MAKANAN IKAN JAPUH, Dussumieria Acuta Valenciennes, 1847 (FAMILI: CLUPEIDAE) DI PERAIRAN TELUK KENDARI [Food Habit of Rainbow Sardine, Dussumieria Acuta Valenciennes, 1847 (Family: Clupeidae) in Kendari Bay]

Research on ontogenetic dietary variation rainbow sardine relating to body size of fish with time was carried out from August 2009 to January 2010 in Kendari Bay, Southeast Sulawesi. This research aims to describe ecological role of rainbow sardine in Kendari Bay. Fish collection was done using experimental gillnets (with different mesh sizes %, 1, 1%, and 1% inch) and scopednet (0 1 meter and mesh size 0.04 inch). A total of 136 individual fish were caught with range from 0.6 to 15.7 cm in length. Food analysis was determined by using Index of Preponderance. Result of the analysis indicates rainbow sardine is planktivora, which important diet is Bacillariophyceae. The male and females of fish did not have ontogenetic dietary (main food) shift and was not ontogenetic dietary shift relating to body size of fish. The diet of the fish every months was dominated by Bacillariophyceae

Keanekaragaman Ikan Di Perairan Teluk Kendari Sulawesi Tenggara [Fish Diversity in Kendari Bay, Southeast Sulawesi]

Research on fish diversity was carried out from August to October 2009 with three times of sampling in three stations in Kendari Bay, Southeast Sulawesi. Fish collection using experimental gillnets (with different mesh sizes %, 1, 1%, 1%, 2, 3, and 4 inch) and seser (0 1 meter and mesh size 0.04 inch). During research, 45 species of 30 families were collected. Based on individual quantities, at the first sampling, Sardinella fimbriata was dominant species on Station I and II, S. longiceps on Station III; in the second sampling, S. fimbriata was dominant species on Station I, S. longiceps on Station II, Plotosus canius on S3; in the third sampling, Ambassis sp. was dominant species on Station I, S.longiceps on Station II, Upeneus suphureus and Stolephorus commersonii on S3. Diversity index (H\u27) was range between 0.512.25, dominance index (C) was range between 0.16-0.83 and evenness index (E) was range between 0.19-0.75

Komposisi Jenis dan Ukuran Ikan Petek (Famili Leiognathidae) di Perairan Teluk Kendari, Sulawesi Tenggara [Species Composition And Size Of Pony Fishes, Family Leiognathidae In Kendari Bay, Southeast Sulawesi]

Penelitian tentang komposisi jenis dan ukuran ikan petek dilakukan sejak Agustus 2009 sampai Juni 2010 pada tiga zona di perairan Teluk Kendari. Koleksi ikan dilakukan dengan jaring insang percobaan (dengan ukuran mata jaring ber-beda %, 1, 1 %, 1 %, dan 2 inci) dan alat seser (0 1 meter dan ukuran mata jaring 0,04 inci). Pada penelitian ini berhasil diinventarisasi 10 jenis Famili Leiognathidae dari enam genera yaitu Gazza (1 jenis), Leiognathus (4 jenis), Nuchequula (1 jenis), Photopectoralis (1 jenis), Eubleekeria (1 jenis), dan Secutor (2 jenis). Berdasarkan jumlah individu ternyata Nuchequula blochii (39,72%) dan E. splendens (33,95%) merupakan jenis dominan pada Zona I, Secutor indicius pada Zona II (38,75%), dan N. blochii (20,50%) dan E. splendens (25,10%) pada Zona III. Frekuensi kehadiran famili Leiognathidae selama penelitian bervariasi, E. splendens merupakan penghuni tetap perairan Teluk Kendari (100%) sedang-kan Photopectoralis bindus dan L. dussumieri merupakan jenis yang jarang ditemukan (18,18%). Sebaran ukuran dan frekuensi kehadiran mengindikasikan bahwa ikan petek menggunakan perairan Teluk Kendari sebagai daerah asuhan dan pembesaran

Earth Observations and Integrative Models in Support of Food and Water Security

Global food production depends upon many factors that Earth observing satellites routinely measure about water, energy, weather, and ecosystems. Increasingly sophisticated, publicly-available satellite data products can improve efficiencies in resource management and provide earlier indication of environmental disruption. Satellite remote sensing provides a consistent, long-term record that can be used effectively to detect large-scale features over time, such as a developing drought. Accuracy and capabilities have increased along with the range of Earth observations and derived products that can support food security decisions with actionable information. This paper highlights major capabilities facilitated by satellite observations and physical models that have been developed and validated using remotely-sensed observations. Although we primarily focus on variables relevant to agriculture, we also include a brief description of the growing use of Earth observations in support of aquaculture and fisheries

Entropy and information in neural spike trains: Progress on the sampling problem

The major problem in information theoretic analysis of neural responses and other biological data is the reliable estimation of entropy--like quantities from small samples. We apply a recently introduced Bayesian entropy estimator to synthetic data inspired by experiments, and to real experimental spike trains. The estimator performs admirably even very deep in the undersampled regime, where other techniques fail. This opens new possibilities for the information theoretic analysis of experiments, and may be of general interest as an example of learning from limited data.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; referee suggested changes, accepted versio

Sublinear Algorithms for Approximating String Compressibility

We raise the question of approximating the compressibility of a string with respect to a fixed compression scheme, in sublinear time. We study this question in detail for two popular lossless compression schemes: run-length encoding (RLE) and a variant of Lempel-Ziv (LZ77), and present sublinear algorithms for approximating compressibility with respect to both schemes. We also give several lower bounds that show that our algorithms for both schemes cannot be improved significantly. Our investigation of LZ77 yields results whose interest goes beyond the initial questions we set out to study. In particular, we prove combinatorial structural lemmas that relate the compressibility of a string with respect to LZ77 to the number of distinct short substrings contained in it (its ℓth subword complexity , for small ℓ). In addition, we show that approximating the compressibility with respect to LZ77 is related to approximating the support size of a distribution.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award CCF-1065125)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Award CCF-0728645)Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant PIRG03-GA-2008-231077Israel Science Foundation (Grant 1147/09)Israel Science Foundation (Grant 1675/09

Ocular Manifestations in Juvenile Behçet’s Disease: A Registry-Based Analysis from the AIDA Network

Introduction: This study aims to characterize ocular manifestations of juvenile Behçet’s disease (jBD). Methods: This was a registry-based observational prospective study. All subjects with jBD from the Autoinflammatory Diseases Alliance (AIDA) Network BD Registry showing ocular manifestations before 18 years were enrolled. Results: We included 27 of 1000 subjects enrolled in the registry (66.7% male patients, 45 affected eyes). The median (interquartile range [IQR]) age at ocular involvement was 14.2 (4.7) years. Uveitis affected 91.1% of eyes (anterior 11.1%, posterior 40.0%, panuveitis 40.0%), retinal vasculitis 37.8% and other manifestations 19.8%. Later onset (p = 0.01) and male predominance (p = 0.04) characterized posterior involvement. Ocular complications occurred in 51.1% of eyes. Patients with complications had earlier onset (p < 0.01), more relapses (p = 0.02) and more prolonged steroidal treatment (p = 0.02). The mean (standard deviation [SD]) central macular thickness (CMT) at the enrolment and last visit was 302.2 (58.4) and 293.3 (78.2) μm, respectively. Fluorescein angiography was pathological in 63.2% of procedures, with a mean (SD) Angiography Scoring for Uveitis Working Group (ASUWOG) of 17.9 (15.5). At the last visit, ocular damage according to the BD Overall Damage Index (BODI) was documented in 73.3% of eyes. The final mean (SD) best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) logMAR was 0.17 (0.47) and blindness (BCVA logMAR < 1.00 or central visual field ≤ 10°) occurred in 15.6% of eyes. At multivariate regression analysis, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B51 + independently predicted a + 0.35 change in the final BCVA logMAR (p = 0.01), while a higher BCVA logMAR at the first assessment (odds ratio [OR] 5.80; p = 0.02) independently predicted blindness. Conclusions: The results of this study may be leveraged to guide clinical practice and future research on this rare sight-threatening condition

A patient-driven registry on Behçet’s disease: the AIDA for patients pilot project

IntroductionThis paper describes the creation and preliminary results of a patient-driven registry for the collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and patient-reported experiences (PREs) in Behcet's disease (BD). MethodsThe project was coordinated by the University of Siena and the Italian patient advocacy organization SIMBA (Associazione Italiana Sindrome e Malattia di Behcet), in the context of the AIDA (AutoInflammatory Diseases Alliance) Network programme. Quality of life, fatigue, socioeconomic impact of the disease and therapeutic adherence were selected as core domains to include in the registry. ResultsRespondents were reached via SIMBA communication channels in 167 cases (83.5%) and the AIDA Network affiliated clinical centers in 33 cases (16.5%). The median value of the Behcet's Disease Quality of Life (BDQoL) score was 14 (IQR 11, range 0-30), indicating a medium quality of life, and the median Global Fatigue Index (GFI) was 38.7 (IQR 10.9, range 1-50), expressing a significant level of fatigue. The mean Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ) necessity-concern differential was 0.9 & PLUSMN; 1.1 (range - 1.8-4), showing that the registry participants prioritized necessity belief over concerns to a limited extent. As for the socioeconomic impact of BD, in 104 out of 187 cases (55.6%), patients had to pay from their own pocket for medical exams required to reach the diagnosis. The low family socioeconomic status (p < 0.001), the presence of any major organ involvement (p < 0.031), the presence of gastro-intestinal (p < 0.001), neurological (p = 0.012) and musculoskeletal (p = 0.022) symptoms, recurrent fever (p = 0.002), and headache (p < 0.001) were associated to a higher number of accesses to the healthcare system. Multiple linear regression showed that the BDQoL score could significantly predict the global socioeconomic impact of BD (F = 14.519, OR 1.162 [CI 0.557-1.766], p < 0.001). DiscussionPreliminary results from the AIDA for Patients BD registry were consistent with data available in the literature, confirming that PROs and PREs could be easily provided by the patient remotely to integrate physician-driven registries with complementary and reliable information

Two Genes on A/J Chromosome 18 Are Associated with Susceptibility to Staphylococcus aureus Infection by Combined Microarray and QTL Analyses

Although it has recently been shown that A/J mice are highly susceptible to Staphylococcus aureus sepsis as compared to C57BL/6J, the specific genes responsible for this differential phenotype are unknown. Using chromosome substitution strains (CSS), we found that loci on chromosomes 8, 11, and 18 influence susceptibility to S. aureus sepsis in A/J mice. We then used two candidate gene selection strategies to identify genes on these three chromosomes associated with S. aureus susceptibility, and targeted genes identified by both gene selection strategies. First, we used whole genome transcription profiling to identify 191 (56 on chr. 8, 100 on chr. 11, and 35 on chr. 18) genes on our three chromosomes of interest that are differentially expressed between S. aureus-infected A/J and C57BL/6J. Second, we identified two significant quantitative trait loci (QTL) for survival post-infection on chr. 18 using N2 backcross mice (F1 [C18A]×C57BL/6J). Ten genes on chr. 18 (March3, Cep120, Chmp1b, Dcp2, Dtwd2, Isoc1, Lman1, Spire1, Tnfaip8, and Seh1l) mapped to the two significant QTL regions and were also identified by the expression array selection strategy. Using real-time PCR, 6 of these 10 genes (Chmp1b, Dtwd2, Isoc1, Lman1, Tnfaip8, and Seh1l) showed significantly different expression levels between S. aureus-infected A/J and C57BL/6J. For two (Tnfaip8 and Seh1l) of these 6 genes, siRNA-mediated knockdown of gene expression in S. aureus–challenged RAW264.7 macrophages induced significant changes in the cytokine response (IL-1 β and GM-CSF) compared to negative controls. These cytokine response changes were consistent with those seen in S. aureus-challenged peritoneal macrophages from CSS 18 mice (which contain A/J chromosome 18 but are otherwise C57BL/6J), but not C57BL/6J mice. These findings suggest that two genes, Tnfaip8 and Seh1l, may contribute to susceptibility to S. aureus in A/J mice, and represent promising candidates for human genetic susceptibility studies