City Outdoor Lighting System Control. Problems and Prospects

This review describes current problems, trends and prospects of the quasi-automatic light control system. The lighting systems of million cities

Diffraction microstrain in nanocrystalline solids under load - heterogeneous medium approach

This is an account of the computation of X-ray microstrain in a polycrystal with anisotropic elasticity under uniaxial external load. The results have been published in the article "Microstrain in nanocrystalline solids under load by virtual diffraction", at Europhysics Letters 89, 66002 (2010). The present information was submitted to Europhysics Letters as part of the manuscript package, and was available to the reviewers who recommended the paper for publication.Comment: Supporting online material for J. Markmann, D. Bachurin, L.-H. Shao, P. Gumbsch, J. Weissm\"uller, Microstrain in nanocrystalline solids under load by virtual diffraction, Europhys. Lett. 89, 66002 (2010

Ergodic directions for billiards in a strip with periodically located obstacles

We study the size of the set of ergodic directions for the directional billiard flows on the infinite band $\R\times [0,h]$ with periodically placed linear barriers of length $0<\lambda<h$. We prove that the set of ergodic directions is always uncountable. Moreover, if $\lambda/h\in(0,1)$ is rational the Hausdorff dimension of the set of ergodic directions is greater than 1/2. In both cases (rational and irrational) we construct explicitly some sets of ergodic directions.Comment: The article is complementary to arXiv:1109.458

Perfect retroreflectors and billiard dynamics

We construct semi infinite billiard domains which reverse the direction of most incoming particles. We prove that almost all particles will leave the open billiard domain after a finite number of reflections. Moreover, with high probability the exit velocity is exactly opposite to the entrance velocity, and the particle's exit point is arbitrarily close to its initial position. The method is based on asymptotic analysis of statistics of entrance times to a small interval for irrational circle rotations. The rescaled entrance times have a limiting distribution in the limit when the length of the interval vanishes. The proof of the main results follows from the study of related limiting distributions and their regularity properties. © 2011 AIMSciences

Optimization in the Natural Sciences: 30th Euro Mini-Conference, EmC-ONS 2014, Aveiro, Portugal, February 5-9, 2014: revised selected papers

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 30th Euro Mini-Conference, EmC-ONS 2014, held in Aveiro, Portugal, in February 2014. The 13 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 70 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on dynamical systems; optimization and applications; modeling and statistical techniques for data analysis

Mathematical retroreflectors

Retroreflectors are optical devices that reverse the direction of incident beams of light. Here we present a collection of billiard type retroreflectors consisting of four objects; three of them are asymptotically perfect retroreflectors, and the fourth one is a retroreflector which is very close to perfect. Three objects of the collection have recently been discovered and published or submitted for publication. The fourth object - notched angle - is a new one; a proof of its retroreflectivity is given.Comment: 32 pages, 19 figure

Dimebon enhances hippocampus-dependent learning in both appetitive and inhibitory memory tasks in mice

Dimebon, a compound recently proposed for a treatment of Alzheimer’s disorder was suggested to have memory enhancing properties in pre-clinical and clinical studies. We investigated whether dimebon at doses acutely (0.1 mg/kg and 0.5 mg/kg) or repeatedly (0.1 mg/kg) administered to mice via i.p. injections, increases memory scores respectively in an appetitive and an inhibitory learning task. Acute treatment with dimebon at the dose 0.1 mg/kg did not affect learning scores in either 3-month-old C57BL/6N or CD1 mice. Acute treatment with higher dose of dimebon (0.5mg/kg) was found to enhance inhibitory learning in 3- and 7-month-old mice as shown in the step-down avoidance paradigm in C57BL/6N mice. No effects on learning were seen in CD1 mice. In a model of appetitive learning, a spatial version of the Y-maze, repeated treatment with dimebon increased the rate of correct choices and decreased the latency of accessing a water reward after water deprivation. Repeated administration of dimebon also increased the duration of drinking behaviour during training/testing procedures although behaviours in others tests or water consumption were not altered. Acute treatment of water-deprived and non-water-deprived mice with dimebon also did not affect their water intake. Our data suggest that dimebon enhances hippocampus-dependent learning in both appetitive and inhibitory tasks in mice

Simultaneous versus solitary pharmacological manipulation of NMDA- and AMPA- receptors: effects of new drugs on contextual learning and its extinction

Both the attenuation of the NMDA-receptor mediated transmission via low affinity blockade mechanism, and the stimulation of AMPA receptor-mediated signaling were shown to result in beneficial neurobiological effects, such as an enhancement of memory and neurogenesis. We aimed to compare the effects of acute pharmacological manipulations of these mechanisms, exerted simultaneously or solely in mice, on learning of two mouse tasks with distinct predominant dependency on either glutamate receptor subtype. In a step-down avoidance task, memantine, low affinity NMDA receptor blocker (5 mg/kg), but not ampakine QQX (5 mg/kg) increased memory scores. In contrast, extinction of contextual fear conditioning was significantly enhanced by the latter, but not by the first drug. Among four new isothiourea derivates used at the doses 0.5-1 mg/kg, one compound that showed a maximal potency with respect to both glutamatergic mechanisms, as well as dimebon (1 mg/kg), had the most prominent memory enhancing effects. Thus, simultaneous low affinity blocade of the NMDA receptor and stimulation of AMPA-mediated transmission can result in eminent pro-cognitive activities. These data point to the importance of multi-target drug mechanism in the regulation of cognitive functions and suggest its potential for clinical implications

Host species determines egg size in Oriental cuckoo

© 2018 The Zoological Society of London.The Oriental cuckoo Cuculus optatus is an obligate brood parasite associated with species of the genus Phylloscopus. Four distinct phenotypes of Oriental cuckoo eggs, matching eggshell colour patterns of Arctic warbler Phylloscopus borealis, common chiffchaff (Siberian) P. collybita tristis, yellow-browed warbler P. inornatus and Pallas's leaf warbler P. proregulus, have been identified in the Russian part of its breeding area. We compared egg length, breadth and volume of Oriental cuckoo egg phenotypes with eggs of the corresponding hosts from three geographical regions in Russia: the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. We found significant oometric differences between Oriental cuckoo egg phenotypes. Egg breadth of each cuckoo group matched the egg breadth of the host species, while the length of cuckoo eggs did not match egg length in host species. Our results can be explained in terms of clutch geometry. An egg sticking out above the clutch is likely to be rejected by the host and so breadth should match the host's egg. This constrains cuckoos in maintaining large egg volumes, which are essential for providing a cuckoo chick with the energy required to eject the host eggs and chicks. An increased egg length might compensate for breadth constraints. We suggest that the size of cuckoo eggs might also be affected by parental care - when only one parent is involved in feeding, eggs need to be larger. This might explain why the longest cuckoo eggs belonged to the phenotype parasitizing the smallest host, Pallas's leaf warbler, where only one parent feeds the chicks. In our view, differences in egg sizes of Oriental cuckoo phenotypes provide evidence of their adaptations to brood parasitism on small leaf warbler species.Peer reviewe