2,461 research outputs found

    Endocrine remodelling of the adult intestine sustains reproduction in Drosophila.

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    The production of offspring is energetically costly and relies on incompletely understood mechanisms that generate a positive energy balance. In mothers of many species, changes in key energy-associated internal organs are common yet poorly characterised functionally and mechanistically. In this study, we show that, in adult Drosophila females, the midgut is dramatically remodelled to enhance reproductive output. In contrast to extant models, organ remodelling does not occur in response to increased nutrient intake and/or offspring demands, but rather precedes them. With spatially and temporally directed manipulations, we identify juvenile hormone (JH) as an anticipatory endocrine signal released after mating. Acting through intestinal bHLH-PAS domain proteins Methoprene-tolerant (Met) and Germ cell-expressed (Gce), JH signals directly to intestinal progenitors to yield a larger organ, and adjusts gene expression and sterol regulatory element-binding protein (SREBP) activity in enterocytes to support increased lipid metabolism. Our findings identify a metabolically significant paradigm of adult somatic organ remodelling linking hormonal signals, epithelial plasticity, and reproductive output. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06930.00

    Biofilter aquaponic system for nutrients removal from fresh market wastewater

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    Aquaponics is a significant wastewater treatment system which refers to the combination of conventional aquaculture (raising aquatic organism) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. This system has a high ability in removing nutrients compared to conventional methods because it is a natural and environmentally friendly system (aquaponics). The current chapter aimed to review the possible application of aquaponics system to treat fresh market wastewater with the intention to highlight the mechanism of phytoremediation occurs in aquaponic system. The literature revealed that aquaponic system was able to remove nutrients in terms of nitrogen and phosphorus

    Digital Solutions for Advancing Reuse in the Industry: A Circular Economy Perspective A critical review on related work and a practical study

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    The Swedish Architectural, Engineering and Architectural (AEC) industry recognizes the importance of transitioning from Linear Economy (LE) to Circular Economy (CE) approach in order to reduce waste, promote sustainable resource utilization, and align with Sweden’s vision of becoming a "net-zero emissions" country by 2045 (Adams et al., 2017; Boverket, 2023a). This transition offers environmental, economic, and social benefits. However, implementing CE practices in the building sector requires collaboration among various stakeholders, including governmental agencies, stakeholders from the industry, and academia. Guidelines, policies, and incentives should be developed to encourage the adoption of CE practices. Furthermore, Comprehensive education and awareness raising efforts are needed to ensure decision-makers, architects, engineers, and industry professionals are well-informed about the advantages of adopting circular economy practices and the necessary implementation steps. (Ghisellini, Ripa, and Ulgiati, 2018; Walker et al., 2021; Ababio and Lu, 2022; Bellini and Bang, 2022). The thesis provides insights into the challenges and opportunities associated with incorporating CE practices in the Swedish AEC industry, emphasizing the role of information flow with a digital framework in order to enhance circularity. It under scores that the growing awareness to shift towards CE models in order to address the environmental impact within the industry. Fostering innovation, promoting eco friendly technologies, addressing social and cultural barriers, updating regulations, overcoming financial obstacles, and developing innovative solutions are key aspects for a successful circular implementation. The thesis also highlights the importance of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and information flow in establishing a common understanding of CE practices. Governments, regulatory bodies, and stakeholders in the industry should collaborate to develop supportive policies, regulations, and incentives. Digital tools, such as 3D scanning, inventory management systems, and databases, play a vital role in enhancing collaboration and value co-creation, but their adoption may face challenges. This is due to the fragmented and conservative characteristics of the industry. Furthermore, the thesis stresses the need for further development, standardization, and consensus on digital tools and software’s for material reuse. Categorizing and grouping existing materials, conducting pre-demolition audits, and developing control plans are essential for streamlining information flow, facilitating inventory management, and identifying reusable building products. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental product declarations (EPD) have limitations for reused materials, emphasizing the importance of a reliable basic material passport. The thesis concludes that integrating CE practices, improving information flow, and embracing digitalization can lead to greater resource efficiency, waste reduction, and a more sustainable Swedish AEC industry. The findings and recommendations contribute to further research and actions for successful circular implementation in construction projects, advancing sustainable development and CE implementation

    Transitions between dissipative localized structures in the simplified Gilad-Meron model for dryland plant ecology

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    Spatially extended patterns and multistability of possible different states is common in many ecosystems, and their combination has an important impact on their dynamical behaviours. One potential combination involves tristability between a patterned state and two different uniform states. Using a simplified version of the Gilad-Meron model for dryland ecosystems, we study the organization, in bifurcation terms, of the localized structures arising in tristable regimes. These states are generally related with the concept of wave front locking, and appear in the form of spots and gaps of vegetation. We find that the coexistence of localized spots and gaps, within tristable configurations, yield the appearance of hybrid states. We also study the emergence of spatiotemporal localized states consisting in a portion of a periodic pattern embedded in a uniform Hopf-like oscillatory background in a subcritical Turing-Hopf dynamical regime

    Chromosomal-level assembly of the Asian Seabass genome using long sequence reads and multi-layered scaffolding

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    We report here the ~670 Mb genome assembly of the Asian seabass (Lates calcarifer), a tropical marine teleost. We used long-read sequencing augmented by transcriptomics, optical and genetic mapping along with shared synteny from closely related fish species to derive a chromosome-level assembly with a contig N50 size over 1 Mb and scaffold N50 size over 25 Mb that span ~90% of the genome. The population structure of L. calcarifer species complex was analyzed by re-sequencing 61 individuals representing various regions across the species' native range. SNP analyses identified high levels of genetic diversity and confirmed earlier indications of a population stratification comprising three clades with signs of admixture apparent in the South-East Asian population. The quality of the Asian seabass genome assembly far exceeds that of any other fish species, and will serve as a new standard for fish genomics

    Multi-resolution anisotropy studies of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory

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    We report a multi-resolution search for anisotropies in the arrival directions of cosmic rays detected at the Pierre Auger Observatory with local zenith angles up to 8080^\circ and energies in excess of 4 EeV (4×10184 \times 10^{18} eV). This search is conducted by measuring the angular power spectrum and performing a needlet wavelet analysis in two independent energy ranges. Both analyses are complementary since the angular power spectrum achieves a better performance in identifying large-scale patterns while the needlet wavelet analysis, considering the parameters used in this work, presents a higher efficiency in detecting smaller-scale anisotropies, potentially providing directional information on any observed anisotropies. No deviation from isotropy is observed on any angular scale in the energy range between 4 and 8 EeV. Above 8 EeV, an indication for a dipole moment is captured; while no other deviation from isotropy is observed for moments beyond the dipole one. The corresponding pp-values obtained after accounting for searches blindly performed at several angular scales, are 1.3×1051.3 \times 10^{-5} in the case of the angular power spectrum, and 2.5×1032.5 \times 10^{-3} in the case of the needlet analysis. While these results are consistent with previous reports making use of the same data set, they provide extensions of the previous works through the thorough scans of the angular scales.Comment: Published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Added Report Numbe

    Development of an international standard set of value-based outcome measures for patients with chronic kidney disease : a report of the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) CKD working group

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    Value-based health care is increasingly promoted as a strategy for improving care quality by benchmarking outcomes that matter to patients relative to the cost of obtaining those outcomes. To support the shift toward value-based health care in chronic kidney disease (CKD), the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) assembled an international working group of health professionals and patient representatives to develop a standardized minimum set of patient-centered outcomes targeted for clinical use. The considered outcomes and patient-reported outcome measures were generated from systematic literature reviews. Feedback was sought from patients and health professionals. Patients with very high-risk CKD (stages G3a/A3 and G3b/A2-G5, including dialysis, kidney transplantation, and conservative care) were selected as the target population. Using an online modified Delphi process, outcomes important to all patients were selected, such as survival and hospitalization, and to treatment-specific subgroups, such as vascular access survival and kidney allograft survival. Patient-reported outcome measures were included to capture domains of health-related quality of life, which were rated as the most important outcomes by patients. Demographic and clinical variables were identified to be used as case-mix adjusters. Use of these consensus recommendations could enable institutions to monitor, compare, and improve the quality of their CKD care

    Ultrahigh-energy neutrino follow-up of Gravitational Wave events GW150914 and GW151226 with the Pierre Auger Observatory

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    On September 14, 2015 the Advanced LIGO detectors observed their first gravitational-wave (GW) transient GW150914. This was followed by a second GW event observed on December 26, 2015. Both events were inferred to have arisen from the merger of black holes in binary systems. Such a system may emit neutrinos if there are magnetic fields and disk debris remaining from the formation of the two black holes. With the surface detector array of the Pierre Auger Observatory we can search for neutrinos with energy above 100 PeV from point-like sources across the sky with equatorial declination from about -65 deg. to +60 deg., and in particular from a fraction of the 90% confidence-level (CL) inferred positions in the sky of GW150914 and GW151226. A targeted search for highly-inclined extensive air showers, produced either by interactions of downward-going neutrinos of all flavors in the atmosphere or by the decays of tau leptons originating from tau-neutrino interactions in the Earth's crust (Earth-skimming neutrinos), yielded no candidates in the Auger data collected within ±500\pm 500 s around or 1 day after the coordinated universal time (UTC) of GW150914 and GW151226, as well as in the same search periods relative to the UTC time of the GW candidate event LVT151012. From the non-observation we constrain the amount of energy radiated in ultrahigh-energy neutrinos from such remarkable events.Comment: Published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Added Report Numbe

    Metabolism within the tumor microenvironment and its implication on cancer progression: an ongoing therapeutic target

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    Since reprogramming energy metabolism is considered a new hallmark of cancer, tumor metabolism is again in the spotlight of cancer research. Many studies have been carried out and many possible therapies have been developed in the last years. However, tumor cells are not alone. A series of extracellular components and stromal cells, such as endothelial cells, cancer-associated fibroblasts, tumor-associated macrophages and tumor-infiltrating T cells, surround tumor cells in the so-called tumor microenvironment. Metabolic features of these cells are being studied in deep in order to find relationships between metabolism within the tumor microenvironment and tumor progression. Moreover, it cannot be forgotten that tumor growth is able to modulate host metabolism and homeostasis, so that tumor microenvironment is not the whole story. Importantly, the metabolic switch in cancer is just a consequence of the flexibility and adaptability of metabolism and should not be surprising. Treatments of cancer patients with combined therapies including anti-tumor agents with those targeting stromal cell metabolism, anti-angiogenic drugs and/or immunotherapy are being developed as promising therapeutics.Mª Carmen Ocaña is recipient of a predoctoral FPU grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. Supported by grants BIO2014-56092-R (MINECO and FEDER), P12-CTS-1507 (Andalusian Government and FEDER) and funds from group BIO-267 (Andalusian Government). The "CIBER de Enfermedades Raras" is an initiative from the ISCIII (Spain). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript

    Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using √s=8 TeV proton-proton collision data

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    A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing high-p T jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS experiment in s√=8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, with a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. Results are interpreted in a variety of simplified and specific supersymmetry-breaking models assuming that R-parity is conserved and that the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 1330 GeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino and the lightest neutralino. For a simplified model involving the strong production of first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 850 GeV (440 GeV) are excluded for a massless lightest neutralino, assuming mass degenerate (single light-flavour) squarks. In mSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan β = 30, A 0 = −2m 0 and μ > 0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded for masses below 1700 GeV. Additional limits are set for non-universal Higgs mass models with gaugino mediation and for simplified models involving the pair production of gluinos, each decaying to a top squark and a top quark, with the top squark decaying to a charm quark and a neutralino. These limits extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous searches with the ATLAS detector
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