Two- and three-dimensional shape fabric analysis by the intercept method in grey levels

The count intercept is a robust method for the numerical analysis of fabrics Launeau and Robin (1996). It counts the number of intersections between a set of parallel scan lines and a mineral phase, which must be identified on a digital image. However, the method is only sensitive to boundaries and therefore supposes the user has some knowledge about their significance. The aim of this paper is to show that a proper grey level detection of boundaries along scan lines is sufficient to calculate the two-dimensional anisotropy of grain or crystal distributions without any particular image processing. Populations of grains and crystals usually display elliptical anisotropies in rocks. When confirmed by the intercept analysis, a combination of a minimum of 3 mean length intercept roses, taken on 3 more or less perpendicular sections, allows the calculation of 3-dimensional ellipsoids and the determination of their standard deviation with direction and intensity in 3 dimensions as well. The feasibility of this quick method is attested by numerous examples on theoretical objects deformed by active and passive deformation, on BSE images of synthetic magma flow, on drawing or direct analysis of thin section pictures of sandstones and on digital images of granites directly taken and measured in the field. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sequence and Structural Analysis of the 5 ` Noncoding Region of Hepatitis C Virus in Patients With Chronic Infection

Hepatitis C virus (HCV), exhibits considerable genetic diversity, but presents a relatively well conserved 5 ` noncoding region (5 ` NCR) among all genotypes. In this study, the structural features and translational efficiency of the HCV 5 ` NCR sequences were analyzed using the programs RNAfold, RNAshapes and RNApdist and with a bicistronic dual luciferase expression system, respectively. RNA structure prediction software indicated that base substitutions will alter potentially the 5 ` NCR structure. The heterogeneous sequence observed on 5 ` NCR led to important changes in their translation efficiency in different cell culture lines. Interactions of the viral RNA with cellular transacting factors may vary according to the cell type and viral genome polymorphisms that may result in the translational efficiency observed. J. Med. Virol. 81: 1212-1219, 2009. (C) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

trans, trans-2,4-decadienal induces mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress

Lipid peroxidation produces a large number of reactive aldehydes as secondary products. We have previously shown that the reaction of cytochrome c with trans,trans-2, 4-decadienal (DDE), an aldehyde generated as a product of lipid peroxidation in cell membranes, results in the formation of adducts. Mass spectrometry analysis indicated that His-33, Lys-39, Lys-72 and Lys-100 in cytochrome c were modified by DDE. In the present work, we investigated the effect of DDE on isolated rat liver mitochondria. DDE (162 mu M) treatment increases the rate of mitochondrial oxygen consumption. Extensive mitochondrial swelling upon treatment with DDE (900 nM-162 mu M) was observed by light scattering and transmission electron microscopy experiments. DDE-induced loss of inner mitochondrial membrane potentials, monitored by safranin O fluorescence, was also observed. Furthermore, DDE-treated mitochondria showed an increase in lipid peroxidation, as monitored by MDA formation. These results suggest that reactive aldehydes promote mitochondrial dysfunction.

Global Gene Expression Analysis during Sporulation of the Aquatic Fungus Blastocladiella emersonii

The Blastocladiella emersonii life cycle presents a number of drastic biochemical and morphological changes, mainly during two cell differentiation stages: germination and sporulation. To investigate the transcriptional changes taking place during the sporulation phase, which culminates with the production of the zoospores, motile cells responsible for the dispersal of the fungus, microarray experiments were performed. Among the 3,773 distinct genes investigated, a total of 1,207 were classified as differentially expressed, relative to time zero of sporulation, at at least one of the time points analyzed. These results indicate that accurate transcriptional control takes place during sporulation, as well as indicating the necessity for distinct molecular functions throughout this differentiation process. The main functional categories overrepresented among upregulated genes were those involving the microtubule, the cytoskeleton, signal transduction involving Ca(2+), and chromosome organization. On the other hand, protein biosynthesis, central carbon metabolism, and protein degradation were the most represented functional categories among downregulated genes. Gene expression changes were also analyzed in cells sporulating in the presence of subinhibitory concentrations of glucose or tryptophan. Data obtained revealed overexpression of microtubule and cytoskeleton transcripts in the presence of glucose, probably causing the shape and motility problems observed in the zoospores produced under this condition. In contrast, the presence of tryptophan during sporulation led to upregulation of genes involved in oxidative stress, proteolysis, and protein folding. These results indicate that distinct physiological pathways are involved in the inhibition of sporulation due to these two classes of nutrient sources.

Proteomic analysis of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex indicates the involvement of cytoskeleton, oligodendrocyte, energy metabolism and new potential markers in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is likely to be a consequence of serial alterations in a number of genes that, together with environmental factors, will lead to the establishment of the illness. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann`s Area 46) is implicated in schizophrenia and executes high functions such as working memory, differentiation of conflicting thoughts, determination of right and wrong concepts, correct social behavior and personality expression. We performed a comparative proteome analysis using two-dimensional gel electrophoresis of pools from 9 schizophrenia and 7 healthy control patients` dorsolateral prefrontal cortex aiming to identify, by mass spectrometry, alterations in protein expression that could be related to the disease. In schizophrenia-derived samples, our analysis revealed 10 downregulated and 14 upregulated proteins. These included alterations previously implicated in schizophrenia, such as oligodendrocyte-related proteins (myelin basic protein and transferrin), as well as malate dehydrogenase, aconitase, ATP synthase subunits and cytoskeleton-related proteins. Also, six new putative disease markers were identified, including energy metabolism, cytoskeleton and cell signaling proteins. Our data not only reinforces the involvement of proteins previously implicated in schizophrenia, but also suggests new markers, providing further information to foster the comprehension of this important disease. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Proteome analysis of human dorsolateral prefrontal cortex using shotgun mass spectrometry

The prefrontal cortex executes important functions such as differentiation of conflicting thoughts, correct social behavior and personality expression, and is directly implicated in different neurodegenerative diseases. We performed a shotgun proteome analysis that included IEF fractionation, RP-LC, and MALDI-TOF/TOF mass spectrometric analysis of tryptic digests from a pool of seven human dorsolateral prefrontal cortex protein extracts. In this report, we present a catalog of 387 proteins expressed in these samples, identified by two or more peptides and high confidence search scores. These proteins are involved in different biological processes such as cell growth and/or maintenance, metabolism/energy pathways, cell communication/signal trarisduction, protein metabolism, transport, regulation of nucleobase, nucleoside, nucleotide and nucleic acid metabolism, and immune response. This analysis contributes to the knowledge of the human brain proteome by adding sample diversity and protein expression data from an alternative technical approach. It will also aid comparative studies of different brain areas and medical conditions, with future applications in basic and clinical research.

GENOTYPE CHARACTERIZATION OF THE Haematobia irritans (DIPTERA: MUSCIDAE) FROM BRAZIL, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC AND COLOMBIA BASED ON RANDOMLY AMPLIFIED POLYMORPHIC DNA (RAPD) ANALYSIS

Blood-sucking flies are important parasites in animal production systems, especially regarding confinement conditions. Haematobia irritans, the horn fly, is one of the most troublesome species within bovine production systems, due to the intense stress imposed to the animals. H. irritans is one of the parasites of cattle that cause significant economic losses in many parts of the world, including South America. In the present work, Brazilian, Colombian and Dominican Republic populations of this species were studied by Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA(RAPD) to assess basically genetic variability between populations. Fifteen different decamer random primers were employed in the genomic DNA amplification, yielding 196 fragments in the three H. irritans populations. Among h. irritans samples, that from Colombia produced the smallest numbers of polymorphic hands. This high genetic homogeneity may be ascribed to its geographic origin, which causes high isolation, low gene flow, unlike the other American populations, from Brazil and Dominican Republic. Molecular marker fragments, which its produced exclusive bands, detected in every sample enabled the population origin to be characterized, but they are also potentially useful for further approaches such as the putative origin of Brazilian, Colombian and Dominican Republic populations of horn fly from South America. Similarity indices produced by chemo metric analysis showed the closest relationships between flies from Brazil and Dominican Republic, while flies from Colombia showed the greatest genotypic differentiation relative to the others populations.

Energy Analysis within Industrial Hydraulics and Correspondent Solar PV System Design

Energy efficiency and renewable energy use are two main priorities leading to industrial sustainability nowadays according to European Steel Technology Platform (ESTP). Modernization efforts can be done by industries to improve energy consumptions of the production lines. These days, steel making industrial applications are energy and emission intensive. It was estimated that over the past years, energy consumption and corresponding CO2 generation has increased steadily reaching approximately 338.15 parts per million in august 2010 [1]. These kinds of facts and statistics have introduced a lot of room for improvement in energy efficiency for industrial applications through modernization and use of renewable energy sources such as solar Photovoltaic Systems (PV).The purpose of this thesis work is to make a preliminary design and simulation of the solar photovoltaic system which would attempt to cover the energy demand of the initial part of the pickling line hydraulic system at the SSAB steel plant. For this purpose, the energy consumptions of this hydraulic system would be studied and evaluated and a general analysis of the hydraulic and control components performance would be done which would yield a proper set of guidelines contributing towards future energy savings. The results of the energy efficiency analysis showed that the initial part of the pickling line hydraulic system worked with a low efficiency of 3.3%. Results of general analysis showed that hydraulic accumulators of 650 liter size should be used by the initial part pickling line system in combination with a one pump delivery of 100 l/min. Based on this, one PV system can deliver energy to an AC motor-pump set covering 17.6% of total energy and another PV system can supply a DC hydraulic pump substituting 26.7% of the demand. The first system used 290 m2 area of the roof and was sized as 40 kWp, the second used 109 m2 and was sized as 15.2 kWp. It was concluded that the reason for the low efficiency was the oversized design of the system. Incremental modernization efforts could help to improve the hydraulic system energy efficiency and make the design of the solar photovoltaic system realistically possible. Two types of PV systems where analyzed in the thesis work. A method was found calculating the load simulation sequence based on the energy efficiency studies to help in the PV system simulations. Hydraulic accumulators integrated into the pickling line worked as energy storage when being charged by the PV system as well.

Load Adapted Solar Thermal Combisystems - Optical Analysis and Systems Optimization

In a northern European climate a typical solar combisystem for a single family house normally saves between 10 and 30 % of the auxiliary energy needed for space heating and domestic water heating. It is considered uneconomical to dimension systems for higher energy savings. Overheating problems may also occur. One way of avoiding these problems is to use a collector that is designed so that it has a low optical efficiency in summer, when the solar elevation is high and the load is small, and a high optical efficiency in early spring and late fall when the solar elevation is low and the load is large.The study investigates the possibilities to design the system and, in particular, the collector optics, in order to match the system performance with the yearly variations of the heating load and the solar irradiation. It seems possible to design practically viable load adapted collectors, and to use them for whole roofs ( 40 m2) without causing more overheating stress on the system than with a standard 10 m2 system. The load adapted collectors collect roughly as much energy per unit area as flat plate collectors, but they may be produced at a lower cost due to lower material costs. There is an additional potential for a cost reduction since it is possible to design the load adapted collector for low stagnation temperatures making it possible to use less expensive materials. One and the same collector design is suitable for a wide range of system sizes and roof inclinations. The report contains descriptions of optimized collector designs, properties of realistic collectors, and results of calculations of system output, stagnation performance and cost performance. Appropriate computer tools for optical analysis, optimization of collectors in systems and a very fast simulation model have been developed.

Motion Cues Analysis for Parkinson Gait Recognition

Background: Previous assessment methods for PG recognition used sensor mechanisms for PG that may cause discomfort. In order to avoid stress of applying wearable sensors, computer vision (CV) based diagnostic systems for PG recognition have been proposed. Main constraints in these methods are the laboratory setup procedures: Novel colored dresses for the patients were specifically designed to segment the test body from a specific colored background. Objective: To develop an image processing tool for home-assessment of Parkinson Gait(PG) by analyzing motion cues extracted during the gait cycles. Methods: The system is based on the idea that a normal body attains equilibrium during the gait by aligning the body posture with the axis of gravity. Due to the rigidity in muscular tone, persons with PD fail to align their bodies with the axis of gravity. The leaned posture of PD patients appears to fall forward. Whereas a normal posture exhibits a constant erect posture throughout the gait. Patients with PD walk with shortened stride angle (less than 15 degrees on average) with high variability in the stride frequency. Whereas a normal gait exhibits a constant stride frequency with an average stride angle of 45 degrees. In order to analyze PG, levodopa-responsive patients and normal controls were videotaped with several gait cycles. First, the test body is segmented in each frame of the gait video based on the pixel contrast from the background to form a silhouette. Next, the center of gravity of this silhouette is calculated. This silhouette is further skeletonized from the video frames to extract the motion cues. Two motion cues were stride frequency based on the cyclic leg motion and the lean frequency based on the angle between the leaned torso tangent and the axis of gravity. The differences in the peaks in stride and lean frequencies between PG and normal gait are calculated using Cosine Similarity measurements. Results: High cosine dissimilarity was observed in the stride and lean frequencies between PG and normal gait. High variations are found in the stride intervals of PG whereas constant stride intervals are found in the normal gait. Conclusions: We propose an algorithm as a source to eliminate laboratory constraints and discomfort during PG analysis. Installing this tool in a home computer with a webcam allows assessment of gait in the home environment.

Modelling dominance in a flexible intercross analysis

The aim of this paper is to develop a flexible model for analysis of quantitative trait loci (QTL) in outbred line crosses, which includes both additive and dominance effects. Our flexible intercross analysis (FIA) model accounts for QTL that are not fixed within founder lines and is based on the variance component framework. Genome scans with FIA are performed using a score statistic, which does not require variance component estimation. RESULTS: Simulations of a pedigree with 800 F2 individuals showed that the power of FIA including both additive and dominance effects was almost 50% for a QTL with equal allele frequencies in both lines with complete dominance and a moderate effect, whereas the power of a traditional regression model was equal to the chosen significance value of 5%. The power of FIA without dominance effects included in the model was close to those obtained for FIA with dominance for all simulated cases except for QTL with overdominant effects. A genome-wide linkage analysis of experimental data from an F2 intercross between Red Jungle Fowl and White Leghorn was performed with both additive and dominance effects included in FIA. The score values for chicken body weight at 200 days of age were similar to those obtained in FIA analysis without dominance. CONCLUSION: We have extended FIA to include QTL dominance effects. The power of FIA was superior, or similar, to standard regression methods for QTL effects with dominance. The difference in power for FIA with or without dominance is expected to be small as long as the QTL effects are not overdominant. We suggest that FIA with only additive effects should be the standard model to be used, especially since it is more computationally efficient.

Investigating the Effects of Mifepristone (RU486) in the Behavioral, Hormonal and Central Responses to Acute Stress

Depression is associated with glucocorticoid hypersecretion, due to dysfunction of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocorticol axis (HPA-axis). Because excess glucocorticoids are associated with depressive-like features in humans, glucocorticoid receptor antagonists are currently being tested for antidepressant efficacy in clinical trials. In the current study the hypothesis that mifepristone (RU486), a glucocorticoid receptor antagonist, would decrease the neuroendocrine and central HPA-axis responses to an acute stressor and attentuate depressive like behavior in an animal model of behavioral helplessness (forced swim test) was tested. Adult male rats were treated with 10 mglkg RU486 (subcutaneous) for five days and then exposed to a IO-minute forced swim test (FST), conducted in Plexiglas cylinders. FST sessions were videotaped for later analysis of behavioral immobility. Plasma ACTH and corticosterone CORT were measured at 15min and 90min after FST cessation. Animals were perfused and brains were collected for immunocytochemical assessment of c-Fos expression in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a brain region implicated in both depression and central control of the HPA axis. RU486 significantly decreased peak ACTH and CORT concentrations following FST exposure. In addition, glucocorticoid negative feedback was at1enuated in RU486-treated animals exposed to the FST. Exposure to FST alone induced c-FOS expression in the mPFC, as measured by the number of c-Fos positive neurons. Treatment with RU486 significantly increased the number of rnPFC c-Fos positive cell following FST exposure. The behavioral data obtained from FST paradigm, demonstrated that RU486 decreased immobility in the FST illustrating the potential efficacy of this drug as an antidepressant. Collectively these data suggest that RU486 dampens HPA-axis responses to stress, possibly by enhancing the excitability of stress-inhibitory neurons in the mPFC. This is particularly exciting, given the fact that this neural region is associated with decreased neural activity during depression in humans.

Um modelo numerico para analise de estruturas de materiais compostos considerando efeitos viscoelasticos e falhas progressivas

Neste trabalho apresentam-se pocedimentos para análise não linear de estruturas de materiais compostos laminados reforçados por fibras. A formulação é baseada em uma descrição cinemática incremental Lagrangeana Total, que permite o tratamento de deslocamentos arbitrariamente grandes com pequenas deformações, utilizando elementos finitos tridimensionais degenerados deduzidos para a análise de cascas. As estruturas são consideradas como submetidas a cargas mecânicas e a ações de temperatura e de umidade. O material é suposto elástico linear com propriedades dependentes, ou não, dos valores da temperatura e da concentração de umidade, ou viscoelástico linear com uma relação constitutiva em integral hereditária , e com comportamento higrotermo-reologicamente simples. As lâminas são consideradas como sujeitas a falhas, as quais são detectadas através de critérios macroscópicos, baseados em tensões ou em deformações. As equações não lineares de equilíbrio são resolvidas através de procedimentos iterativos e as deformações dependentes do tempo são avaliadas pelo método das variáveis de estado. Diversos exemplos numéricos de estruturas submetidas à flexão, flambagem elástica e viscoelástica e falhas são apresentados.

A note on convergence of Peck-Shell and Green-Lin mechanisms in the Diamond-Dybvig model

We study the effects of population size in the Peck-Shell analysis of bank runs. We find that a contract featuring equal-treatment for almost all depositors of the same type approximates the optimum. Because the approximation also satisfies Green-Lin incentive constraints, when the planner discloses positions in the queue, welfare in these alternative specifications are sandwiched. Disclosure, however, it is not needed since our approximating contract is not subject to runs.