Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education

About: Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education is a facility organization based out in Ensenada, Mexico. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Nonlinear system. The organization has 1934 authors who have published 3733 publications receiving 63115 citations.

The Val158Met COMT polymorphism is a modifier of the age at onset in Parkinson's disease with a sexual dimorphism

Abstract: The catechol-O-methyltranferase (COMT) is one of the main enzymes that metabolise dopamine in the brain. The Val158Met polymorphism in the COMT gene (rs4680) causes a trimodal distribution of high (Val/Val), intermediate (Val/Met) and low (Met/Met) enzyme activity. We tested whether the Val158Met polymorphism is a modifier of the age at onset (AAO) in Parkinson's disease (PD). The rs4680 was genotyped in a total of 16 609 subjects from five independent cohorts of European and North American origin (5886 patients with PD and 10 723 healthy controls). The multivariate analysis for comparing PD and control groups was based on a stepwise logistic regression, with gender, age and cohort origin included in the initial model. The multivariate analysis of the AAO was a mixed linear model, with COMT genotype and gender considered as fixed effects and cohort and cohort-gender interaction as random effects. COMT genotype was coded as a quantitative variable, assuming a codominant genetic effect. The distribution of the COMT polymorphism was not significantly different in patients and controls (p=0.22). The Val allele had a significant effect on the AAO with a younger AAO in patients with the Val/Val (57.1±13.9, p=0.03) than the Val/Met (57.4±13.9) and the Met/Met genotypes (58.3±13.5). The difference was greater in men (1.9 years between Val/Val and Met/Met, p=0.007) than in women (0.2 years, p=0.81). Thus, the Val158Met COMT polymorphism is not associated with PD in the Caucasian population but acts as a modifier of the AAO in PD with a sexual dimorphism: the Val allele is associated with a younger AAO in men with idiopathic PD.

Single cut technique for adjustment of doubly resonant Brillouin laser cavities.

Abstract: We report a simple technical solution for precise adjustment of short fiber cavities commonly used with Brillouin fiber lasers. The technique is based on recording the Brillouin response of the cavity to the frequency scanned laser radiation. The recorded traces are used to calculate the excess cavity length that needs to be removed from the original cavity to provide its precise adjustment to the Brillouin resonance at any preselected pump laser wavelength. The adjusted laser cavity is simultaneously resonant for pump and Stokes radiation. For demonstration of the approach, fine adjustment of a 4 m long ring cavity based on standard Corning SMF-28 fiber is performed.

Reduced spatial order model reference adaptive control of spatially varying distributed parameter systems of parabolic and hyperbolic types

Abstract: This paper presents control laws for distributed parameter systems of parabolic and hyperbolic types with unknown spatially varying parameters. These laws, based on the model reference adaptive control approach, guarantee asymptotic tracking of the output of the reference model by the output of the plant for arbitrary time invariant, but spatially varying reference input. The novel capabilities of the algorithms proposed are providing reduced sensitivity to measurement noise due to the reduced order of the spatial differentiation of the output data and permitting on-line estimation of the spatially varying plant parameters, constructively enforceable through the reference input and/or boundary conditions. The parameter estimation is carried out by means of an auxiliary system with the time-varying parameters that simultaneously converge in L2 to plant parameters when appropriate input signals in the reference model are used. The orthogonal expansions of these time-varying parameters, which can be computed by passing the auxiliary system parameters through the integrator block, converge to the plant parameters pointwise if the latter are sufficiently smooth. The parameter convergence is obtained by combining the adaptation laws with sufficiently rich input signals, referred to as generators of persistent excitation, which guarantee the existence of a unique steady state for the parameter errors. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.