Antibacterial marine bacterium deter luminous vibriosis in shrimp larvae

Inhibitory activity of a marine pigmented bacterium - Alteromonas sp. - isolated from Penaeus monodon Fabricius larva against pathogenic and environmental isolates of Vibrio harveyi was studied. All the isolates were inhibited to varying degrees by Alteromonas sp. in vitro. The antibacterial substance produced by the Alteromonas sp. was soluble in organic solvent and closely bound to the external surface of bacterial cells. The antibacterial Alteromonas sp., when allowed to colonize on shrimp larvae, suppressed the activity of V. harveyi M3 and reduced mortality of P. monodon larvae in vivo

Bacterial flora associated with diseased fish and their antibiogram

Bacterial flora associated with tail rot/fin rot of Carassius auratus, Xiphophorus helleri and hemorrhagic ulcers of Clarias spp were studied. Sensitivity pattern of 33 isolates comprising Aeromonas spp, Pseudomonas spp and Gram-positive rods from diseased C. auratus, X. helleri and Clarias spp were screened against six broad-spectrum antibiotics viz. ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, co-trimoxazole, gentamycin, nitro-furantoin and oxytetracycline. Ciprofloxacin was the most effective in inhibiting bacteria at 0.05-0.10 µg/ml level. About 44% of Pseudomonas spp. was resistant to nitrofurantoin. Resistance to oxytetracycline was seen in 27% of Aeromonas spp Gram-positive rods were comparatively more resistant to antibiotics. The multiple antibiotic resistances were seen in 21% of the bacterial isolates of diseased fish

Preliminary observations on the lunar and tidal influences on the catches of seer by gill nets

The paper deals with the lunar and tidal influences on the catches of seer by gill nets. The landings during full moon and new moon nights, during low and high tides and during different quarters of the lunar month for three fishing seasons are discussed

Effects of dietary supplementation of garlic (Allium sativum) extract on the resistance of Clarias gariepinus against Edwardsiella tarda infection

The effects of dietary supplementation of garlic (Allium sativum) extract on the growth and disease resistance of African catfish, Clarias gariepinus was evaluated. Also in-vitro evaluation of susceptibility of fish-borne multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogenic bacteria to aqueous extract of garlic was done. Aqueous garlic extract exhibited inhibitory activity against MDR bacteria and the degree of inhibition increased significantly with increasing concentration of garlic extract. The garlic supplementation at the rate of 10g/kg feed improved the food conversion ratio, specific growth rate and protein efficiency ratio of C. gariepinus significantly (p0.05). No significant difference was observed between plasma protein and glucose levels of the control treatment and garlic supplemented treatment during the 56 days of the experiment. Additionally significant differences in plasma protein and glucose levels of control and garlic supplemented treatments in 2 days and/or 15 days post-challenge. The varying levels of plasma glucose and protein suggested that the stress posed by the bacterial infection persisted in fish even after 15 days of challenge. The results demonstrated that bacterial infection can negatively alter blood biochemical profile of C. gariepinus, and dietary supplementation of garlic extract would help improve the resistance of fish to E. tarda infection in culture condition

On the Biological Plausibility of Artificial Metaplasticity

The training algorithm studied in this paper is inspired by the biological metaplasticity property of neurons. Tested on different multidisciplinary applications, it achieves a more efficient training and improves Artificial Neural Network Performance. The algorithm has been recently proposed for Artificial Neural Networks in general, although for the purpose of discussing its biological plausibility, a Multilayer Perceptron has been used. During the training phase, the artificial metaplasticity multilayer perceptron could be considered a new probabilistic version of the presynaptic rule, as during the training phase the algorithm assigns higher values for updating the weights in the less probable activations than in the ones with higher probabilit

Update of the management strategy for Oak Ridge National Laboratory Liquid Low-Level Waste

The strategy for management of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory`s (ORNL) radioactively contaminated liquid waste was reviewed in 1991. The latest information available through the end of 1990 on waste characterization, regulations, US Department of Energy (DOE) budget guidance, and research and development programs was evaluated to determine how the strategy should be revised. Few changes are needed to update the strategy to reflect new waste characterization, research, and regulatory information. However, recent budget guidance from DOE indicates that minimum funding will not be sufficient to accomplish original objectives to upgrade the liquid low-level waste (LLLW) system to comply with the Federal Facilities Agreement, provide long-term LLLW treatment capability, and minimize environmental, safety, and health risks. Options are presented that might allow the ORNL LLLW system to continue operations temporarily, but they would significantly reduce its capabilities to handle emergency situations, provide treatment for new waste streams, and accommodate waste from the Environmental Restoration Program and from decontamination and decommissioning of surplus facilities. These options are also likely to increase worker radiation exposure, risk of environmental insult, and generation of solid waste for on-site and off-site disposal/storage beyond existing facility capacities. The strategy will be fully developed after receipt of additional guidance. The proposed budget limitations are too severe to allow ORNL to meet regulatory requirements or continue operations long term

Biodiesel production from palm olein: A sustainable bioresource for Nigeria

Dangerous environmental consequences and market unpredictability of fossil fuels have necessitated the need for sustainable large-scale production of biofuel in Nigeria. Unrefined palm oil (UPO) is a significant product of commercially available oil palm plants in the country. This study experimentally investigates the production of biodiesel from refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD) palm olein extracted from UPO obtained from batch reactors. The transesterification process of the RBD palm olein with methanol and in the presence of potassium hydroxide (KOH) catalyst produced biodiesel with a 62.5% yield, thus confirming its feasibility for mass production. The derived biodiesel has properties equivalent to ASTM D792 standard for biodiesel fuels

Boundary Effects on Dynamic Behavior of Josephson-Junction Arrays

The boundary effects on the current-voltage characteristics in two-dimensional arrays of resistively shunted Josephson junctions are examined. In particular, we consider both the conventional boundary conditions (CBC) and the fluctuating twist boundary conditions (FTBC), and make comparison of the obtained results. It is observed that the CBC, which have been widely adopted in existing simulations, may give a problem in scaling, arising from rather large boundary effects; the FTBC in general turn out to be effective in reducing the finite-size effects, yielding results with good scaling behavior. To resolve the discrepancy between the two boundary conditions, we propose that the proper scaling in the CBC should be performed with the boundary data discarded: This is shown to give results which indeed scale well and are the same as those from the FTBC.Comment: RevTex, Final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Edge effects in a frustrated Josephson junction array with modulated couplings

A square array of Josephson junctions with modulated strength in a magnetic field with half a flux quantum per plaquette is studied by analytic arguments and dynamical simulations. The modulation is such that alternate columns of junctions are of different strength to the rest. Previous work has shown that this system undergoes an XY followed by an Ising-like vortex lattice disordering transition at a lower temperature. We argue that resistance measurements are a possible probe of the vortex lattice disordering transition as the linear resistance $R_{L}(T)\sim A(T)/L$ with $A(T) \propto (T-T_{cI})$ at intermediate temperatures $T_{cXY}>T>T_{cI}$ due to dissipation at the array edges for a particular geometry and vanishes for other geometries. Extensive dynamical simulations are performed which support the qualitative physical arguments.Comment: 8 pages with figs, RevTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Nonequilibrium wetting

When a nonequilibrium growing interface in the presence of a wall is considered a nonequilibrium wetting transition may take place. This transition can be studied trough Langevin equations or discrete growth models. In the first case, the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, which defines a very robust universality class for nonequilibrium moving interfaces, with a soft-wall potential is considered. While in the second, microscopic models, in the corresponding universality class, with evaporation and deposition of particles in the presence of hard-wall are studied. Equilibrium wetting is related to a particular case of the problem, it corresponds to the Edwards-Wilkinson equation with a potential in the continuum approach or to the fulfillment of detailed balance in the microscopic models. In this review we present the analytical and numerical methods used to investigate the problem and the very rich behavior that is observed with them.Comment: Review, 36 pages, 16 figure