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Background:  Acute and chronic ethanol exposure produces profound impairments in motor functioning. Individuals with lower sensitivity to the acute motor impairing effects of ethanol have an increased risk of developing alcohol dependence and abuse, and infants with subtle delays in motor coordination development may have an increased risk for subsequently developing alcoholism. Thus, understanding the mechanism by which ethanol disrupts motor functioning is very important.Methods:  Parasagittal slices of the cerebellar vermis (250 μM thick) were prepared from P17 to 20 Sprague–Dawley rats. Whole‐cell recordings of Purkinje cells were obtained with an Axopatch 200B amplifier. Parallel fiber‐Purkinje cell synaptic currents were sampled at 1 kHz and digitized at 10 kHz, and synaptic long‐term depression (LTD) was observed in either external or internal application of ethanol for comparison.Results:  We determined whether ethanol acutely affects parallel fiber LTD using whole‐cell patch‐clamp recordings from Purkinje cells. Application of ethanol both externally (50 mM) and internally (17 and 10 mM) significantly suppressed mGluR‐mediate slow currents. Short‐term external ethanol exposure (50 but not 17 mM) during tetanus blocked mGluR‐dependent parallel fiber LTD. Furthermore, internal 17 and 10 mM ethanol completely inhibited this LTD.Conclusions:  The results of the current study demonstrate that ethanol acutely suppresses parallel fiber LTD and may influence the mGluR‐mediated slow current intracellularly. This study, plus previous evidence by Carta and colleagues (2006) and Belmeguenai and colleagues (2008), suggests significant actions of ethanol on mGluR‐mediated currents and its dependent plasticity in brain.

A non-fullerene acceptor with a high relative dielectric constant (εr) over 9 is developed. It offers an efficiency of 8.5%, which is the best result for organic solar cells employing high εr materials. Further research should focus on morphology optimization to make high εr practically useful in devices.

The present study was aimed at assessing the biotransformation of dark fermented agroindustrial residues and energy crops for the production of hydrogen and poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), in lab-scale photofermentation. The investigation on novel substrates for photofermentation is needed in order to enlarge the range of sustainable feedstocks. Dark fermentation effluents of ensiled maize, ensiled giant reed, ensiled olive pomace, and wheat bran were inoculated with Rhodopseudomonas palustris CGA676, a mutant strain suitable for hydrogen production in ammonium-rich media. The highest hydrogen producing performances were observed in wheat bran and maize effluents (648.6 and 320.3mLL(-1), respectively), both characterized by high initial volatile fatty acids (VFAs) concentrations. Giant reed and olive pomace effluents led to poor hydrogen production due to low initial VFAs concentrations, as the original substrates are rich in fiber. The highest PHB content was accumulated in olive pomace effluent (11.53%TS), ascribable to magnesium deficiency.

Climate change has exacerbated the health effects of high ambient temperatures on occupational health and safety; however, to what extent heat stress can induce workplace injuries and economic costs is poorly studied. This study aimed to quantify the attributable fractions of injury claims and subsequent insurance payouts using data from work-related injury insurance system in Guangzhou, China.Individual workers' injury claims data were collected for the period of 2011-2012, including demographic characteristics and work-related information. Daily maximum wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT, °C) was calculated from meteorological data. To examine the association between WBGT index and work-related injury, we fit a quasi-Poisson regression with distributed lag non-linear model. Then we calculated the numbers of injury claims and costs of insurance compensations attributable to days with WBGT above the heat stress limit according to the national occupational health standards.There were 9550 work-related injury claims, resulting in an insurance payout of 282.3 million Chinese Yuan. The risks of injury claims increased with rising WBGT. 4.8% (95% eCI: 2.9%-6.9%) of work-related injuries and 4.1% (95% eCI: 0.2%-7.7%) of work-related injury insurance payouts were attributed to heat exposure for WBGT threshold above the heat stress limit. Male workers, those in small enterprises and with low educational attainment were especially sensitive to the effects of heat exposure.Heat stress can contribute to higher risk of work-related injury and substantial economic costs. Quantified the impacts of injuries and related economic costs should be considered to develop targeted preventive measures in the context of climate change.

We document a remarkable abundance of the tubeworm Serpula vermicularis Linnaeus, 1767, in bathyal coral habitats from the Bari Canyon System in the southern Adriatic Sea. Here, the specimens of S. vermicularis grow from muddy substrate either as isolated individuals or as localized clusters of multiple individuals. Peculiar tube aggregations are also associated with Madrepora oculata build-ups and other stony corals including Desmophyllum dianthus. Three types of coral-serpulid (C–S) frameworks have been recognized based upon size and shape. The abundance of S. vermicularis increases with the size of C–S frameworks, which results from superimposition, overgrowth, and/or intergrowth of scleractinians and serpulids. Several generations of S. vermicularis contribute to the C–S frameworks, each most probably accounting for more than 8 years and presumably existing in the area for the last hundreds of years. At a meso-scale, the distribution pattern of serpulids seems to be mainly governed by currents and siltation. A further constraint is the co-occurring solitary coral D. dianthus within frameworks. The successful sea-bottom colonization by S. vermicularis and associated C–S frameworks is possibly related to a high oxygen content and food supply derived from the North Adriatic Dense Water (NAdDW). The flourishing populations of S. vermicularis as well as the peculiarity of C–S frameworks suggest that deep-sea canyons provide important benthic habitats in bathyal environments.

A colloidal crystal-splitting growth regime has been accessed, in which TiO(2) nanocrystals, selectively trapped in the metastable anatase phase, can evolve to anisotropic shapes with tunable hyperbranched topologies over a broad size interval. The synthetic strategy relies on a nonaqueous sol-gel route involving programmed activation of aminolysis and pyrolysis of titanium carboxylate complexes in hot surfactant media via a simple multi-injection reactant delivery technique. Detailed investigations indicate that the branched objects initially formed upon the aminolysis reaction possess a strained monocrystalline skeleton, while their corresponding larger derivatives grown in the subsequent pyrolysis stage accommodate additional arms crystallographically decoupled from the lattice underneath. The complex evolution of the nanoarchitectures is rationalized within the frame of complementary mechanistic arguments. Thermodynamic pathways, determined by the shape-directing effect of the anatase structure and free-energy changes accompanying branching and anisotropic development, are considered to interplay with kinetic processes, related to diffusion-limited, spatially inhomogeneous monomer fluxes, lattice symmetry breaking at transient Ti(5)O(5) domains, and surfactant-induced stabilization. Finally, as a proof of functionality, the fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells based on thin-film photoelectrodes that incorporate networked branched nanocrystals with intact crystal structure and geometric features is demonstrated. An energy conversion efficiency of 6.2% has been achieved with standard device configuration, which significantly overcomes the best performance ever approached with previously documented prototypes of split TiO(2) nanostructures. Analysis of the relevant photovoltaic parameters reveals that the utilized branched building blocks indeed offer light-harvesting and charge-collecting properties that can overwhelm detrimental electron losses due to recombination and trapping events.

Abstract The effects of N 2 , CO 2 and H 2 O dilutions on the two-dimensional (2D) temperature and concentration fields of OH in methane Bunsen flames were investigated by employing two-line planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) thermometry and bi-directional PLIF technique, respectively. The spatial resolution of the measured temperature and concentration fields of OH radical was 41.7 μm. It was found that the measured temperature fields in methane Bunsen flames with different diluents exhibited a non-uniform and a symmetrical structure. In terms of decreasing the flame temperature, the CO 2 diluent achieved a good result compared with N 2 and H 2 O diluents. The total uncertainties in PLIF thermometry measurements were estimated to be ±8.44%, ±8.17% and ±8.27% for each diluent, respectively. The OH peak absorption cross sections at different heights were obtained in methane Bunsen flames with different diluents. Finally, the 2D absolute OH concentration filed in methane Bunsen flames diluted with three different diluents were obtained by using bi-directional PLIF technique. The peak absolute OH number densities in the flames with H 2 O, N 2 and CO 2 diluents were 9.84 × 10 17 cm −3 , 8.57 × 10 17 cm −3 and 7.84 × 10 17 cm −3 , with the overall uncertainties of ±20.56%, ±19.04% and ±23.43%, respectively. The numerical simulations of chemical kinetics were performed by using a physical model of one-dimensional laminar premixed flame and a detail methane reaction mechanism of GRI-Mech 3.0 so as to investigate the difference between the simulation results and experimental values. The comparison results for the temperature and OH concentration indicated that the reaction mechanism of GRI-Mech 3.0 might underestimate the chemical effects of CO 2 and H 2 O diluents on the production of OH radical in premixed methane flames.