Angle detector

An angle detector for determining a transducer's angular disposition to a capacitive pickup element is described. The transducer comprises a pendulum mounted inductive element moving past the capacitive pickup element. The capacitive pickup element divides the inductive element into two parts L sub 1 and L sub 2 which form the arms of one side of an a-c bridge. Two networks R sub 1 and R sub 2 having a plurality of binary weighted resistors and an equal number of digitally controlled switches for removing resistors from the networks form the arms of the other side of the a-c bridge. A binary counter, controlled by a phase detector, balances the bridge by adjusting the resistance of R sub 1 and R sub 2. The binary output of the counter is representative of the angle

AIROscope stellar acquisition

The acquisition system which operates in conjunction with a balloon-borne TV system, boresighted to a telescope is described. It has two main functions, a star field monitor and an offset star tracker. The design of the system was strongly influenced by the TV camera, which uses the same interlaced scanning system as is employed in commercial television broadcasting. To reduce power and bandwidth requirements, the star field information transmitted in our system consists only of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of each star and its brightness. As a star field monitor the system provides video thresholding, camera blemish suppression, coordinate digitization in 3 axes, circuity to recognize as single star the dispersed video signals resulting from one star overlapping adjacent scanning lines and storage of all signals for readout by the telemetry at appropriate times

Electronic scanning pressure measuring system and transducer package

An electronic scanning pressure system that includes a plurality of pressure transducers is examined. A means obtains an electrical signal indicative of a pressure measurement from each of the plurality of pressure transducers. A multiplexing means is connected for selectivity supplying inputs from the plurality of pressure transducers to the signal obtaining means. A data bus connects the plurality of pressure transducers to the multiplexing means. A latch circuit is connected to supply control inputs to the multiplexing means. An address bus is connected to supply an address signal of a selected one of the plurality of pressure transducers to the latch circuit. In operation, each of the pressure transducers is successively scanned by the multiplexing means in response to address signals supplied on the address bus to the latch circuit

The ROCK inhibitor Fasudil prevents chronic restraint stress-induced depressive-like behaviors and dendritic spine loss in rat hippocampus

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.Background: Dendritic arbor simplification and dendritic spine loss in the hippocampus, a limbic structure implicated in mood disorders, are assumed to contribute to symptoms of depression. These morphological changes imply modifications in dendritic cytoskeleton. Rho GTPases are regulators of actin dynamics through their effector Rho kinase. We have reported that chronic stress promotes depressive-like behaviors in rats along with dendritic spine loss in apical dendrites of hippocampal pyramidal neurons, changes associated with Rho kinase activation. The present study proposes that the Rho kinase inhibitor Fasudil may prevent the stress-induced behavior and dendritic spine loss. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with saline or Fasudil (i.p., 10 mg/kg) starting 4 days prior to and maintained during the restraint stress procedure (2.5 h/d for 14 days). Nonstressed control animals were injected with saline or Fasudil for 18 days. At 24 hours after treatment, forced swimming test, Golgi-staining, and immuno-western blot were performed. Results: Fasudil prevented stress-induced immobility observed in the forced swimming test. On the other hand, Fasudiltreated control animals showed behavioral patterns similar to those of saline-treated controls. Furthermore, we observed that stress induced an increase in the phosphorylation of MYPT1 in the hippocampus, an exclusive target of Rho kinase. This change was accompanied by dendritic spine loss of apical dendrites of pyramidal hippocampal neurons. Interestingly, increased pMYPT1 levels and spine loss were both prevented by Fasudil administration. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that Fasudil may prevent the development of abnormal behavior and spine loss induced by chronic stress by blocking Rho kinase activity.https://academic.oup.com/ijnp/article/20/4/336/263217

Non-hermitian approach to decaying ultracold bosonic systems

A paradigm model of modern atom optics is studied, strongly interacting ultracold bosons in an optical lattice. This many-body system can be artificially opened in a controlled manner by modern experimental techniques. We present results based on a non-hermitian effective Hamiltonian whose quantum spectrum is analyzed. The direct access to the spectrum of the metastable many-body system allows us to easily identify relatively stable quantum states, corresponding to previously predicted solitonic many-body structures

Applicability of satellite remote sensing for detection and monitoring of coal strip mining activities

The author has identified the following significant results. Large areas covered by orbital photography allows the user to estimate the acreage of strip mining activity from a few frames. Infrared photography both in color and in black and white transparencies was found to be the best suited for this purpose

Single-trial analysis of EEG during rapid visual discrimination: enabling cortically-coupled computer vision

We describe our work using linear discrimination of multi-channel electroencephalography for single-trial detection of neural signatures of visual recognition events. We demonstrate the approach as a methodology for relating neural variability to response variability, describing studies for response accuracy and response latency during visual target detection. We then show how the approach can be utilized to construct a novel type of brain-computer interface, which we term cortically-coupled computer vision. In this application, a large database of images is triaged using the detected neural signatures. We show how ‘corticaltriaging’ improves image search over a strictly behavioral response

Chronic Stress Triggers Expression of Immediate Early Genes and Differentially Affects the Expression of AMPA and NMDA Subunits in Dorsal and Ventral Hippocampus of Rats

Indexación: Web of Science; Scopus.Previous studies in rats have demonstrated that chronic restraint stress triggers anhedonia, depressive-like behaviors, anxiety and a reduction in dendritic spine density in hippocampal neurons. In this study, we compared the effect of repeated stress on the expression of α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor subunits in dorsal and ventral hippocampus (VH). Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into control and stressed groups, and were daily restrained in their motion (2.5 h/day) during 14 days. We found that chronic stress promotes an increase in c-Fos mRNA levels in both hippocampal areas, although it was observed a reduction in the immunoreactivity at pyramidal cell layer. Furthermore, Arc mRNAs levels were increased in both dorsal and VH, accompanied by an increase in Arc immunoreactivity in dendritic hippocampal layers. Furthermore, stress triggered a reduction in PSD-95 and NR1 protein levels in whole extract of dorsal and VH. Moreover, a reduction in NR2A/NR2B ratio was observed only in dorsal pole. In synaptosomal fractions, we detected a rise in NR1 in dorsal hippocampus (DH). By indirect immunofluorescence we found that NR1 subunits rise, especially in neuropil areas of dorsal, but not VH. In relation to AMPA receptor (AMPAR) subunits, chronic stress did not trigger any change, either in dorsal or ventral hippocampal areas. These data suggest that DH is more sensitive than VH to chronic stress exposure, mainly altering the expression of NMDA receptor (NMDAR) subunits, and probably favors changes in the configuration of this receptor that may influence the function of this area.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnmol.2017.00244/ful

Magnetic measurements and kinetic energy of the superconducting condensate in SmBa_2Cu_3O_{7-\delta}

We report in-field kinetic energy results in the temperature region closely below the transition temperature of two differently prepared polycrystalline samples of the superconducting cuprate SmBa$_{\text{2}}$Cu$_{\text{3}}$O$_{7-\delta}$. The kinetic energy was determined from magnetization measurements performed above the irreversibility line defined by the splitting between the curves obtained according the ZFC and FC prescriptions. The results are analyzed in the intermediate field regime where the London approximation can be used for describing the magnetization. From the analysis, estimations were carried out for the penetration depth and the upper critical field of the studied samples.The difference between the kinectic energy magnitudes for the two studied samples is ascribed to effects from granularity.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Brazilian Journal of Physics Vol. 4