. Foxp2[superscript hum/hum] mice learn stimulus–response associations faster than their WT littermates in situations in which declarative (i.e., place-based) and procedural (i.e., response-based) forms of learning could compete during transitions toward proceduralization of action sequences. Striatal districts known to be differently related to these two modes of learning are affected differently in the Foxp2[superscript hum/hum] mice, as judged by measures of dopamine levels, gene expression patterns, and synaptic plasticity, including an NMDA receptor-dependent form of long-term depression. These findings raise the possibility that the humanized Foxp2 phenotype reflects a different tuning of corticostriatal systems involved in declarative and procedural learning, a capacity potentially contributing to adapting the human brain for speech and language acquisition.Nancy Lurie Marks Family FoundationSimons Foundation (Autism Research Initiative Grant 137593)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R01 MH060379)Wellcome Trust (London, England) (Grant 075491/Z/04)Wellcome Trust (London, England) (Grant 080971)Fondation pour la recherche medicaleMax Planck Society for the Advancement of Scienc

Bilateral myositis ossificans of the masseter muscle after chemoradiotherapy and critical illness neuropathy- report of a rare entity and review of literature

Myositis ossificans in the head and neck is a rare heterotropic bone formation within a muscle. Besides fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, traumatic and neurogenic forms are described in the literature

Measurement of the diffractive structure function in deep inelastic scattering at HERA

This paper presents an analysis of the inclusive properties of diffractive deep inelastic scattering events produced in $ep$ interactions at HERA. The events are characterised by a rapidity gap between the outgoing proton system and the remaining hadronic system. Inclusive distributions are presented and compared with Monte Carlo models for diffractive processes. The data are consistent with models where the pomeron structure function has a hard and a soft contribution. The diffractive structure function is measured as a function of \xpom, the momentum fraction lost by the proton, of $\beta$, the momentum fraction of the struck quark with respect to \xpom, and of $Q^2$. The \xpom dependence is consistent with the form \xpoma where $a~=~1.30~\pm~0.08~(stat)~^{+~0.08}_{-~0.14}~(sys)$ in all bins of $\beta$ and $Q^2$. In the measured $Q^2$ range, the diffractive structure function approximately scales with $Q^2$ at fixed $\beta$. In an Ingelman-Schlein type model, where commonly used pomeron flux factor normalisations are assumed, it is found that the quarks within the pomeron do not saturate the momentum sum rule.Comment: 36 pages, latex, 11 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Observation of hard scattering in photoproduction events with a large rapidity gap at HERA

Events with a large rapidity gap and total transverse energy greater than 5 GeV have been observed in quasi-real photoproduction at HERA with the ZEUS detector. The distribution of these events as a function of the $\gamma p$ centre of mass energy is consistent with diffractive scattering. For total transverse energies above 12 GeV, the hadronic final states show predominantly a two-jet structure with each jet having a transverse energy greater than 4 GeV. For the two-jet events, little energy flow is found outside the jets. This observation is consistent with the hard scattering of a quasi-real photon with a colourless object in the proton.Comment: 19 pages, latex, 4 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Observation of direct processes in photoproduction at HERA

Jets in photoproduction events have been studied with the ZEUS detector for gammap centre-of-mass energies ranging from 130 to 2 50 GeV. The inclusive jet distributions give evidence for the dominance of resolved photon interactions. In the di-jet sample the direct processes are for the first time clearly isolated. Di-jet cross sections for the resolved and direct processes are given in a restricted kinematic range

The role of DNA microarrays in Toxoplasma gondii research, the causative agent of ocular toxoplasmosis

Ocular toxoplasmosis, which is caused by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii, is the leading cause of retinochoroiditis. Toxoplasma is an obligate intracellular pathogen that replicates within a parasitophorous vacuole. Infections are initiated by digestion of parasites deposited in cat feces or in undercooked meat. Parasites then disseminate to target tissues that include the retina where they then develop into long-lived asymptomatic tissue cysts. Occasionally, cysts reactivate and growth of newly emerged parasites must be controlled by the host’s immune system or disease will occur. The mechanisms by which Toxoplasma grows within its host cell, encysts, and interacts with the host’s immune system are important questions. Here, we will discuss how the use of DNA microarrays in transcriptional profiling, genotyping, and epigenetic experiments has impacted our understanding of these processes. Finally, we will discuss how these advances relate to ocular toxoplasmosis and how future research on ocular toxoplasmosis can benefit from DNA microarrays