Effect of Particulate Matter (PM) Exposure on Lung Histopathological Feature and IL-1β Level as Inflammatory Indicator in Rats (Rattus norvegicus)

Vehicle exhaust gases (emissions) and bushfire contain very small particles pollutants which can be affected on health. Particulate matter (PM) is a very small pollutant, can be inhaled to lower respiratory tract. Chronic PM exposure trigger an inflammatory response to release of endogenous proinflammatory mediators which cause lung tissue damage. Aim of this study to determine the effect of PM (carbon black powder) exposure on lung histopathological feature and IL-1β level in rats (Rattus norvegicus). Method: A true experimental study with post-test only control group design. Thirty five male rats 2-3 months old were divided into 5 groups: Control, P1 (PM 532 mg/m3 for 4 hours), P2 (PM 1064 mg/m3 for 4 hours), P3 (PM 532 mg/m3 for 8 hours), and P4 (PM 1064 mg/m3 for 8 hours). Results: Lung histopathological feature showed significant effect on lung’s damage by Mann-Whitney test (p <0.05). IL-1β levels were no significant effect among exposure rat groups by the Kruskal-Wallis test (p> 0.05). Conclusion: Particulate matter exposure cause chronic lung damage, but not accompanied by increasing IL-1β levels due to a different inflammatory response

A Higher-order Accurate FDTD Solution to Scalar SHG Problems

A higher-order accurate FDTD simulation algorithm for the solution of the phase-dependent SHG problem is presented. This algorithm approximates the spatial derivatives in the propagation direction using 4th order FD schemes. It has been shown that this scheme guarantees the convergence of the solution using significantly less computation time and less memory requirement as compared to 2nd order scheme

Characteristics and demography of a free-ranging ethiopian hedgehog, paraechinus aethiopicus, population in Qatar

Information on population characteristics of Paraechinusis is valuable for ensuring long term survival of populations, however, studies are currently lacking. Here we investigate the population dynamics of Ethiopian hedgehogs based on a capture-mark-recapture study in Qatar by fitting Jolly-Seber and Cormack-Jolly-Seber models. Over the 19 months of the study, we estimate a mean population of 60 hedgehogs, giving a density of 7 hedgehogs per km2 in our 8.5 km2 search area. The monthly abundance of hedgehogs decreased over the study and although survival was constant over the study period, with a mean monthly rate of 75%, there was a decline in the number of new entrants over time. We also studied these parameters over one year, excluding winter, and found that monthly estimates of juvenile and subadult survival decreased over time. We surmise that survival of juveniles may be a factor in the decrease in abundance and there may be implications for the persistence of this population, with anthropogenic influenced resources playing an important role. We caught between 91.3% and 100% of the estimated population at this site, indicating that our capture methodology was efficient. We conclude that the methodology used here is transferrable to other hedgehog specie