Tiling among stereotyped dendritic branches in an identified Drosophila motoneuron

Shape similarities of an identified Drosophila motoneuron across animals. Overlay of three geometric dendrite reconstructions of a Drosophila flight motoneuron, based on intracellular fills of this motoneuron in different animals with identical genotypes. Although similarities exist in the overall branching structure, and the dendritic territories are nearly identical in all three cells, marked differences exist in the fine branching structure. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, Volume 518, Number 12, pages 2169–2185.     

糖尿病寒热错杂证的辨治

寒热错杂证指寒证、热证错杂并存于机体的一类证候群。《伤寒论》完善了寒热错杂证的辨治体系,形成了“寒热并用”理论,创立一系列寒热同调的方剂。在糖尿病中寒热错杂型的患者也占有一定比例,现在病因、病机等方面论述糖尿病寒热错杂证,并联系《伤寒论》中相关条文及临床上“寒热并用”经方治疗糖尿病的经验,总结了针对该型糖尿病的治疗思路为寒热并用,立足脾胃,斡旋气机,方证对应。     

Dichoptic reduction of the direction illusion is not due to binocular rivalry

Simultaneous direction repulsion (the direction illusion) occurs in bidirectional motion displays, typically transparent motion random dot kinematograms. Several laboratories have reported a greatly reduced illusion with dichoptic presentation of the two coherently translating stimuli as compared to monocular or binocular presentation. Some researchers have argued that those results might be due to a confounding factor, namely binocular rivalry occurring between test and inducing stimuli in the dichoptic condition, and so have attributed decisive weight to the results reported by Kim and Wilson (1997, Vision Research, 37, 991-1005) who used centre-surround grating stimuli and found large monocular as well as large dichoptic effects. Here we use centre-surround dot stimuli - with which no binocular rivalry occurs - to confirm a strong monocular contribution to the direction illusion. In addition, we fail to find evidence of a direction illusion with centre-surround grating stimuli, even when seeking to replicate the methods of Kim and Wilson (1997). In light of other evidence that a global motion-sensitive mechanism can determine the magnitude of the direction illusion, we propose that simultaneous direction repulsion can result from activity at multiple stages of the motion processing hierarchy.     

中医药治疗慢性肾功能衰竭研究概况

慢性功能肾衰竭(chronic renal failure,CRF)病机为脾肾虚损,导致湿浊、瘀血等浊毒潴留于体内,弥漫于三焦。本虚标实为其致病特点。从病因病机、治则、方药、综合治疗等方面,介绍中医药治疗慢性肾功能衰竭研究概况。中医药能有效延缓病情进展,延长患者寿命,防治早中期肾功能不全有独特优势。指出应重视古代文献研究,全面掌握有关本病论述,验证于临床,辅助现代科技,中西医结合,扩展中医药治疗CRF临床研究思路,提高疗效及生存质量,使中医药治疗该病发挥更大优势。     

Mechanical effects of erbium:YAG laser bone ablation.

When intending to use pulsed erbium:YAG laser radiation for the ablation of small bones, e.g., the ossicular chain or footplate, not only temperature and thermal damage, but also mechanical side effects become important. In studies on desiccated bone the total recoil momentum caused by laser ablation was measured using a sensitive pendulum. The momentum depends linearly on the radiant energy of the laser pulse with a slope of 10(-4) kg m s-1/J. The temporal course of the recoil force during ablation observed by means of a piezoelectric transducer is nearly proportional to the laser pulse intensity. By evaluating recoil momentum and mass loss data, the average initial velocity of the plume was calculated to be 230 to 280 m s-1. The kinetic energy is approximately 1% of the input energy. The measurements support to the hypothesis of a thermally induced explosive process.     

The origin of phospholipids of the enveloped bacteriophage phi6

The phospholipid class and molecular species compositions of bacteriophage phi6 and its host Pseudomonas syringae were determined quantitatively using TLC and liquid-chromatography/electrospray ionization mass-spectrometry. In addition, the fatty acid compositions of the phospholipids were analyzed by gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry. The phage contained significantly more phosphatidylglycerol (PG) and less phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) than the host cytoplasmic (CM) and outer (OM) membranes. In addition, the phospholipid molecular species composition of the viral membrane differed from those of the host membranes, but resembled that of CM more than OM as shown by principal component analysis (PCA). The membrane of phi6 contained more 34:1 and 34:2, and less 32:1 PE and PG molecular species than the host CM or OM. Also, phi6 contained negligible amounts of saturated phospholipid molecular species. These data provide the first biochemical evidence suggesting that phi6 obtains its lipids from the CM. This process is not unselective, but certain phospholipid species are preferentially incorporated in the phage membrane. Common factors leading to similar enrichment of PG in every membrane-containing bacterial virus system studied so far (phi6, PM2, PRD1, PR4, Bam35) are discussed.     

Motion repulsion is monocular

Motion repulsion is the illusory enlargement of the angle between objects moving in two different directions of motion. Previous work suggests that motion repulsion occurs under dichoptic conditions, and therefore is binocular. In reference repulsion the direction of motion is misperceived even if only a single direction of motion is presented. In an experiment I show that repulsion under dichoptic conditions is correlated with reference repulsion, but not with binocular motion repulsion. This suggests that motion repulsion proper, which occurs over and beyond reference repulsion, does not occur under dichoptic conditions, implying that motion repulsion is monocular.     

Effects of attention on motion repulsion

Motion repulsion involves interaction between two directions of motion. Since attention is known to bias interactions among different stimuli, we investigated the effect of attentional tasks on motion repulsion. We used two overlapping sets of random dots moving in different directions. When subjects had to detect a small speed-change or luminance change for dots along one direction, the repulsive influence from the other direction was significantly reduced compared with the control case without attentional tasks. However, when the speed-change could occur to either direction such that subjects had to attend both directions to detect the change, motion repulsion was not different from the control. A further experiment showed that decreasing the difficulty of the attentional task resulted in the disappearance of the attentional effect in the case of attention to one direction. Finally, over a wide range of contrasts for the unattended direction, attention reduced repulsion measured with the attended direction. These results are consistent with the physiological finding that strong attention to one direction of motion reduces inhibitory effects from the other direction.     

Solid Surface Chemical and Physical Effects on the Adsorption of Recombinant Factor VIII

The adsorption of a recombinant Factor VIII to silica surfaces coated to present different hydrophilic/hydrophobic, electrostatic and steric characteristics was monitored in situ, with ellipsometry. rFVIII adsorption affinity was high for hydrophobic surfaces and hydrophilic, charged surfaces. A lower affinity was recorded between rFVIII and a neutral hydrophilic surface, with substantial reduction in rFVIII adsorption to electronically neutral surfaces presenting pendant poly[ethylene oxide] chains. We conclude that steric repulsion is a requirement for minimizing rFVIII adsorption at solid surfaces.