Detection and identification of 700 drugs by multi-target screening with a 3200 Q TRAP LC-MS/MS system and library searching

The multi-target screening method described in this work allows the simultaneous detection and identification of 700 drugs and metabolites in biological fluids using a hybrid triple-quadrupole linear ion trap mass spectrometer in a single analytical run. After standardization of the method, the retention times of 700 compounds were determined and transitions for each compound were selected by a "scheduled" survey MRM scan, followed by an information-dependent acquisition using the sensitive enhanced product ion scan of a Q TRAP hybrid instrument. The identification of the compounds in the samples analyzed was accomplished by searching the tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) spectra against the library we developed, which contains electrospray ionization-MS/MS spectra of over 1,250 compounds. The multi-target screening method together with the library was included in a software program for routine screening and quantitation to achieve automated acquisition and library searching. With the help of this software application, the time for evaluation and interpretation of the results could be drastically reduced. This new multi-target screening method has been successfully applied for the analysis of postmortem and traffic offense samples as well as proficiency testing, and complements screening with immunoassays, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and liquid chromatography-diode-array detection. Other possible applications are analysis in clinical toxicology (for intoxication cases), in psychiatry (antidepressants and other psychoactive drugs), and in forensic toxicology (drugs and driving, workplace drug testing, oral fluid analysis, drug-facilitated sexual assault).

Brain activation during string playing

This chapter attempts to integrate data from both functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) to elucidate the activation of the cortical areas in musical performance for both execution and imagination of music during string playing. In both fMRI and EEG experiments, playing the music was compared with imagining the music. This allowed separation of the areas mainly involved in motor execution from those involved in imagining, planning, and working memory, thus differentiating musical from purely motor areas.

Diel variation in a dynamic sexual display and its association with female mate-searching behaviour

Dynamic sexual signals often show a diel rhythm and may vary substantially with time of day. Diel and short-term fluctuations in such sexual signals pose a puzzle for condition capture models of mate choice, which assume a female preference for male traits that reliably reflect a male's quality. Here we experimentally manipulated the food supply of individual male field crickets Gryllus campestris in their natural habitat in two consecutive seasons to determine (i) the effect of male nutritional condition on the fine-scaled variation of diel investment in acoustic signalling and (ii) the temporal association between the diel variation in male signalling and female mate-searching behaviour. Overall food-supplemented males signalled more often, but the effect was only visible during the daytime. In the evening and the night, signal output was still high but the time spent signalling was unrelated to a male's nutritional condition. Females' mate-searching behaviour also showed a diel rhythm with peak activity during the afternoon, when differences among calling males were highest, and where signal output reliably reflects male quality. These findings suggest that males differing in nutritional condition may optimize their investment in signalling in relation to time of day as to maximize mating success.

Searching the Rhone delta channel in Lake Geneva since François‐Alphonse Forel

In the late 19th century, F.A. FOREL led investigations of the Rhone River delta area of Lake Geneva that resulted in the dis- covery of a textbook example of a river-fed delta system containing impressive subaquatic channels. Well ahead of the marine counterparts, scientific observations and interpretations of water currents shaping the delta edifice for the first time documented how underflow currents carry cold, suspension-laden waters from the river mouth all the way to the deep basin. These early investigations of the Rhone delta laid the basis for follow-up studies in the 20th and 21th centuries. Sediment coring, water-column measurements, manned submersible diving, seismic reflection profiling and bathymetric sur- veying eventually provided a rich database to unravel the key erosional and depositional processes, further documenting the impact of human-induced changes in the catchment. With the merging of old and new scientific knowledge, today a comprehensive understanding prevails of how a delta changes through time, how its channels are formed, and what potential natural hazards may be related to its evolution. New and efficient bathymetric techniques, paired with novel coring operations, provided a time-series of morphologic evolution showing and quantifying the high dynamics of the delta/channel evolution in an unprecedented temporal and spatial reso- lution. Future investigations will continue to further quantify these dynamic processes and to link the evolution of the subaquatic domain with changes and processes in the catchment and with natural hazards. Its size, easy access, and large variety of states and processes will continue to make the Rhone delta area a perfect ‘laboratory’ in which general processes can be studied that could be upscaled or downscaled to other marine and lacustrine deltas.