Abstract Individuals engaged in shift- or night-work show disturbed diurnal rhythms, out of phase with temporal signals associated to the light/dark (LD) cycle, resulting in internal ...desynchronization. The mechanisms underlying internal desynchrony have been mainly investigated in experimental animals with protocols that induce phase shifts of the LD cycle and thus modify the activity of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). In this study we developed an animal model of night-work in which the light–day cycle remained stable and rats were required to be active in a rotating wheel for 8 h daily during their sleeping phase (W-SP). This group was compared with rats that were working in the wheel during their activity phase (W-AP) and with undisturbed rats (C). We provide evidence that forced activity during the sleeping phase (W-SP group) alters not only activity, but also the temporal pattern of food intake. In consequence W-SP rats showed a loss of glucose rhythmicity and a reversed rhythm of triacylglycerols. In contrast W-AP rats did not show such changes and exhibited metabolic rhythms similar to those of the controls. The three groups exhibited the nocturnal corticosterone increase, in addition the W-SP and W-AP groups showed increase of plasma corticosterone associated with the start of the working session. Forced activity during the sleep phase did not modify SCN activity characterized by the temporal patterns of PER1 and PER2 proteins, which remained in phase with the LD cycle. These observations indicate that a working regimen during the sleeping period elicits internal desynchronization in which activity combined with feeding uncouples metabolic functions from the biological clock which remains fixed to the LD cycle. The present data suggest that in the night worker the combination of work and eating during working hours may be the cause of internal desynchronization.
This work presents a predictive torque vectoring controller that optimally monitors the vehicle limits of handling using active torque distribution in the rear axle of a fully electric vehicle. It ...works in combination with a feedforward controller designed to improve the vehicle's agility. The overall torque vectoring strategy is described together with the vehicle lateral dynamics, sideslip angle estimator, and torque allocation method. Numerical simulations for various scenarios and road profiles show the benefits of predicting the vehicle's handling limits and the enhancement of vehicle stability in terms of reduced vehicle sideslip angle and driver effort. The proposed optimal control method for predicting vehicle handling limit violations does not require a dedicated solver, making it a promising candidate for real-time applications. The case study is a vehicle equipped with two rear in-wheel motors in the framework of
HiPERFORM
, an ECSEL Joint Undertaking (JU) European research project. Hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) tests were performed on a dedicated e-axle test bench to integrate the torque vectoring controller with the real e-motors and a dual inverter. The results of the HiL testing demonstrate that the torque-vectoring requirements are satisfied by the hardware configuration in use.
The pandemic catapulted Mexican cities into spaces of trauma and loss and as sites of state failure. For Maya migrants, state failure forms part of a history of settler violence and neglect. In ...Cancún, settler tactics promote a narrative of a city of immigrants. These tactics erase Indigenous urbanisms seeking to uphold Indigenous self-determination and nurture u kuxtal yéetel u máatsil máako’ob/convivencia, a Maya ethics of sociality and care based on caring for each other. I argue that the ethics of care and place-making entailed in convivencia help Maya migrants experience the metropole as a space of reciprocity, survival, and healing.
Aims
The aim of this work was to identify the main environmental factors that induce the special physiology displayed by fungi growing in solid culture—that is, higher secondary metabolite (SM) ...production—compared with those in submerged culture.
Methods and Results
Lovastatin‐specific production (SP) was used as an indicator of the physiological status, and different model culture systems were used to evaluate the impact of potential solid‐state fermentation (SSF) environmental stimuli. Direct contact with air was identified as an important stimulus. Cultures with two or more hours of exposure to air showed typical SSF lovastatin SP (1462% higher than cultures exposed for 0·08 h). Intermediate times of exposure generated intermediate physiological states. Support‐related stimuli also induced higher lovastatin SP, even in a liquid environment (679% increase).
Conclusions
Direct contact with air, as well as support‐related stimuli, are major environmental cues that induce the physiology of solid medium.
Significance and Impact of the Study
This knowledge is the starting point to investigate how these environmental cues are sensed and transduced, impacting SM and enzyme production. These results have important applied potential in new strategies to generate overproducing strains, as well as application in the design of novel production systems.
Fire has a key role in the ecology and evolution of many ecosystems, yet its effects on plant–insect interactions are poorly understood. Because interacting species are likely to respond to fire ...differently, disruptions of the interactions are expected. We hypothesized that plants that regenerate after fire can benefit through the disruption of their antagonistic interactions. We expected stronger effects on interactions with specialist predators than with generalists. We studied two interactions between two Mediterranean plants (Ulex parviflorus, Asphodelus ramosus) and their specialist seed predators after large wildfires. In A. ramosus we also studied the generalist herbivores. We sampled the interactions in burned and adjacent unburned areas during 2 years by estimating seed predation, number of herbivores and fruit set. To assess the effect of the distance to unburned vegetation we sampled plots at two distance classes from the fire perimeter. Even 3 years after the fires, Ulex plants experienced lower seed damage by specialists in burned sites. The presence of herbivores on Asphodelus decreased in burned locations, and the variability in their presence was significantly related to fruit set. Generalist herbivores were unaffected. We show that plants can benefit from fire through the disruption of their antagonistic interactions with specialist seed predators for at least a few years. In environments with a long fire history, this effect might be one additional mechanism underlying the success of fire-adapted plants.
Abstract Entrainment by daily restricted feeding schedules (RFS) produces food anticipatory activity (FAA) which involves motivational processes which may be regulated by corticolimbic structures and ...the nucleus accumbens. The present study aimed first to determine whether corticolimbic structures participate in the expression of FAA, therefore c-Fos immunoreactivity (Fos-IR) was employed as marker of neuronal activity. The second goal was to characterize diurnal rhythms of the clock protein protein Per1 (PER1) in corticolimbic structures and to determine the influence of RFS on the diurnal temporal pattern. Rats were maintained under RFS with food access for 2 h daily, a control group was fed ad libitum . Food entrainment produced a pattern of increased Fos-IR during FAA and after mealtime in the two sub-regions of the nucleus accumbens (ACC), in the basolateral and central amygdala, in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), in the lateral septum (LS), in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and in the paraventricular thalamic nucleus (PVT). No increased Fos-IR was observed in the hippocampus. Under ad libitum conditions all structures studied showed daily oscillations of PER1, excluding both amygdalar nuclei and the PFC. RFS shifted and set the daily peaks at zeitgeber time (ZT) 12 for both sub-regions in the accumbens, the hippocampus, lateral septum and PFC. RFS enhanced the amplitude at ZT12 of the BNST and shifted the peak of the PVT to ZT6. No changes were observed in the amygdalar nuclei. Present data indicate that cellular activation of corticolimbic structures is associated with behavioral events related to food anticipatory activity and that mealtime is a relevant signal that shifts daily oscillations of PER1 in corticolimbic structures. Data suggest a relevant role of corticolimbic structures as oscillators for FAA.
Nanomechanical oscillators are at the heart of ultrasensitive detectors of force, mass and motion. As these detectors progress to even better sensitivity, they will encounter measurement limits ...imposed by the laws of quantum mechanics. If the imprecision of a measurement of the displacement of an oscillator is pushed below a scale set by the standard quantum limit, the measurement must perturb the motion of the oscillator by an amount larger than that scale. Here we show a displacement measurement with an imprecision below the standard quantum limit scale. We achieve this imprecision by measuring the motion of a nanomechanical oscillator with a nearly shot-noise limited microwave interferometer. As the interferometer is naturally operated at cryogenic temperatures, the thermal motion of the oscillator is minimized, yielding an excellent force detector with a sensitivity of 0.51 aN Hz(-1/2). This measurement is a critical step towards observing quantum behaviour in a mechanical object.
Context. Penetrating keratoplasty (PK) is a recognized treatment for corneal damage but possesses inherent risks, mainly due to its open-sky nature, which potentially lead to severe sight-threatening ...complications. Protective penetrating keratoplasty (PPK) emerges as a novel procedure aimed at mitigating these risks. Aim. To assess the surgical safety, postoperative outcomes, and the impact of PPK on corneal endothelial cell density through a retrospective analysis of 22 cases. Settings and Design. A retrospective cross-sectional observational study was executed at Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital from February 2018 to December 2021, involving 22 patients (22 eyes) who were unresponsive to other medical treatments and had a corrected distance visual acuity of ≤0.1. Methods and Materials. Patients underwent PPK, with surgical procedures and postoperative care documented. Statistical analysis was performed on qualitative and quantitative variables to evaluate the surgical outcomes and the corneal endothelial cell density changes postoperation. Results. All surgeries demonstrated a significant improvement in postoperative visual acuity (p≤0.001) and recorded a 9.2% decrease in the corneal endothelial cell density at 12 months. Noteworthy complications included one case of intraoperatively discovered haptic dislocation and one postoperative bacterial keratitis. Conclusions. PPK could potentially mitigate perioperative complications, ensure graft clarity, and reduce corneal endothelial cell loss, presenting itself as a viable alternative to traditional PK. Although the results are encouraging, larger-scale studies are essential to validate the benefits and applicability of PPK in broader clinical settings.
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