Time-Resolved Optical Emission Spectroscopy Reveals Nonequilibrium Conditions for CO2_{2} Splitting in Atmospheric Plasma Sustained with Ultrafast Microwave Pulsation

Among the pool of Power-to-X technologies, plasmas show high potential for the efficient use of intermittent renewable energies. High efficiencies of CO$_{2}$ conversion have been reported while using microwave plasmas at vacuum conditions which are, however, not suitable for CO$_{2}$ mitigation at industrial scales. Here we show that ultrafast pulsation of microwaves allow significant improvements of energy efficiencies during CO$_{2}$ splitting at atmospheric pressure as compared to continuous wave operation of the microwave source. Moreover, by the interrogation of the plasma with time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy we can, for the first time, observe the evolution of the vibrational and rotational temperatures and define a time window where nonequilibrium can be expected at the beginning of the pulse of an atmospheric CO$_{2}$ microwave plasma. In spite of the evidence of nonequilibrium in our system, thermal mechanism appears to dominate the CO$_{2}$ dissociation. It is shown that a fine control of the energy deposition in the plasma is possible with ultrafast pulsation of the microwave energy supply

Evaluation of inter-batch variability in the establishing and quality control of glucose

This research evaluated the inter-batch variability in the identification and quality control of glucose, according to international specifications detailed in the guide CLSI EP-15. Type of qualitative research, analytical, not experimental, prospective cross-sectional conducted at the Department of Clinical Laboratory at Polyclinic ‘‘La Fe’’ during January 2015 was performed. The inter-batch variability for glucose in the semi-automated biochemical analyzer URIT-810 with liquid enzyme glucose-LS reagent (GOD-PAP) Valtek® batch 140825 was evaluated. The calibrators (CS) were the lot CS-A: 140 428, CS-B: 120912 and CS-C: 131 202. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 20.0 statistical analyzer and Microsoft Office Excel 2010 for Windows. The values found by calculating the sigma metric were: 2 (SE −0.35), 0 (SE 1.65) −0.9 (SE −0.75) to CS-A, CS-B and CS-C, respectively (p < 0.05). Only CS-A might be able to improve their performance, although with greater cost. Sub-optimal performance characteristics by using standard calibrators show high inter-lot variability, suggesting the choice and search for a new and better calibration method to ensure results that contain no medically important errors affecting patient health

Mice lacking Ras-GRF1 show contextual fear conditioning but not spatial memory impairments: convergent evidence from two independently generated mouse mutant lines

Ras-GRF1 is a neuronal specific guanine exchange factor that, once activated by both ionotropic and metabotropic neurotransmitter receptors, can stimulate Ras proteins, leading to long-term phosphorylation of downstream signaling. The two available reports on the behavior of two independently generated Ras-GRF1 deficient mouse lines provide contrasting evidence on the role of Ras-GRF1 in spatial memory and contextual fear conditioning. These discrepancies may be due to the distinct alterations introduced in the mouse genome by gene targeting in the two lines that could differentially affect expression of nearby genes located in the imprinted region containing the Ras-grf1 locus. In order to determine the real contribution of Ras-GRF1 to spatial memory we compared in Morris Water Maze learning Brambilla’s mice with a third mouse line (GENA53) in which a non-sense mutation was introduced in the Ras-GRF1 coding region without additional changes in the genome and we found that memory in this task is normal. Also, we measured both contextual and cued fear conditioning, which were previously reported to be affected in Brambilla’s mice, and we confirmed that contextual learning but not cued conditioning is impaired in both mouse lines. In addition, we also tested both lines for the first time in conditioned place aversion in the Intellicage, an ecological and remotely controlled behavioral test, and we observed normal learning. Finally, based on previous reports of other mutant lines suggesting that Ras-GRF1 may control body weight, we also measured this non-cognitive phenotype and we confirmed that both Ras-GRF1 deficient mutants are smaller than their control littermates. In conclusion, we demonstrate that Ras-GRF1 has no unique role in spatial memory while its function in contextual fear conditioning is likely to be due not only to its involvement in amygdala functions but possibly to some distinct hippocampal connections specific to contextual learning

Structure of two intramolecular G-quadruplexes formed by natural human telomere sequences in K+ solution†

Intramolecular G-quadruplexes formed by human telomere sequences are attractive anticancer targets. Recently, four-repeat human telomere sequences have been shown to form two different intramolecular (3 + 1) G-quadruplexes in K+ solution (Form 1 and Form 2). Here we report on the solution structures of both Form 1 and Form 2 adopted by natural human telomere sequences. Both structures contain the (3 + 1) G-tetrad core with one double-chain-reversal and two edgewise loops, but differ in the successive order of loop arrangements within the G-quadruplex scaffold. Our results provide the structural details at the two ends of the G-tetrad core in the context of natural sequences and information on different loop conformations. This structural information might be important for our understanding of telomere G-quadruplex structures and for anticancer drug design targeted to such scaffolds

A new hard x-ray spectrometer for runaway electron measurements in tokamaks

Runaway electron gamma-ray detection system, a novel hard x-ray (HXR) spectrometer optimized for bremsstrahlung radiation measurement from runaway electrons in fusion plasmas, has been developed. The detector is based on a 1‘×1’ LaBr3:Ce scintillator crystal coupled with a photomultiplier tube. The system has an energy dynamic range exceeding 20 MeV with an energy resolution of 3% at 661.7 keV. The detector gain is stable even under severe loads, with a gain shift that stays below 3% at HXR counting rates in excess of 1 MCps. The performance of the system enables unprecedented studies of the time-dependent runaway electron energy distribution function, as shown in recent runaway electron physics experiments at the ASDEX Upgrade and COMPASS tokamaks.</p