This study aimed to establish a protocol for cell dissociation from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) to assess the genotoxicity of the environmental pollutant benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) using the alkaline version of the single cell electrophoresis assay (comet assay). BaP genotoxicity was assessed in C. elegans (wild-type [WT]; N2, Bristol) after 48h exposure (0-40μM). Induction of co...

Actin filaments in cells depolymerize rapidly despite the presence of high concentrations of polymerizable G actin. Cofilin is recognized as a key regulator that promotes actin depolymerization. In this study, we show that although pure cofilin can disassemble Listeria monocytogenes actin comet tails, it cannot efficiently disassemble comet tails in the presence of polymerizable actin. Thymus e...

The chemical composition of comet nuclei derived from current data on interstellar dust ingredients and comet dust and coma molecules are shown to be substantially consistent with each other in both refractory and volatile components. When limited by relative cosmic abundances the water in comet nuclei is constrained to be close to 30% by mass and the refractory to volatile ratio is close to 1:...

The in vivo alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis assay, hereafter the Comet assay, can be used to investigate the genotoxicity of industrial chemicals, biocides, agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals. The major advantages of this assay include the relative ease of application to any tissue of interest, the detection of multiple classes of DNA damage and the generation of data at the level of th...

We describe the design, performance and scientific objectives of the NASA-funded ALICE instrument aboard the ESA Rosetta asteroid flyby/comet rendezvous mission. ALICE is a lightweight, low-power, and low-cost imaging spectrograph optimized for cometary far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectroscopy. It will be the first UV spectrograph to study a comet at close range. It is designed to obtain spatially-re...

We examine the evolution of highly eccentric, planet-crossing orbits in the restricted three-body problem (Sun, planet, comet). We construct a simple Keplerian map in which the comet energy changes instantaneously at perihelion, by an amount depending only on the azimuthal angle between the planet and the comet at the time of perihelion passage. This approximate but very fast mapping allow us t...

In the present work, the non-spherical dust grain characteristics of comet Levy 1990XX with different silicate grain compositions (both pyroxene and olivine) are studied using the T-matrix method. Considering amorphous pyroxene grain (MgxFe1−xSiO3) with x (= 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.95, 1) and amorphous olivine grain (Mg2yFe2−2ySiO4) with y (= 0.4, 0.5) (Dorschner et al. 1995), the observed p...

Databases for Engine Control 1 Background COMET [1] is a configurable database platform under constant development. COMET database has being developed using a novel design method called ACCORD [2], which combines two software engineering techniques, namely component-based and aspect-oriented software development into real-time system software development. Currently COMET has a library of aspect...

Rapid advances in hardware technology have led to wide diversity in parallel computer architectures. This diversity makes it di cult to evaluate or compare the performance of di erent parallel computers. Existing benchmarks tend either to be too architecture-speci c, or too high-level. Both problems can result in benchmarks that not only provide insu cient information on the performance charact...

OBJECTIVES This study investigates whether depression can be ameliorated by weakening the associations between auditory verbal hallucinations and easily activated networks with negative self-evaluations, by strengthening the access to competing memories of positive self-esteem. Design.  A randomized controlled clinical trial comparing competitive memory training (COMET) with treatment as usual ...