Vocal development in captive harbor seal pups, Phoca vitulina richardii: age, sex, and individual differences

The goal of this research was to determine when harbor seal pup vocalizations become sufficiently distinctive to allow individual recognition. A total of 4593 calls were analyzed from 15 captive pups. Nineteen were harsh, broadband, staccato calls used in an aggressive context. The rest were tonal "mother attraction calls," having an inverted "v"- or "u"-shaped spectrogram with harmonics and a fundamental frequency around 200-600 Hz. Calls were individually distinctive even in pups less than 2 weeks old, suggesting that mothers may be able to recognize pup vocalizations at this early age. Classification rates from discriminant function analysis were generally comparable to those of other phocids and less than in otariids, supporting the theory that recognition is more highly developed in otariids. Significant differences were found between male and female pup calls, and there were significant interactions between pup sex and age. The results of this study should be interpreted with caution until the findings are verified in wild harbor seal pups.     

A Pro-Fluorescent Ubiquitin-Based Probe to Monitor Cysteine-Based E3 Ligase Activity

Protein post-translational modification with ubiquitin (Ub) is a versatile signal regulating almost all aspects of cell biology, and an increasing range of diseases is associated with impaired Ub modification. In this light, the Ub system offers an attractive, yet underexplored route to the development of novel targeted treatments. A promising strategy for small molecule intervention is posed by the final components of the enzymatic ubiquitination cascade, E3 ligases, as they determine the specificity of the protein ubiquitination pathway. Here, we present UbSRhodol, an autoimmolative Ub-based probe, which upon E3 processing liberates the pro-fluorescent dye, amenable to profile the E3 transthiolation activity for recombinant and in cell-extract E3 ligases. UbSRhodol enabled detection of changes in transthiolation efficacy evoked by enzyme key point mutations or conformational changes, and offers an excellent assay reagent amenable to a high-throughput screening setup allowing the identification of small molecules modulating E3 activity.     

Inhibition of the oxygen evolution reaction during titanium passivation in aqueous phosphoric acid solution

Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry - The anodic oxide on titanium can be thickened by anodization, with the consequent corrosion properties of this oxide depending on many variables, including...     

An adaptive ejection pool with toggle-rule diversification approach for the capacitated team orienteering problem

In the capacitated team orienteering problem (CTOP), we are given a set of homogeneous vehicles and a set of customers each with a service demand value and a profit value. A vehicle can get the profit of a customer by satisfying its demand, but the total demand of all customers in its route cannot exceed the vehicle capacity and the length of the route must be within a specified maximum. The problem is to design a set of routes that maximizes the total profit collected by the vehicles. In this article, we propose a new heuristic algorithm for the CTOP using the ejection pool framework with an adaptive strategy and a diversification mechanism based on toggling between two priority rules. Experimental results show that our algorithm can match or improve all the best known results on the standard CTOP benchmark instances proposed by Archetti et al. (2008).     

Antioxidant capacity of flavonoids and a new arylphenol of the resinous exudate from Heliotropium sinuatum

From the resinous exudate of Heliotropium sinuatum (family Boraginaceae), a new compound: 4-(3',5'-dihydroxynonadecyl)phenol 1, together with eight previously described flavonoids, were isolated and their antioxidant activities were assessed by quenching measurements with ABTS and DPPH cation radicals.     

Fabrication of microfluidic mixers and artificial vasculatures using a high-brightness diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser direct write method

This paper describes a direct write laser technology, which is fast and flexible, for fabricating multiple-level microfluidic channels. A high brightness diode-pumped Nd-YAG laser with slab geometry was used for its excellent beam quality. Channels with flat walls and staggered herringbone ridges on the floor have been successfully fabricated and their ability to perform passive mixing of liquid is discussed. Also, a multi-width multi-depth microchannel has been fabricated to generate biomimetic vasculatures whose channel diameters change according to Murray's law, which states that the cube of the radius of a parent vessel equals the sum of the cubes of the radii of the daughters. The multi-depth architecture allows for flow patterns to resemble physiological vascular systems with lower overall resistance and more uniform flow velocities throughout the network compared to planar patterning techniques which generate uniformly thin channels. The ability to directly fabricate multiple level structures using relatively straightforward laser technology enhances our ability to rapidly prototype complex lab-on-a-chip systems and to develop physiological microfluidic structures for tissue engineering and investigations in biomedical fluidics problems.     

Secondary Metabolites Found among the Species Trattinnickia rhoifolia Willd

Plant-derived products may represent promising strategies in the treatment of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). From this perspective, it is observed that the Amazon phytogeographic region contains the tribe Canarieae of the Burseraceae family, composed of trees and shrubs supplied with resin channels. Its uses in folk medicine are related to aromatic properties, which have numerous medicinal applications and are present in reports from traditional peoples, sometimes as the only therapeutic resource. Despite its economic and pharmacological importance in the region, and although the family is distributed in all tropical and subtropical regions of the world, most of the scientific information available is limited to Asian and African species. Therefore, the present work aimed to review the secondary metabolites with possible pharmacological potential of the species Trattinnickia rhoifolia Willd, popularly known as “Breu sucuruba”. To this end, an identification key was created for chemical compounds with greater occurrence in the literature of the genus Trattinnickia. The most evident therapeutic activities in the consulted studies were antimicrobial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antifungal, anesthetic and antiparasitic. An expressive chemical and pharmacological relevance of the species was identified, although its potential is insufficiently explored, mainly in the face of the NTDs present in the Brazilian Amazon.     

Evaluation of the Antiviral Activity against Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus (IPNV) of a Copper (I) Homoleptic Complex with a Coumarin as Ligand

The aquatic infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV) causes a severe disease in farmed salmonid fish that generates great economic losses in the aquaculture industry. In the search for new tools to control the disease, in this paper we show the results obtained from the evaluation of the antiviral effect of [Cu(NN₁)₂](ClO₄) Cu(I) complex, synthesized in our laboratory, where the NN₁ ligand is a synthetic derivate of the natural compound coumarin. This complex demonstrated antiviral activity against IPNV at 5.0 and 15.0 µg/mL causing a decrease viral load 99.0% and 99.5%, respectively. The Molecular Docking studies carried out showed that the copper complex would interact with the VP2 protein, specifically in the S domain, altering the process of entry of the virus into the host cell.     

Substitution structure of cyanogen, NCCN, from high-resolution far infrared spectra

The lowest lying vibrational bands of the gas-phase spectra of cyanogen, NCCN, and four of its isotopomers, , , , and , were recorded with a Fourier transform interferometer. The resolution was limited by the maximum optical path difference (MOPD) attainable with the interferometer to . Rovibrational transitions of the ν₅ () and also the ν₂-ν₅ () band systems were assigned for all five isotopomers. The use of an effective Hamiltonian for linear molecules to fit the data yielded precise spectroscopic vibrational and rotational constants for the vibrational states (v₁v₂v₃v₄v₅) or (v₄v₅)=(00), (01), (02), (03), and (01000). These data include the first rotationally resolved transitions involving (01000). Complete substitution (r_s) structures of cyanogen, based on both single and double isotopic substitution of the parent species, were calculated. The derived structure is r_CC=138.48(17) pm and r_CN=115.66(13) pm. The two r_s structures coincide within the errors due to remaining contributions of zero-point vibrations.