A preliminary study on the feeding regime of European pilchard (Sardina pilchardus Walbaum 1792) in Izmir Bay, Turkey, Eastern Aegean Sea

The gut contents of Sardina pilchardus specimens captured in Izmir Bay were examined in order to determine their feeding regimes. Of the 365 stomachs examined, 321 (87.95%) contained food and 44 (12.05%) were empty. Analysis of gut contents verified that S. pilchardus feeds on zooplankton. The most important group in the diet of S. pilchardus was copepods (79.79%). Decapod crustacean larvae (8.17%) and bivalves (3.18%) were second and third, respectively, in order of importance. The application of analysis of variance to monthly data of numerical percentage, weight percentage, frequency of occurrence and index of relative importance indicated that there was no significant difference between months. Oncaea media was the most dominant species for six months of the year. Euterpina acutifrons, Centropages typicus, Calanoida, Oncaea sp. and Corycaeus sp. were the most dominant for March, April, May, September, October and December

Non-extensive study of Rigid and Non-rigid Rotators

The isotropic rigid and non-rigid rotators in the framework of Tsallis statistics are studied in the high and low temperature limits. The generalized partition functions, internal energies and heat capacities are calculated. It has been found that results are in well agreement with the classical Boltzmann-Gibbs statistics in the limiting Tsallis index. It has also been observed that nonextensivity parameter q behaves like a scale parameter in the low temperature regime.Comment: 11 Pages, 3 Figures, Late

Quantum Mechanical Treatment of the Problem of Constraints in Nonextensive Formalism Revisited

The purity of Werner state in nonextensive formalism associated with two different constraints has been calculated in a previous paper by G. B. Bagci et al. [G. B. Bagci et al., Int. J. Mod. Phys. 20, 2085 (2006)]. Two different results have been obtained corresponding to ordinary probability and escort probability whereas the former has been shown to result in negative values thereby leading authors to deduce the advantage of escort probabilities over ordinary probabilities. However, this results have been only for a limited interval of q values which lie between 0 and 1. In this paper, we solve the same problem for all values of nonextensive index q by using a perturbative approach and show that the simultaneous use of both types of constraint is necessary in order to obtain the solution for whole spectrum of nonextensive index. In this sense, the existence of these different constraints in nonextensive formalism must not be seen as a deficiency in the formalism but rather must be welcomed as a means of providing solution for all values of parameter q.Comment: 7 page

Economic evaluation of ASCOT-BPLA: Antihypertensive treatment with an amlodipine-based regimen is cost-effective compared to an atenolol-based regimen

Copyright © 2010 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd & British Cardiovascular Society. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material must be obtained from the Publisher.Objective: To compare the cost effectiveness of an amlodipine-based strategy and an atenolol-based strategy in the treatment of hypertension in the UK and Sweden. Design: A prospective, randomised trial complemented with a Markov model to assess long-term costs and health effects. Setting: Primary care. Patients: Patients with moderate hypertension and three or more additional risk factors. Interventions: Amlodipine 5–10 mg with perindopril 4–8 mg added as needed or atenolol 50–100 mg with bendroflumethiazide 1.25–2.5 mg and potassium added as needed Main outcome measures: Cost per cardiovascular event and procedure avoided, and cost per quality-adjusted life-year gained. Results: In the UK, the cost to avoid one cardiovascular event or procedure would be €18 965, and the cost to gain one quality-adjusted life-year would be €21 875. The corresponding figures for Sweden were €13 210 and €16 856. Conclusions: Compared with the thresholds applied by NICE and in the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s Guidelines for Cardiac Care, an amlodipine-based regimen is cost effective for the treatment of hypertension compared with an atenolol-based regimen in the population studied.The study was supported by the principal funding source, Pfizer, New York, USA

A perturbative treatment for the energy levels of neutral atoms

Energy levels of neutral atoms have been re-examined by applying an alternative perturbative scheme in solving the Schrodinger equation for the Yukawa potential model with a modified screening parameter. The predicted shell binding energies are found to be quite accurate over the entire range of the atomic number $Z$ up to 84 and compare very well with those obtained within the framework of hyper-virial-Pade scheme and the method of shifted large-N expansion. It is observed that the new perturbative method may also be applied to the other areas of atomic physics.Comment: 18 page

Exact solution of Schrodinger equation for modified Kratzer's molecular potential with the position-dependent mass

Exact solutions of Schrodinger equation are obtained for the modified Kratzer and the corrected Morse potentials with the position-dependent effective mass. The bound state energy eigenvalues and the corresponding eigenfunctions are calculated for any angular momentum for target potentials. Various forms of point canonical transformations are applied. PACS numbers: 03.65.-w; 03.65.Ge; 12.39.Fd Keywords: Morse potential, Kratzer potential, Position-dependent mass, Point canonical transformation, Effective mass Schr\"{o}dinger equation.Comment: 9 page

Tenascin-C Mimetic Peptide Nanofibers Direct Stem Cell Differentiation to Osteogenic Lineage

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Extracellular matrix contains various signals for cell surface receptors that regulate cell fate through modulation of cellular activities such as proliferation and differentiation. Cues from extracellular matrix components can be used for development of new materials to control the stem cell fate. In this study, we achieved control of stem cell fate toward osteogenic commitment by using a single extracellular matrix element despite the contradictory effect of mechanical stiffness. For this purpose, we mimicked bone extracellular matrix by incorporating functional sequence of fibronectin type III domain from native tenascin-C on self-assembled peptide nanofibers. When rat mesenchymal stem cells (rMSCs) were cultured on these peptide nanofibers, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity and alizarin red staining indicated osteogenic differentiation even in the absence of osteogenic supplements. Moreover, expression levels of osteogenic marker genes were significantly enhanced revealed by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), which showed the remarkable bioactive role of this nanofiber system on osteogenic differentiation. Overall, these results showed that tenascin-C mimetic peptides significantly enhanced the attachment, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation of rMSCs even in the absence of any external bioactive factors and regardless of the suitable stiff mechanical properties normally required for osteogenic differentiation. Thus, these peptide nanofibers provide a promising new platform for bone regeneratio

ASCORE: an up-to-date cardiovascular risk score for hypertensive patients reflecting contemporary clinical practice developed using the (ASCOT-BPLA) trial data.

A number of risk scores already exist to predict cardiovascular (CV) events. However, scores developed with data collected some time ago might not accurately predict the CV risk of contemporary hypertensive patients that benefit from more modern treatments and management. Using data from the randomised clinical trial Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial-BPLA, with 15 955 hypertensive patients without previous CV disease receiving contemporary preventive CV management, we developed a new risk score predicting the 5-year risk of a first CV event (CV death, myocardial infarction or stroke). Cox proportional hazard models were used to develop a risk equation from baseline predictors. The final risk model (ASCORE) included age, sex, smoking, diabetes, previous blood pressure (BP) treatment, systolic BP, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, fasting glucose and creatinine baseline variables. A simplified model (ASCORE-S) excluding laboratory variables was also derived. Both models showed very good internal validity. User-friendly integer score tables are reported for both models. Applying the latest Framingham risk score to our data significantly overpredicted the observed 5-year risk of the composite CV outcome. We conclude that risk scores derived using older databases (such as Framingham) may overestimate the CV risk of patients receiving current BP treatments; therefore, 'updated' risk scores are needed for current patients

Scattering states of a particle, with position-dependent mass, in a PT{\cal{PT}} symmetric heterojunction

The study of a particle with position-dependent effective mass (pdem), within a double heterojunction is extended into the complex domain --- when the region within the heterojunctions is described by a non Hermitian ${\cal{PT}}$ symmetric potential. After obtaining the exact analytical solutions, the reflection and transmission coefficients are calculated, and plotted as a function of the energy. It is observed that at least two of the characteristic features of non Hermitian ${\cal{PT}}$ symmetric systems --- viz., left / right asymmetry and anomalous behaviour at spectral singularity, are preserved even in the presence of pdem. The possibility of charge conservation is also discussed.Comment: 12 pages, including 6 figures; Journal of Physics A : Math. Theor. (2012