Search

Sleep spindles, defining oscillations of stage 2 non-rapid eye movement sleep (N2), mediate memory consolidation. Schizophrenia is characterized by reduced spindle activity that correlates with impaired sleep-dependent memory consolidation. In a small, randomized, placebo-controlled pilot study of schizophrenia, eszopiclone (Lunesta®), a nonbenzodiazepine sedative hypnotic, increased N2 spindle density (number/minute) but did not significantly improve memory. This larger double-blind crossover study that included healthy controls investigated whether eszopiclone could both increase N2 spindle density and improve memory. Twenty-six medicated schizophrenia outpatients and 29 healthy controls were randomly assigned to have a placebo or eszopiclone (3 mg) sleep visit first. Each visit involved two consecutive nights of high density polysomnography with training on the Motor Sequence Task (MST) on the second night and testing the following morning. Patients showed a widespread reduction of spindle density and, in both groups, eszopiclone increased spindle density but failed to enhance sleep-dependent procedural memory consolidation. Follow-up analyses revealed that eszopiclone also affected cortical slow oscillations: it decreased their amplitude, increased their duration, and rendered their phase locking with spindles more variable. Regardless of group or visit, the density of coupled spindle-slow oscillation events predicted memory consolidation significantly better than spindle density alone, suggesting that they are a better biomarker of memory consolidation. In conclusion, sleep oscillations are promising targets for improving memory consolidation in schizophrenia, but enhancing spindles is not enough. Effective therapies also need to preserve or enhance cortical slow oscillations and their coordination with thalamic spindles, an interregional dialog that is necessary for sleep-dependent memory consolidation.

Ozark streams commonly feature “composite” floodplains, in which the vadose zone consists of silt or silt loam soils (∼1 m thick) overlying gravel subsoil. Previous work has shown that preferential flow paths can exist within the gravel subsoil, which can conduct water and P at rates exceeding the sorption capacity of the gravel. At a site on Barren Fork Creek, a 1- by 1-m infiltration plot was constructed and an infiltration experiment was performed using sequentially introduced solutes including P (the constituent of regulatory interest), Rhodamine-WT (Rh-WT, a visual tracer), and Cl (an electrical tracer). The solute transport was measured with monitoring wells (MWs) placed 1 m from the plot boundary and 5 m down the groundwater flow gradient using an electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) array. The ERI method utilized differences between a pre-infiltration background image and subsequent temporal images taken during the test to quantify changes induced by the tracers. The infiltration test maintained a steady-state flow rate of 4.5 L min for 84.75 h. Electrical resistivity imaging data showed significant changes in resistivity induced by the tracers within the soil vadose zone under the plot but no similar changes within the gravel, indicating that the interface was acting as a capillary barrier. Electrical resistivity images 5 m away from the plot showed tracer breakthrough into the gravel in areas not sampled by the MWs. Solute detection was limited in MWs, indicating that MWs could not adequately monitor movement below the capillary barrier because it controlled migration of solute to the heterogeneous phreatic zone.

Objective Cognitive deficits in schizophrenia are the strongest predictor of disability and effective treatment is lacking. This reflects our limited mechanistic understanding and consequent lack of treatment targets. In schizophrenia, impaired sleep-dependent memory consolidation correlates with reduced sleep spindle activity, suggesting sleep spindles as a potentially treatable mechanism. In the present study we investigated whether sleep-dependent memory consolidation deficits in schizophrenia are selective. Methods Schizophrenia patients and healthy individuals performed three tasks that have been shown to undergo sleep-dependent consolidation: the Word Pair Task (verbal declarative memory), the Visual Discrimination Task (visuoperceptual procedural memory), and the Tone Task (statistical learning). Memory consolidation was tested 24 h later, after a night of sleep. Results Compared with controls, schizophrenia patients showed reduced overnight consolidation of word pair learning. In contrast, both groups showed similar significant overnight consolidation of visuoperceptual procedural memory. Neither group showed overnight consolidation of statistical learning. Conclusion The present findings extend the known deficits in sleep-dependent memory consolidation in schizophrenia to verbal declarative memory, a core, disabling cognitive deficit. In contrast, visuoperceptual procedural memory was spared. These findings support the hypothesis that sleep-dependent memory consolidation deficits in schizophrenia are selective, possibly limited to tasks that rely on spindles. These findings reinforce the importance of deficient sleep-dependent memory consolidation among the cognitive deficits of schizophrenia and suggest sleep physiology as a potentially treatable mechanism.

Background: Cognitive deficits, a highly disabling feature of schizophrenia (SZ), are the strongest predictor of functional outcome. Recent evidence points to thalamocortical circuitry as the culprit in SZ risk and cognitive deficits. Patients with SZ have reduced sleep spindles (bursts of 12–15 Hz electroencephalogram activity during non-rapid eye movement sleep), which are initiated by the thalamic reticular nucleus and propagated to and synchronized in the cortex via thalamocortical feedback loops. Sleep spindles mediate memory consolidation and are associated with impaired sleep-dependent memory consolidation and symptom severity in SZ. Here we used resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate whether spindle deficits in SZ are associated with changes in the connectivity of thalamocortical networks.

This paper proposes and tests novel supply chain designs for bioenergy and biobased products that result in logistical costs savings of 2–38%. The proposed supply chain design reduces the costs of: (1) purchasing logistical harvesting equipment; (2) operating logistical harvesting equipment; and (3) holding feedstock inventory, by using a multitude of crop types as feedstock, instead of just one, as is common in research and practice today. In so doing, this research challenges the prevalent assumption that monocultures, despite their known environmental concerns, are preferable from a costs perspective. Simulation/optimization is used to test supply chain designs, and then to find the environmental conditions where these new supply chain designs could be most profitably implemented.

In recent years, governments, industry and academia have all invested increasing amounts of time, effort and resources into the production of biorenewable fuels. This interest owes, among other reasons, to our planet's growing demand for energy, depletion of fossil fuel resources and the negative effect of drilling for and burning fossil fuels on the health of our eco-systems and atmospheric chemistry. However, research suggests that biorenewable fuels have the potential to cause environmental and social calamities of their own—especially when produced in the same ways and at the expense of conventional food production. This paper proposes novel supply chains and land use plans for advanced biorenewable fuels which are measured for cost and environmental impact. A two-stage Stackelberg leader-follower mathematical optimization model is proposed. The model uses a series of integrated and sequenced linear programs to optimize the benefits of leveraging biodiversity for the production of advanced biorenewable fuels. Numerical experiments with our model show statistically significant cost, land use and environmental improvements on the order of 10% to 25%. Because the model captures two types of flexibilities (product and process) interfacing across firms, implications are drawn for production systems in other industries where distinct flexibilities meet and environmental impacts are critical.

This paper suggests specific mechanisms by which a diversity of interchangeable inputs begets logistical cost savings for process flexible manufacturers. These mechanisms are introduced first by drawing new theoretical links between the fields of industrial ecology and operations management, and then by prescribing the proposed diversity-logistics hypothesis in terms of generalisable mathematical forms. Illustrations are then drawn from the animal kingdom (honeybees), and applications are made to two example industries (biorenewable fuels and concrete mixing).

We describe the design of a new CCD system delivered to the Automated Patrol Telescope at Siding Springs NSW Australia operated by UNSW. A very fast beam (f/1) with a mosaic of two MITLL CCID-34 detectors placed only 1 mm behind the field flattener which also serves as the dewar window, have called for innovative engineering solutions. This paper describes the design and procedure of the field-flattener mounting, differential screw adjustable detector mount and dewar suspension on the external ring providing tip/tilt and focus adjustment.

As part of the Starbug development, a range of actuator technologies have been prototyped and trialled in the quest to develop this novel focal plane positioning system. The Starbug concept is a robotic positioning system that deploys multiple payloads, such as pickoff optics, optical fibres and other possible devices to micron level accuracy over a flat or curved focal plane. The development is aimed at addressing some of the limitations of other positioning systems to provide a reliable, cost effective way of positioning multiple payloads in ambient and cryogenic environments. In this paper we identify the specification and required characteristics of the micro-robotic actuators as applied to the MOMSI instrument concept, present descriptions of some of the prototypes along with the results from characterisation and performance tests. These tests were undertaken at various orientations and temperatures as well as using different actuator concepts.

The AAOmega project replaces the two 2dF spectrographs, which are mounted on the top end of the Anglo Australian Telescope, with a bench mounted double beam spectrograph covering 370 to 950nm. The 2dF positioner, field plate tumbler mechanism, and fiber retractors will be retained. The new spectrograph will be fed by 392 fibers from either of the two 2dF field plates, or by the 512 fiber Spiral integral field unit, located at the Cassegrain focus. New instrument control electronics has also been designed to drive the spectrograph. Stability will be improved by locating the spectrograph off the telescope, but the 2df fibers must be extended to thirty-eight metres length. Despite this, using fibers with improved characteristics, increased pupil diameter, volume phase holographic (VPH) gratings with articulated cameras, and more efficient coatings on optics we achieve a minimum twofold increase in throughput. We will also fit larger (4k x 2k pixel) detectors. The spectrograph comprises: a F/3.15 Schmidt collimator, incorporating a dichroic beamsplitter; interchangeable VPH gratings; and articulating red and blue F/1.3 Schmidt cameras. The beamsplitter may be exchanged with others which cut off at different wavelengths. A full suite of VPH gratings are provided to cover resolution to 8000.

The Anglo-Australian Observatory's (AAO's) FMOS-Echidna project is for the Fiber Multi-Object Spectroscopy system for the Subaru Telescope. It includes three parts: the 400-fiber positioning system, the focal plane imager (FPI) and the prime focus corrector. The Echidna positioner concept and the role of the AAO in the FMOS project have been described in previous SPIE proceedings. The many components for the system are now being manufactured, after prototype tests have demonstrated that the required performance will be achieved. In this paper, the techniques developed to overcome key mechanical and electronic engineering challenges for the positioner and the FPI are described. The major performance requirement is that all 400 science fiber cores and up to 14 guide fiber bundles are to be re-positioned to an accuracy of 10μm within 10 minutes. With the fast prime focus focal ratio, a close tolerance on the axial position of the fiber tips must also be held so efficiency does not suffer from de-focus. Positioning accuracy is controlled with the help of the FPI, which measures the positions of the fiber tips to an accuracy of a few μm and allows iterative positioning. Maintaining fiber tips sufficiently co-planar requires accurate control in the assembly of the several components that contribute to such errors. Assembly jigs have been developed and proven adequate for this purpose. Attaining high reliability in an assembly with many small components of disparate materials bonded together, including piezo ceramics, carbon fiber reinforced plastic, hardened steel, and electrical circuit boards, has entailed careful selection and application of cements and tightly controlled soldering for electrical connections.

The Fiber Multi-Object Spectrograph (FMOS) project is an Australia-Japan-UK collaboration to design and build a novel 400 fiber positioner feeding two near infrared spectrographs from the prime focus of the Subaru telescope. The project comprises several parts. Those under design and construction at the Anglo-Australian Observatory (AAO) are the piezoelectric actuator driven fiber positioner (Echidna), a wide field (30 arcmin) corrector and a focal plane imager (FPI) used for controlling the positioner and for field acquisition. This paper presents an overview of the AAO share of the FMOS project. It describes the technical infrastructure required to extend the single Echidna "spine" design to a fully functioning multi-fiber instrument, capable of complete field reconfiguration in less than ten minutes. The modular Echidna system is introduced, wherein the field of view is populated by 12 identical rectangular modules, each positioning 40 science fibers and 2 guide fiber bundles. This arrangement allows maintenance by exchanging modules and minimizes the difficulties of construction. The associated electronics hardware, in itself a significant challenge, includes a 23 layer PCB board, able to supply current to each piezoelectric element in the module. The FPI is a dual purpose imaging system translating in two coordinates and is located beneath the assembled modules. The FPI measures the spine positions as well as acquiring sky images for instrument calibration and for field acquisition. An overview of the software is included.