Dynamic genetic differentiation drives the widespread structural and functional convergent evolution of snake venom proteinaceous toxins

Animal science

The snake with the scorpion’s sting: Novel three-finger toxin sodium channel activators from the venom of the long-glanded blue coral snake (Calliophis bivirgatus)

FWN – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

Concrete members at bending strengthened by fibre-reinforced plastics

Рассмотрены конструктивные и технологические решения по усилению изгибаемых железобетонных конструкций композитными материалами на основе углеродного волокна. Выявлены используемые системы для усиления железобетонных конструкций. Проведен сравнительный анализ существующих систем усиления на основе углеродных волокон. Определена экономическая эффективность такого способа усиления для изгибаемых железобетонных элементов. Приведена методика расчета усиления изгибаемых железобетонных элементов композитными материалами. Произведен расчет усиления различными композитными материалами на примере железобетонных элементов: балка, монолитная плита перекрытия. Выполнено сравнение различных вариантов усилений и предложен коэффициент условной полезности, позволяющий экономически обосновать выбор способа усиления и прогнозировать стоимость усиления конструкции.Design and technological solutions for reinforcing of bending concrete structures with composite materials based on carbon fiber are considered. The used systems for strengthening reinforced concrete structures are re-vealed. A comparative analysis of existing reinforcement systems based on carbon fibers is carried out. The economic efficiency of this reinforcement method for bending concrete elements is determined. The calculation technique for bending concrete elements reinforced by composite materi-als is given. The calculation of reinforcement by various composite materials is made on the example of reinforced concrete elements: a beam and a monolithic floor slab. The comparison of various amplification variants is made and the conditional utility coefficient is proposed, which makes it possible to economically justify the choice of the gain method and to predict the cost of strengthening the structure

Endogenous hepadnaviruses, bornaviruses and circoviruses in snakes

We report the discovery of endogenous viral elements (EVEs) from Hepadnaviridae, Bornaviridae and Circoviridae in the speckled rattlesnake, Crotalus mitchellii, the first viperid snake for which a draft whole genome sequence assembly is available. Analysis of the draft assembly reveals genome fragments from the three virus families were inserted into the genome of this snake over the past 50 Myr. Cross-species PCR screening of orthologous loci and computational scanning of the python and king cobra genomes reveals that circoviruses integrated most recently (within the last approx. 10 Myr), whereas bornaviruses and hepadnaviruses integrated at least approximately 13 and approximately 50 Ma, respectively. This is, to our knowledge, the first report of circo-, borna- and hepadnaviruses in snakes and the first characterization of non-retroviral EVEs in non-avian reptiles. Our study provides a window into the historical dynamics of viruses in these host lineages and shows that their evolution involved multiple host-switches between mammals and reptiles

Statistical Power for Postlicensure Medical Product Safety Data Mining

Objective: To perform sample size calculations when using tree-based scan statistics in longitudinal observational databases. Methods: Tree-based scan statistics enable data mining on epidemiologic datasets where thousands of disease outcomes are organized into hierarchical tree structures with automatic adjustment for multiple testing. We show how to evaluate the statistical power of the unconditional and conditional Poisson versions. The null hypothesis is that there is no increase in the risk for any of the outcomes. The alternative is that one or more outcomes have an excess risk. We varied the excess risk, total sample size, frequency of the underlying event rate, and the level of across-the-board health care utilization. We also quantified the reduction in statistical power resulting from specifying a risk window that was too long or too short. Results: For 500,000 exposed people, we had at least 98 percent power to detect an excess risk of 1 event per 10,000 exposed for all outcomes. In the presence of potential temporal confounding due to across-the-board elevations of health care utilization in the risk window, the conditional tree-based scan statistic controlled type I error well, while the unconditional version did not. Discussion: Data mining analyses using tree-based scan statistics expand the pharmacovigilance toolbox, ensuring adequate monitoring of thousands of outcomes of interest while controlling for multiple hypothesis testing. These power evaluations enable investigators to design and optimize implementation of retrospective data mining analyses

Vergleich der Ergebnisse extrakornealer und nicht-invasiver kornealer Tonometrie

Roll 331b. ROTC(Reserve Officers' Training Corps) Federal Inspection. Image 16 of 33. (14 May, 1957) [PHO 1.331b.15]The Boleslaus Lukaszewski (Father Luke) Photographs contain more than 28,000 images of Saint Louis University people, activities, and events between 1951 and 1970. The photographs were taken by Boleslaus Lukaszewski (Father Luke), a Jesuit priest and member of the University's Philosophy Department faculty