Survey on the metazoan parasites in Neogobius fishes from southeastern part of the Caspian Sea

In this study a parasitological investigation on 238 samples of Neogobius species from the south-east of Caspian Sea was carried out. The samples including Neogobius melanostomus (35), N. fluviatilis pallasi (103), N. kessleri gorlap (70) and N. bathybius (30) were seasonally seined by beach net during one year (summer 2006-spring 2007), fixed in 10 % buffer formalinand transferred to the laboratory. From 231 of examined fishes 235 specimens were infected (97/6 %). The collected parasites were as follows: Hysterothylacium aduncum, Raphidascaris acus, Cucullanus sphaerocephalus, Dichelyne minutus, Raphidascaroides sp., Cystidicola sp,. Gyrodactylus sp., and Corynosoma strumosum. Hereby, N.melanostomus is introduced as a new host for Raphidascaroides sp., C. sphaerocephalus and Cystidicola sp.. N. fluviatilis pallasi and N. kessleri gorlap for C. sphaerocephalus, Cystidicola sp. and H .adunacum. N. bathybius for C. sphaerocephalus, Cystidicola sp., H. aduncum, E.excisus, R. acus and C. strumosum. Cystidicola sp. and H. adunacum were reported for the first time from Iran. Among the investigated fishes N. fluviatilis pallasi possessed the highest and N. bathybius the lowest variety in infection with various species of parasites. The results of this study indicated that there are significant relations between total length (T.L.) and weight in N. fluviatilis pallasi with the number of C. sphaerocephalus, D. minutus and E. excises. Also there are significant relations between total length and weight in N. melanostomus and between weights in N. kessleri gorlap with the number of C. sphaerocephalus

Damped and sub-damped Lyman-α absorbers in z > 4 QSOs

We present the results of a survey of damped (DLA, log N(H I) > 20.3) and sub-damped Lyman-α systems (19.5 2.55 along the lines-of-sight to 77 quasars with emission redshifts in the range 4 19.5 were detected of which 40 systems are damped Lyman-α systems for an absorption length of ΔX = 378. About half of the lines of sight of this homogeneous survey have never been investigated for DLAs. We study the evolution with redshift of the cosmological density of the neutral gas and find, consistent with previous studies at similar resolution, that Ω_(DLA,HI) decreases at z > 3.5. The overall cosmological evolution of Ω_(HI) shows a peak around this redshift. The H I column density distribution for log N(H I) ≥ 20.3 is fitted, consistent with previous surveys, with a single power-law of index α ~ −1.8 ± 0.25. This power-law overpredicts data at the high-end and a second, much steeper, power-law (or a gamma function) is needed. There is a flattening of the function at lower H I column densities with an index of α ~ −1.4 for the column density range log N(H I) = 19.5−21. The fraction of H I mass in sub-DLAs is of the order of 30%. The H I column density distribution does not evolve strongly from z ~ 2.5 to z ~ 4.5

Oral recombinant bovine somatotropin improves growth performance in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

The aim of this research was to evaluate the effects of oral recombinant bovine somatotropin (RBS) 1% on growth performance of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). 600 rainbow trout weighing 46±1 grams were randomly allotted in two groups including: 1) the control group and 2) RBS treated group, each in three replicates. The fish were hand-fed with commercial pellets. The fish received 200g RBS 1% per 100kg BW. The administration method of RBS-mixed feed to fish was once a week for 4 consecutive weeks, totally 8 times for 12 weeks of rearing periods. At the end of each rearing periods (on day 28, 56, 84) the means of some of growth characteristics were calculated in the control and RBS treated groups. The obtained results in this research demonstrated that there were no significant differences between appearance growth characteristics in the control and RBS treated groups on days 28 and 56 of rearing periods (p> 0.05). However, there were significant differences between means of whole body weight (p< 0.0 5), weight gain (p< 0.05), average daily growth ( p< 0.05) , total length ( p< 0.001) , and average daily length ( p<0.05 ) of the control and RBS treated groups on day 84 of rearing period. In the same period, there was greater 11.2% comparative growth rate in RBS treated group than the control group. Generally, the obtained data showed that oral administration of RBS 1% can produce a significant increase in the growth rate of rainbow trout weighing 46±1 grams on day 84 of rearing period

A Human-Centric Approach to Group-Based Context-Awareness

The emerging need for qualitative approaches in context-aware information processing calls for proper modeling of context information and efficient handling of its inherent uncertainty resulted from human interpretation and usage. Many of the current approaches to context-awareness either lack a solid theoretical basis for modeling or ignore important requirements such as modularity, high-order uncertainty management and group-based context-awareness. Therefore, their real-world application and extendability remains limited. In this paper, we present f-Context as a service-based context-awareness framework, based on language-action perspective (LAP) theory for modeling. Then we identify some of the complex, informational parts of context which contain high-order uncertainties due to differences between members of the group in defining them. An agent-based perceptual computer architecture is proposed for implementing f-Context that uses computing with words (CWW) for handling uncertainty. The feasibility of f-Context is analyzed using a realistic scenario involving a group of mobile users. We believe that the proposed approach can open the door to future research on context-awareness by offering a theoretical foundation based on human communication, and a service-based layered architecture which exploits CWW for context-aware, group-based and platform-independent access to information systems

Applying seamful design in location-based mobile museum applications

The application of mobile computing is currently altering patterns of our behavior to a greater degree than perhaps any other invention. In combination with the introduction of power-efficient wireless communication technologies, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), designers are today increasingly empowered to shape the way we interact with our physical surroundings and thus build entirely new experiences. However, our evaluations of BLE and its abilities to facilitate mobile location-based experiences in public environments revealed a number of potential problems. Most notably, the position and orientation of the user in combination with various environmental factors, such as crowds of people traversing the space, were found to cause major fluctuations of the received BLE signal strength. These issues are rendering a seamless functioning of any location-based application practically impossible. Instead of achieving seamlessness by eliminating these technical issues, we thus choose to advocate the use of a seamful approach, that is, to reveal and exploit these problems and turn them into a part of the actual experience. In order to demonstrate the viability of this approach, we designed, implemented, and evaluated the Ghost Detector —an educational location-based museum game for children. By presenting a qualitative evaluation of this game and by motivating our design decisions, this article provides insight into some of the challenges and possible solutions connected to the process of developing location-based BLE-enabled experiences for public cultural spaces. This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Association for Computing Machinery via https://doi.org/10.1145/296272

Physiological responses of two rice (Oryza sativa L.) genotypes to chilling stress at seedling stage

In this study, quantitative changes of dry matter, proline and total soluble protein in shoot and root, stomatal conductance (gs), total chlorophyll, chlorophyll stability index (CSI) and soil and plant analyzer development (SPAD) number of latest fully-expanded leaves were determined in an Iranian coldsensitive rice genotype (Hoveizeh) in comparison to an international check genotype (IRCTN34, coldtolerant). The hydroponic experiment was arranged in a completely randomized design with three replications under the growth chamber condition under a controlled environment of 29/22°C (day/night) and 12 h light photoperiod. Then, the treatment plants were exposed to 15/10°C (day/night) cold stress for two weeks and control plants were kept at 29/22°C (day/night). Dry matter accumulation decreased with chilling stress in the two genotypes, with decreases been more pronounced in Hoveizeh genotype. Our results showed that cold treatment increased accumulation of total soluble protein (only in coldtolerant genotype) and proline in rice seedlings, while it decreased the content of chlorophyll, stomatal conductance, total soluble protein (only in cold-sensitive genotype) and dry matter. The results indicated that higher contents of protein and chlorophyll under stress were associated with tolerance to chilling.Key words: Abiotic stress, cold, total soluble protein, proline, total chlorophyll, stomatal conductance

Evidence for overdensity around z<SUB>em</SUB> &gt; 4 quasars from the proximity effect

We study the density field around zem &gt; 4 quasars using high-quality medium spectral resolution Echelle Spectrograph and Imager-Keck spectra (R&#8764; 4300, signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) &gt; 25) of 45 high-redshift quasars selected from a total of 95 spectra. This large sample considerably increases the statistics compared to previous studies. The redshift evolution of the mean photoionization rate and the median optical depth of the intergalactic medium (IGM) are derived statistically from the observed transmitted flux and the pixel optical depth probability distribution function, respectively. This is used to study the so-called proximity effect, that is, the observed decrease of the median optical depth of the IGM in the vicinity of the quasar caused by enhanced photoionization rate due to photons emitted by the quasar. We show that the proximity effect is correlated with the luminosity of the quasars, as expected. By comparing the observed decrease of the median optical depth with the theoretical expectation, we find that the optical depth does not decrease as rapidly as expected when approaching the quasar if the gas in its vicinity is part of the standard IGM. We interpret this effect as revealing gaseous overdensities on scales as large as &#8764;15 h-1 Mpc. The mean overdensity is of the order of 2 and 5 within, respectively, 10 and 3 h-1 Mpc. If true, this would indicate that high-redshift quasars are located in the centre of overdense regions that could evolve with time into massive clusters of galaxies. The overdensity is correlated with luminosity: brighter quasars show higher overdensities

Optimizing the Performance and Robustness of Type-2 Fuzzy Group Nearest-Neighbor Queries

In Group Nearest-Neighbor (GNN) queries, the goal is to find one or more points of interest with minimum sum of distance to the current location of mobile users. The classic forms of GNN use Euclidean distance measure which is not sufficient to capture other essential distance perceptions of human and the inherent uncertainty of it. To overcome this problem, an improved distance model can be used which is based on a richer, closer to real-world type-2 fuzzy logic distance model. However, large search spaces as well as the need for higher-order uncertainty management will increase the response times of such GNN queries. In this paper two fuzzy clustering methods combined with spatial tessellation are exploited to reduce the search space. Extensive evaluation of the proposed method shows improved response times compared to naïve method while maintaining a high quality of approximation. The proposed uncertainty management method also provides robustness to movement of mobile users, eliminating the need for full re-computation of candidate clusters when the locations of group members are changed

Spin Fidelity for Three-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger and W States Under Lorentz Transformations

Constructing the reduced density matrix for a system of three massive spin$-\frac{1}{2}$ particles described by a wave packet with Gaussian momentum distribution and a spin part in the form of GHZ or W state, the fidelity for the spin part of the system is investigated from the viewpoint of moving observers in the jargon of special relativity. Using a numerical approach, it turns out that by increasing the boost speed, the spin fidelity decreases and reaches to a non-zero asymptotic value that depends on the momentum distribution and the amount of momentum entanglement.Comment: 12pages, 2 figure

Damped and sub-damped Lyman-? absorbers in z > 4 QSOs

We present the results of a survey for damped (DLA, log N(H I) > 20.3) and sub-damped Lyman-? systems (19.5 2.55 along the lines-of-sight to 77 quasars with emission redshifts in the range 4 < zem < 6.3. Intermediate resolution (R ? 4300) spectra have been obtained with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) mounted on the Keck telescope. A total of 100 systems with log N(H I) > 19.5 are detected of which 40 systems are damped Lyman-? systems for an absorption length of ?X = 378. About half of the lines of sight of this homogeneous survey have never been investigated for DLAs. We study the evolution with redshift of the cosmological density of the neutral gas and find, consis- tently with previous studies at similar resolution, that ?DLA,H I decreases at z > 3.5. The overall cosmological evolution of ?HI shows a peak around this redshift. The H I column density distribution for log N(H I) ? 20.3 is ?tted, consistently with previous surveys, with a single power-law of index ? ? -1.8$\pm$0.25. This power-law overpredicts data at the high-end and a second, much steeper, power-law (or a gamma function) is needed. There is a flattening of the function at lower H I column densities with an index of ? ? ?1.4 for the column density range log N(H I) = 19.5?21. The fraction of H I mass in sub-DLAs is of the order of 30%. The H column density distribution does not evolve strongly from z ? 2.5 to z ? 4.5