Measurement of the Motion of Fertilizer Particles Leaving a Centrifugal Spreader Using a Fast Imaging System

Although mechanically simple, centrifugal spreaders used for mineral fertilization involve complex physics that cannot be fully characterized at the present time. We are developing sensors to evaluate the spatial distribution of the fertilizer on the ground based on the measurement of initial flight conditions of fertilizer granules after their ejection by the spreading disk. The techniques developed are based on the analysis of images of the area around the disk showing the granule ejection. A high resolution – low cost imaging system for the analysis of high speed particle projection developed for this specific purpose is presented in this paper. The system, based on a camera and a sequence of flashes, is used to characterize the centrifugal spreading of fertilizer particles ejected at speeds of approximately 30ms^–1. It automatically computes the direction of ejection and velocity of each granule observed in the image. Multi-exposure images collected with the camera installed perpendicular to the output flow of granules are analyzed to estimate the trajectories of the fertilizer granules, using different motion estimation methods.     

Quantitative analysis of culture using millions of digitized books

We constructed a corpus of digitized texts containing about 4% of all books ever printed. Analysis of this corpus enables us to investigate cultural trends quantitatively. We survey the vast terrain of 'culturomics,' focusing on linguistic and cultural phenomena that were reflected in the English language between 1800 and 2000. We show how this approach can provide insights about fields as diverse as lexicography, the evolution of grammar, collective memory, the adoption of technology, the pursuit of fame, censorship, and historical epidemiology. Culturomics extends the boundaries of rigorous quantitative inquiry to a wide array of new phenomena spanning the social sciences and the humanities.     

Immunoregulatory feedback between interleukin-1 and glucocorticoid hormones

The production and action of immunoregulatory cytokines, including interleukin-1 (IL-1), are inhibited by glucocorticoid hormones in vivo and in vitro. Conversely, glucocorticoid blood levels were increased by factors released by human leukocytes exposed to Newcastle disease virus preparations. This activity was neutralized by an antibody to IL-1. Therefore the capacity of IL-1 to stimulate the pituitary-adrenal axis was tested. Administration of subpyrogenic doses of homogeneous human monocyte-derived IL-1 or the pI 7 form of human recombinant IL-1 to mice and rats increased blood levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and glucocorticoids. Another monokine, tumor necrosis factor, and the lymphokines IL-2 and gamma-interferon had no such effects when administered in doses equivalent to or higher than those of IL-1. The stimulatory effect of IL-1 on the pituitary-adrenal axis seemed not to be mediated by the secondary release of products from mature T lymphocytes since IL-1 was endocrinologically active when injected into athymic nude mice. These results strongly support the existence of an immunoregulatory feedback circuit in which IL-1 acts as an afferent and glucocorticoid as an efferent hormonal signal.     

CoRoT measures solar-like oscillations and granulation in stars hotter than the Sun

Oscillations of the Sun have been used to understand its interior structure. The extension of similar studies to more distant stars has raised many difficulties despite the strong efforts of the international community over the past decades. The CoRoT (Convection Rotation and Planetary Transits) satellite, launched in December 2006, has now measured oscillations and the stellar granulation signature in three main sequence stars that are noticeably hotter than the sun. The oscillation amplitudes are about 1.5 times as large as those in the Sun; the stellar granulation is up to three times as high. The stellar amplitudes are about 25% below the theoretic values, providing a measurement of the nonadiabaticity of the process ruling the oscillations in the outer layers of the stars.     

Long-range correlations in the diffuse seismic coda

The late seismic coda may contain coherent information about the elastic response of Earth. We computed the correlations of the seismic codas of 101 distant earthquakes recorded at stations that were tens of kilometers apart. By stacking cross-correlation functions of codas, we found a low-frequency coherent part in the diffuse field. The extracted pulses have the polarization characteristics and group velocities expected for Rayleigh and Love waves. The set of cross-correlations has the symmetries of the surface-wave part of the Green tensor. This seismological example shows that diffuse waves produced by distant sources are sufficient to retrieve direct waves between two perfectly located points of observation. Because it relies on general properties of diffuse waves, this result has potential applications in other fields.     

A physical map of the 1-gigabase bread wheat chromosome 3B

As the staple food for 35% of the world's population, wheat is one of the most important crop species. To date, sequence-based tools to accelerate wheat improvement are lacking. As part of the international effort to sequence the 17-billion-base-pair hexaploid bread wheat genome (2n = 6x = 42 chromosomes), we constructed a bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC)-based integrated physical map of the largest chromosome, 3B, that alone is 995 megabases. A chromosome-specific BAC library was used to assemble 82% of the chromosome into 1036 contigs that were anchored with 1443 molecular markers, providing a major resource for genetic and genomic studies. This physical map establishes a template for the remaining wheat chromosomes and demonstrates the feasibility of constructing physical maps in large, complex, polyploid genomes with a chromosome-based approach.     

On the origin of interictal activity in human temporal lobe epilepsy in vitro

The origin and mechanisms of human interictal epileptic discharges remain unclear. Here, we describe a spontaneous, rhythmic activity initiated in the subiculum of slices from patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. Synchronous events were similar to interictal discharges of patient electroencephalograms. They were suppressed by antagonists of either glutamatergic or gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)-ergic signaling. The network of neurons discharging during population events comprises both subicular interneurons and a subgroup of pyramidal cells. In these pyramidal cells, GABAergic synaptic events reversed at depolarized potentials. Depolarizing GABAergic responses in neurons downstream to the sclerotic CA1 region contribute to human interictal activity.