Advanced Scientific Research Articles

A Novel Inhibitor of the Histone Acetyl Transferase Activity of p300/CBP Associated Factor (PCAF)

We have identified a natural compound from an Indian traditional medicinal plant which is being used to treat fever, inflammatory diseases, and a variety of gastrointestinal ailments for thousands of years. The compound (MJTK‐1) has been shown to have antifertility, anthelmintic, antipyretic, analgesic, antiinflammatory and antibacterial activities. Here we report that MJTK‐1 inhibits lysine acetyl transferase (KAT) activity of Tip60, hGCN5, p300 and PCAF in vitro. MJTK‐1 specifically inhibits PCAF (KAT3B) up to 10μM concentration with Ki =1.2 ±0.5 μM. MJTK‐1 does not inhibit methyltransferases CARM‐1 and G9A. 25μM MJTK‐1 treated HEK 293T cells show specific down regulation of histone H3K9 acetylation without any alteration of other histone acetylation marks. Immunohistochemical and western blot analysis of liver tissues from MJTK‐1 treated mice showed specific down regulation of histone H3K9 acetylation. Presumably, MJTK‐1 at least with a great preference inhibits the HAT/ KAT activity of PCAF in vivo. Presently we are analysing the mechanism of this specificity as well as its biological implication in the context of epigenetics.This work is supported by Indian Council for Agricultural Research and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, India.

Las mujeres que abrieron los espacios de las ciencias experimentales para las mujeres, en la España del primer tercio del siglo XX

Along the first third of the 20th century, Spanish women conquered the scientific spaces: universities, scientific societies and the existent laboratories. Chemistry and Pharmacy were their favourite careers. They enjoyed fellowships given by the Board for Advanced Studies and Scientific Research (JAE), and also from the solidarity of international university organizations of American women. They began being very few, but in the 30’s, at the National Institute for Physics and Chemistry, built by the Rockefeller Foundation, women became the 22% of scientific personnel. This positive trend was cut short by the outbreak of the war that destroyed what had been achieved and it led many into exile.

Glucose regulates fatty acid binding protein interaction with lipids and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α

Although the pathophysiology of diabetes is characterized by elevated levels of glucose and long-chain fatty acids (LCFA), nuclear mechanisms linking glucose and LCFA metabolism are poorly understood. As the liver fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP) shuttles LCFA to the nucleus, where L-FABP directly interacts with peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α (PPARα), the effect of glucose on these processes was examined. In vitro studies showed that L-FABP strongly bound glucose and glucose-1-phosphate (K(d) = 103 ± 19 nM and K(d) = 20 ± 3 nM, respectively), resulting in altered L-FABP conformation, increased affinity for lipid ligands, and enhanced interaction with PPARα. In living cells, glucose stimulated cellular uptake and nuclear localization of a nonmetabolizable fluorescent fatty acid analog (BODIPY C-16), particularly in the presence of L-FABP. These data suggest for the first time a direct role of glucose in facilitating L-FABP-mediated uptake and distribution of lipidic ligands to the nucleus for regulation of PPARα transcriptional activity.

Nürnberg: A Showcase for European Chemistry

Nürnberg: A Showcase for European Chemistry

Research Trends in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in India

This paper attempts to highlight quantitatively the growth and development of Indian research in the field of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in terms of publication output as per Science Citation Index (1982-2008). The whole database contains 296072 records on the subject and among them USA topped the list with 84561 (28.56 per cent) followed by, China with 43393 (14.66 per cent) publications, Japan with 32431 (10.95 per cent) publications, Germany with 28065 (9.48 per cent) publications, France with 18141 (6.13 per cent) publications, and England with 13850 (4.68 per cent) publications. During 1982-2008, a total of 8326 (2.81 per cent) papers were published by the Indian scientists in the field. The yearly average number of documents published was 308.37. The highest numbers of publications (1890) were published in 2008. The premier Indian institutes engaged in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology research were: Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangaluru with 723 publications followed by IIT Kharagpur with 606 publications; National Chemical Laboratories (NCL), Pune with 589 publications; Indian Association for the Cultivation of science (IACS), Kolkata with 563 publications; and BARC, Mumbai with 434 publications. Major portion of the publications (96.36 per cent) were written in collaboration with more than one authors. India had collaboration with 67 other countries in the field. C.N.R. Rao, M. Sastry and S. Chaudhuri were the three leading researchers in the field. Researchers from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore had most number of collaborative publications. When collaboration among institutes situated in different Indian cities was taken into consideration, Bangaluru and Kolkata were found to have the highest number of collaborative publications. Karnataka and West Bengal, the parent states of these cities were the states with the most collaborative publications in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology research. USA, Germany, and Japan had more number of collaborative publications with India. The most preferred journals for publishing the articles by the scientists were: Journal of Applied Physics (293), Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (285), Applied Physics Letters (243), Materials Letters (232), Physical Review B (232), Nanotechnology (194), and Langmuir (182). The highly occurred keywords in SCI records were: Nanoparticles (1244); Particles (756); Films (589); Growth (513); Nanocrystals (501); Thin-Films (484); Nanostructures (427); Optical-Properties (410); Nanocomposites (401); etc. DOI: 10.14429/djlit.30.6

Activities of the Polish Node of INCF

Event Abstract Back to Event Activities of the Polish Node of INCF Daniel Wójcik1*, Lech Borkowski2, Piotr Durka3, Jan Karbowski4, Maciej Nowak5 and Andrzej Wróbel1 1 Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Department of Neurophysiology, Poland 2 Adam Mickiewicz University, Department of Physics, Poland 3 University of Warsaw, Department of Physics, Poland 4 Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering, Poland 5 Jagiellonian University, Mark Kac Complex Systems Research Centre, Poland By the Polish INCF node we denote the people engaged in neuroinformatics related activity supporting Polish membership in the INCF. Node activities involve research, education, workshops, infrastructure building. Education. Two new BSc courses have been created in Poland in the fall of 2009. - “Neuroinformatics” is a complete BSc program prepared from a scratch in the Physics Department of the Warsaw University. It received 66 applications, 20 students were admitted into the program. Complete description of the program is available at: http://www.neuroinformatyka.pl/ - “Cognitivistics” is a complete interdisciplinary BSc program in the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun with neuroinformatics components. It received 160 applications with 75 students admitted into the program. Complete description of the program (in Polish) is available at: http://www.kognitywistyka.umk.pl/ - Two other MSc programs, “Neurocognitivistics”, neuroscience based psychology course in the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities (SWPS), has some neuroinformatics components, as well as the program in “Neurophysiology” offered in the Biology Department of the Jagiellonian University, http://neuro.iz.uj.edu.pl/. A course "Introduction to Neurodynamics and Neuroinformatics" for MSc students at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of Warsaw University is offered. Activities – national. - A workshop “Neuroscience meets theoretical physics” was organized in September 2008 by the Center of Complex Systems of Jagiellonian University http://www.fais.uj.edu.pl/neurobio/ - Short hands-on course “Introduction to nervous system modeling with Neuron” was organized at the Nencki Institute of the Experimental Biology under auspices of the Polish Neuroscience Society (14-15 April 2009). http://www.neuroinf.pl/warsztaty_neuron - A symposium on modern data analysis methods in electrophysiology was organized during the 9th International Congress of the Polish Neuroscience Society, 2009. Activities – international. - Two Polish-Norwegian Neuroinformatics workshops were organized by the Polish and Norwegian INCF nodes, supported by a grant from the Polish-Norwegian Research Fund and the Nencki Institute. The first one “Modeling of extracellular field potentials” took place on 15-16 January 2009 in Ski, Norway: http://compneuro.umb.no/lfpworkshop/LFP_workshop The Second Polish-Norwegian Neuroinformatics Workshop “How to model neurons and neural systems? Integrating biophysics, morphology, and connectivity” took place on 14-15 January 2010 in Warsaw, Poland: http://www.neuroinf.pl/NIWorkshop2010 - Advanced Scientific Programming in Python Winter School was organized by G-Node and the Physics Department, University of Warsaw, which took place 8-12 February, 2010: http://escher.fuw.edu.pl/pythonschool/ - The node is taking steps to move the yearly Advanced Course in Computational Neuroscience to Bêdlewo, Poland, for the period of 2011-2013. A number of international research collaborations, often supported by joint grants, has been established between members of the Node and groups in other countries, in particular Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and USA. Conference: Neuroinformatics 2010 , Kobe, Japan, 30 Aug - 1 Sep, 2010. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: General neuroinformatics Citation: Wójcik D, Borkowski L, Durka P, Karbowski J, Nowak M and Wróbel A (2010). Activities of the Polish Node of INCF. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Neuroinformatics 2010 . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.13.00057 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 11 Jun 2010; Published Online: 11 Jun 2010. * Correspondence: Daniel Wójcik, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Department of Neurophysiology, Warszawa, Poland, d.wojcik@nencki.edu.pl Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Daniel Wójcik Lech Borkowski Piotr Durka Jan Karbowski Maciej Nowak Andrzej Wróbel Google Daniel Wójcik Lech Borkowski Piotr Durka Jan Karbowski Maciej Nowak Andrzej Wróbel Google Scholar Daniel Wójcik Lech Borkowski Piotr Durka Jan Karbowski Maciej Nowak Andrzej Wróbel PubMed Daniel Wójcik Lech Borkowski Piotr Durka Jan Karbowski Maciej Nowak Andrzej Wróbel Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

In this issue: Biotechnology Journal 3/2009

AbstractAcetylated sialic acids as biomarkers of childhood leukemiaMandal & Chowdhury, Biotechnol. J. 2009, 4, 361–374Changes in protein glycosylation are a hallmark of many diseases. In this review, scientists from Kolkata give an overview of their research about increased 9‐O‐acetylated sialic acid (9,5‐NeuAc) occurrence in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Mandal & Chowdhury report the isolation and purification of the Achatinin‐H lectin which specifically binds to 9,5‐NeuAc and agglutinates leukemic lymphoblasts stronger than normal cells. Cell cytometry analyses with fluorescent Achatinin‐H show that 9,5‐NeuAc is strongly expressed on ALL leukocytes whereas it is absent on normal and other leukemic cells. Also, the amount of lymphoblastic glycoproteins carrying 9,5‐NeuAc is increased on ALL compared to normal cells. Thus, 9,5‐NeuAc is a promising ALL biomarker candidate, and acetyltransferase inhibitors may even be applied to block generation of 9,5‐NeuAc‐carrying glycoproteins and ALL development.Modulating histone acetylation – a new avenue for disease treatment?Selvi & Kundu, Biotechnol. J. 2009, 4, 375–390Chromatin, made up from nucleic acids, histones and nonhistone proteins, is the building block of the eukaryotic genome. Changes in chromatin structure regulate numerous cellular processes, and chromatin dynamicity derives from chromatinmodifying enzymes such as histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACs) which play a central role in the highly orchestrated network of chromatin modifications. Selvi and Kundu from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore describe how the dysfunction of the HATs and HDACs accompanies diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiac hypertrophy and neurodegenerative disorders. Thus, modulation HATs/HDACs activity is a promising approach for drug discovery. Selvi and Kundu focus their review on smallmolecule modulators of HATs as the transferases were recently found to be major drivers in the development of numerous diseases. Using the knowledge about known HAT modulators, the development of new modulators may lead to increased therapeutic efficacy in many diseases related to histone acetylation.Introducing rice resistanceSundaram, et al., Biotechnology Journal 2009, 4, 400–407Understanding diseases of rice, an essential nutritional base for the majority of humans, is a preeminent task for plant biotechnologists. In this research article, Sundaram et al. from Hyderabad employ genetic engineering to counter bacterial blight (BB), a serious disease of rice often occurring in India. They use molecular markerassisted selection in backcross breeding to introduce three genes (Xa21, xa13, and xa5) for BB resistance into Triguna, a high yielding rice variety. Next, the researchers created homozygous plants with different combinations of BB resistance genes from backcrosses containing the resistance genes. Sundaram et al. find that plants containing the two‐gene combination Xa21/xa13 exhibit the strongest resistance against BB, and single plant selections are found to have a significant yield advantage over the Triguna wild type. Sundaram et al. report that the newly developed BB‐resistant rice lines will be included in national multi‐location field trials. In sum, this work represents a successful example of molecular marker‐assisted selection for resistance breeding in rice.

3-Mercaptopropionate Dioxygenase, a Cysteine Dioxygenase Homologue, Catalyzes the Initial Step of 3-Mercaptopropionate Catabolism in the 3,3-Thiodipropionic Acid-degrading Bacterium Variovorax paradoxus

The thioether 3,3-thiodipropionic acid can be used as precursor substrate for biotechnological synthesis of 3-mercaptopropionic acid-containing polythioesters. Therefore, the hitherto unknown catabolism of this compound was elucidated to engineer novel and improved polythioester biosynthesis pathways in the future. Bacteria capable of using 3,3-thiodipropionic acid as the sole source of carbon and energy for growth were enriched from the environment. From eleven isolates, TBEA3, TBEA6, and SFWT were morphologically and physiologically characterized. Their 16 S rDNAs and other features affiliated these isolates to the beta-subgroup of the proteobacteria. Tn5::mob mutagenesis of isolate Variovorax paradoxus TBEA6 yielded ten mutants fully or partially impaired in growth on 3,3-thiodipropionic acid. Genotypic characterization of two 3,3-thiodipropionic acid-negative mutants demonstrated the involvement of a bacterial cysteine dioxygenase (EC 1.13.11.22) homologue in the further catabolism of the 3,3-thiodipropionic acid cleavage product 3-mercaptopropionic acid. Detection of 3-sulfinopropionate in the supernatant of one of these mutants during cultivation on 3,3-thiodipropionic acid as well as in vivo and in vitro enzyme assays using purified protein demonstrated oxygenation of 3-mercaptopropionic acid to 3-sulfinopropionate by this enzyme; cysteine and cysteamine were not used as substrate. Beside cysteine dioxygenase and cysteamine dioxygenase, this 3-mercaptopropionic acid dioxygenase is the third example for a thiol dioxygenase and the first report about the microbial catabolism of 3-mercaptopropionic acid. Insertion of Tn5::mob in a gene putatively coding for a family III acyl-CoA-transferase resulted in the accumulation of 3-sulfinopropionate during cultivation on 3,3-thiodipropionic acid, indicating that this compound is further metabolized to 3-sulfinopropionyl-CoA and subsequently to propionyl-CoA.

Data management and analysis for the Earth System Grid

The international climate community is expected to generate hundreds of petabytes of simulation data within the next five to seven years. This data must be accessed and analyzed by thousands of analysts worldwide in order to provide accurate and timely estimates of the likely impact of climate change on physical, biological, and human systems. Climate change is thus not only a scientific challenge of the first order but also a major technological challenge. In order to address this technological challenge, the Earth System Grid Center for Enabling Technologies (ESG-CET) has been established within the U.S. Department of Energy's Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC)-2 program, with support from the offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and Biological and Environmental Research. ESG-CET's mission is to provide climate researchers worldwide with access to the data, information, models, analysis tools, and computational capabilities required to make sense of enormous climate simulation datasets. Its specific goals are to (1) make data more useful to climate researchers by developing Grid technology that enhances data usability; (2) meet specific distributed database, data access, and data movement needs of national and international climate projects; (3) provide a universal and secure web-based data access portal for broad multi-model data collections; and (4) provide a wide-range of Grid-enabled climate data analysis tools and diagnostic methods to international climate centers and U.S. government agencies. Building on the successes of the previous Earth System Grid (ESG) project, which has enabled thousands of researchers to access tens of terabytes of data from a small number of ESG sites, ESG-CET is working to integrate a far larger number of distributed data providers, high-bandwidth wide-area networks, and remote computers in a highly collaborative problem-solving environment.

Breeding season and clutch size of Indian passerines

IbisVolume 142, Issue 1 p. 75-81 Breeding season and clutch size of Indian passerines PRAMOD PADMANABHAN, PRAMOD PADMANABHAN Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore 560 064, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorYORAM YOM-TOV, Corresponding Author YORAM YOM-TOV Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel*Corresponding author. Email: yomtov@post.tau.ac.ilSearch for more papers by this author PRAMOD PADMANABHAN, PRAMOD PADMANABHAN Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore 560 064, IndiaSearch for more papers by this authorYORAM YOM-TOV, Corresponding Author YORAM YOM-TOV Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India Department of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel*Corresponding author. Email: yomtov@post.tau.ac.ilSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 June 2008 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2000.tb07686.xCitations: 4AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume142, Issue1January 2000Pages 75-81 RelatedInformation

Cation–π interaction: to stack or to spread

The interaction between different cations and certain aromatic dimers (benzene, naphthalene, anthracene) and heteroaromatic dimers (pyridine, pyrazine, sym-triazine and sym-tetrazine) has been investigated employing the MP2 level of theory with the 6-31G** and 6-311++G** basis sets. The trend in the stabilization energy for aromatic dimers is found to be: (anthracene)2-cation>(naphthalene)2-cation>(benzene)2-cation. In all three cases, the cation remains sandwiched between the rings. In the case of the heteroaromatic systems, on the other hand, the cation prefers to interact with the nitrogen atom of the ring. These results can be rationalized by molecular electrostatic potential maps for the systems under consideration. In addition, these results are in conformity with the available cation aromatic database. 1Honorary Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore 560064, India.

THREE DIMENSIONAL FLASH LADAR FOCAL PLANES AND TIME DEPENDENT IMAGING

3-D flash ladar, herein defined as obtaining an entire frame of 3-D ladar data with one laser pulse, is an emerging technology with a number of advantages over conventional point scanner systems. Probably the most obvious advantage is the higher data rates possible and the potential for much higher data rates with increases in the associated 3-D focal planes array (FPA) format. High data rate means that topographical mapping, for example, can be obtained more rapidly decreasing the amount of flight time required. This paper investigates the clear but perhaps not-so-intuitive use of the high data rate: time dependent 3-D movies can be acquired at the repetition frequency of the associated laser. Data is taken using 3-D flash ladar cameras fabricated by Advanced Scientific Concepts, Inc. The paper concludes that there are a number of advantages and unique applications of the time dynamic 3-D flash ladar, including 3-D collision avoidance and object tracking.

Complexity in Scalable Computing

The rich history of scalable computing research owes much to a rapid rise in computing platform scale in terms of size and speed. As platforms evolve, so must algorithms and the software expressions of those algorithms. Unbridled growth in scale inevitably leads to complexity. This special issue grapples with two facets of this complexity: scalable execution and scalable development. The former results from efficient programming of novel hardware with increasing numbers of processing units (e.g., cores, processors, threads or processes). The latter results from efficient development of robust, flexible software with increasing numbers of programming units (e.g., procedures, classes, components or developers). The progression in the above two parenthetical lists goes from the lowest levels of abstraction (hardware) to the highest (people). This issue's theme encompasses this entire spectrum. The lead author of each article resides in the Scalable Computing Research and Development Department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, CA. Their co-authors hail from other parts of Sandia, other national laboratories and academia. Their research sponsors include several programs within the Department of Energy's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research and its National Nuclear Security Administration, along with Sandia's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program and the Office ofmore » Naval Research. The breadth of interests of these authors and their customers reflects in the breadth of applications this issue covers. This article demonstrates how to obtain scalable execution on the increasingly dominant high-performance computing platform: a Linux cluster with multicore chips. The authors describe how deep memory hierarchies necessitate reducing communication overhead by using threads to exploit shared register and cache memory. On a matrix-matrix multiplication problem, they achieve up to 96% parallel efficiency with a three-part strategy: intra-node multithreading, non-blocking inter-node message passing, and a dedicated communications thread to facilitate concurrent communications and computations. On a quantum chemistry problem, they spawn multiple computation threads and communication threads on each node and use one-sided communications between nodes to minimize wait times. They reduce software complexity by evolving a multi-threaded factory pattern in C++ from a working, message-passing program in C.« less

Research initiatives for plug-and-play scientific computing

This paper introduces three component technology initiatives within the SciDAC Center for Technology for Advanced Scientific Component Software (TASCS) that address ever-increasing productivity challenges in creating, managing, and applying simulation software to scientific discovery. By leveraging the Common Component Architecture (CCA), a new component standard for high-performance scientific computing, these initiatives tackle difficulties at different but related levels in the development of component-based scientific software: (1) deploying applications on massively parallel and heterogeneous architectures, (2) investigating new approaches to the runtime enforcement of behavioral semantics, and (3) developing tools to facilitate dynamic composition, substitution, and reconfiguration of component implementations and parameters, so that application scientists can explore tradeoffs among factors such as accuracy, reliability, and performance.

Advanced Scientific Computational Methods and Their Applications to Nuclear Technologies― (10) Visualization, Present State of Technology and Future Challenge

Advanced Scientific Computational Methods and Their Applications to Nuclear Technologies― (10) Visualization, Present State of Technology and Future Challenge

Implications in disclosing auditory genetic mutation to a family: A case study

The aim of the study is to understand the implications of disclosing the results of connexin26 (Cx26) gene testing to the concerned family with hearing impaired individuals. The department of biotechnology is funding a multicentric multidisciplinary team from Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research (Bangalore), AYJNIHH (Mumbai), PGIBMS (Chennai), and MAMC (New Delhi) to profile mutations of deafness genes in India. Under this program, blood samples were taken from various centers and were sent to JNCASR for genetic analysis (screening for Cx26 mutations). This case study is an attempt to bring out issues encountered when disclosing the implications of genetic diagnosis to the concerned family.

Information and Communication Technologies in Cientific Learning

New information and communication technologies (NICT) have been used frequently as pedagogic and didactic strategies searching for a better learning for complexes concepts. This work was carried out in the discipline of Advanced Scientific Education in the Biochemistry Master Course at Pernambuco Federal University. Its aim was to evaluate the utilization of NICT for teaching and subject learning in biochemistry regarding its contributions, limitations and effects in the scientific concepts. Students were submitted to two experiments. In the first the software Scientific Methods was presented (30 min long) and students were evaluated via a pos-test. In the second the students were introduced to the software accompanied by a constructivist methodology. Students from the first experiment presented a 52% learning percentage related to the subject in which 75% considered the new strategy appropriate. In the second experiment the learning percentage was of 92%. The results indicated that the association of a NTIC and the constructivist methodology was much more adequate for learning. The use of NITC increased possibility of learning-teaching strategy when summed to a pedagogic orientation and coherent instructional modeling. Educators should have in mind that three elements are important and fundamental in the process of learning. These are the methodology used, the pedagogic approach and its format. Ensemble, they shall contribute to become the learning-teaching process more efficient.

Advanced Scientific Computational Methods and Their Applications to Nuclear Technologies― (7) Simulation Methods in Discretized Systems, (3)

Advanced Scientific Computational Methods and Their Applications to Nuclear Technologies― (7) Simulation Methods in Discretized Systems, (3)

Integrated multiscale modeling of molecular computing devices

Molecular electronics, in which single organic molecules are designed to perform the functions of transistors, diodes, switches and other circuit elements used in current siliconbased microelecronics, is drawing wide interest as a potential replacement technology for conventional silicon-based lithographically etched microelectronic devices. In addition to their nanoscopic scale, the additional advantage of molecular electronics devices compared to silicon-based lithographically etched devices is the promise of being able to produce them cheaply on an industrial scale using wet chemistry methods (i.e., self-assembly from solution). The design of molecular electronics devices, and the processes to make them on an industrial scale, will require a thorough theoretical understanding of the molecular and higher level processes involved. Hence, the development of modeling techniques for molecular electronics devices is a high priority from both a basic science point of view (to understand the experimental studies in this field) and from an applied nanotechnology (manufacturing) point of view. Modeling molecular electronics devices requires computational methods at all length scales – electronic structure methods for calculating electron transport through organic molecules bonded to inorganic surfaces, molecular simulation methods for determining the structure of self-assembled films of organic molecules on inorganic surfaces, mesoscale methods to understand and predict the formation of mesoscale patterns on surfaces (including interconnect architecture), and macroscopic scale methods (including finite element methods) for simulating the behavior of molecular electronic circuit elements in a larger integrated device. Here we describe a large Department of Energy project involving six universities and one national laboratory aimed at developing integrated multiscale methods for modeling molecular electronics devices. The project is funded equally by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences and the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, both within the Office of Science of the Department of Energy.

Report of the Fusion Simulation Project Steering Committee

The Fusion Simulation Project (FSP) is envisioned as a 15 year, $20M/year multi-institutional project to develop a comprehensive simulation capability for magnetic fusion experiments with a focus on the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). The FSP would be able to contribute to design decisions, experimental planning and performance optimization for ITER, substantially increasing ITER’s likelihood of success and its value to the US Fusion Program. The FSP would be jointly supported by the DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences and the DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research. The potential for developing this simulation capability rests on the exponential growth of computer power over the last 50 years, the progress in physics understanding developed by the international fusion program and the continued progress in computational mathematics that enables the use of the new “ultra-scale” computers to solve difficult mathematical problems. The initial concept for the FSP was developed by the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee Integrated Simulation and Optimization of Fusion Systems Subcommittee (J. Dahlburg and J. Corones, et al., J. Fusion Energy, 20(4), 135–196.). The DOE asked the FSP Steering Committee to develop a project vision, a governance concept and a roadmap for the FSP. The Committee recommends that the FSP consist of three elements: a production component, a research and integration component, and a software infrastructure component. The key challenge is developing components that bridge the enormous distance and time scales involved with the disparate physics elements of tokamak performance. The committee recommended that this challenge be met through “Focused Integration Initiatives” that would first seek to integrate different physics packages with disparate distance and time scales. An example is the integration of Radio Frequency (RF) Current Drive and Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) components to produce an integrated capability to simulate the use of RF current drive to suppress MHD instabilities. This report also defines the requirements for a governance structure. The FSP Steering Committee judged that the project begin with a conceptual design phase lasting one or two years and be followed by a staged ramp-up over a few years to the full funding level.