Visual spatial memory is enhanced in female rats (but inhibited in males) by dietary soy phytoestrogens

Background  

In learning and memory tasks, requiring visual spatial memory (VSM), males exhibit superior performance to females (a difference attributed to the hormonal influence of estrogen). This study examined the influence of phytoestrogens (estrogen-like plant compounds) on VSM, utilizing radial arm-maze methods to examine varying aspects of memory. Additionally, brain phytoestrogen, calbindin (CALB), and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) levels were determined.     

Korrosion

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Measurement of textile materials thermal properties

The determination of thermal properties of textile materials is difficult and subject to errors. Here we used two experimental methods. A PhotoPyroElectric method (Front PPE configuration with a modulated heat flow imposed on the surface of the sensor) and a commercial device (Alambeta) based the hot plate method. Two theorical approaches for the latter device were used. We tested the two methods on different textile materials (cotton, modal, wool and spacer). We observe good agreement between thermal conductivities measured with the two methods.     

Well-posedness of the spatially homogeneous Landau equation for soft potentials

We consider the spatially homogeneous Landau equation of kinetic theory, and provide a differential inequality for the Wasserstein distance with quadratic cost between two solutions. We deduce some well-posedness results. The main difficulty is that this equation presents a singularity for small relative velocities. Our uniqueness result is the first one in the important case of soft potentials. Furthermore, it is almost optimal for a class of moderately soft potentials, that is for a moderate singularity. Indeed, in such a case, our result applies for initial conditions with finite mass, energy, and entropy. For the other moderately soft potentials, we assume additionally some moment conditions on the initial data. For very soft potentials, we obtain only a local (in time) well-posedness result, under some integrability conditions. Our proof is probabilistic, and uses a stochastic version of the Landau equation, in the spirit of Tanaka [H. Tanaka, Probabilistic treatment of the Boltzmann equation of Maxwellian molecules, Z. Wahrsch. Verw. Geb. 46 (1) (1978-1979) 67-105].     

Local hydrodynamic investigation of the aeration in a submerged hollow fibre membranes cassette

The better understanding of the effective air distribution inside a membrane cassette is a particular challenge in submerged membrane bioreactor. The present study is the first one that investigates the hydrodynamics of the coarse bubbles flow inside a hollow fibre membranes cassette. The experimental investigations were carried out in a reactor equipped with commercial modules from ZENON ZeeWeed^® 500d. A bi-optical probe was used to measure the bubble size, the bubble velocity and the gas hold-up at different locations between the modules and for three different gas flow rates. These local measurements gave significant information about the lateral distribution of the air and its evolution with the height on the surface of the membrane modules, which can impact on the filtration performance and are the first step to an optimisation of the aeration system and module geometry.     

Graphes et ordonnés démontables, propriété de la clique fixe

This work extends to dismantable graphs many properties of dismantable posets dealing with products, exponentiation, existence of paths in a graph of all homomorphisms, fixed clique property, etc. We show that a poset is dismantlable in the sense of Rival if and only if its comparability graph is dismantlable, thus proving that, for posets, dismantlability is a comparability invariant. We establish the analogues for graphs of results of Duffus, Poguntke and Rival about fixed point sets and cores in posets.     

Contrôle par rotation ou par aspiration de l'écoulement autour d'un cylindre calculé par Simulation des Grandes Échelles

Control of the flow around a circular cylinder is studied using Large Eddy Simulation. The influence of control by rotation and suction on the flow characteristics is considered for several Reynolds numbers. Comparisons with experiments were conducted at $\mathit{Re}={10}^5$ for the flow with and without control. A drag reduction up to 30% is obtained for an usual suction intensity. To cite this article: G. Fournier et al., C. R. Mecanique 333 (2005).     

Probing the acceptor substrate binding site of Trypanosoma cruzi trans-sialidase with systematically modified substrates and glycoside libraries

Systematically modified octyl galactosides and octyl N-acetyllactosamines were assessed as inhibitors of, and substrates for, T. cruzi trans-sialidase (TcTS) in the context of exploring its acceptor substrate binding site. These studies show that TcTS, which catalyses the α-(2→3)-sialylation of non-reducing terminal β-galactose residues, is largely intolerant of substitution of the galactose 2 and 4 positions whereas substitution of the galactose 6 position is well tolerated. Further studies show that even the addition of a bulky sugar residue (glucose, galactose) does not impact negatively on TcTS binding and turnover, which highlights the potential of 'internal' 6-substituted galactose residues to serve as TcTS acceptor substrates. Results from screening a 93-membered thiogalactoside library highlight a number of structural features (notably imidazoles and indoles) that are worthy of further investigation in the context of TcTS inhibitor development.     

Multivariate analyses for biomarkers hunting and validation through on-tissue bottom-up or in-source decay in MALDI-MSI: application to prostate cancer

The large amount of data generated using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometric imaging (MALDI-MSI) poses a challenge for data analysis. In fact, generally about 1.10⁸–1.10⁹ values (m/z, I) are stored after a single MALDI-MSI experiment. This imposes processing techniques using dedicated informatics tools to be used since manual data interpretation is excluded. This work proposes and summarizes an approach that utilizes a multivariable analysis of MSI data. The multivariate analysis, such as principal component analysis–symbolic discriminant analysis, can remove and highlight specific m/z from the spectra in a specific region of interest. This approach facilitates data processing and provides better reproducibility, and thus, broadband acquisition for MALDI-MSI should be considered an effective tool to highlight biomarkers of interest. Additionally, we demonstrate the importance of the hierarchical classification of biomarkers by analyzing studies of clusters obtained either from digested or undigested tissues and using bottom-up and in-source decay strategies for in-tissue protein identification. This provides the possibility for the rapid identification of specific markers from different histological samples and their direct localization in tissues. We present an example from a prostate cancer study using formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue.