Simple Model of Thermal Pollution in Rivers

Water temperature is a very important parameter of water quality. In the natural conditions water temperature is determined by hydrological and meteorological factors, in particular by the heat budget of river or lake. For the few decades, however, due to the many new power and industrial developments, anthropogenic factors have greater influence on river and lake water temperatures. The temperature of water affects biological and chemical processes in aquatic environment and can play an important role in shaping ice phenomena. In this paper a simple, one-dimensional thermal model is presented. It allows to determine the average water temperature in the cross-sections of the river downstream of the heated water discharge point. The model has been developed in the Department of Water Physics at the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, Warsaw, Poland. It can be useful for the design of water management systems in taking decisions on hydraulic structures or on location of large conventional and nuclear power plants. The work has been done within the framework of cooperation between the Polish scientific institutions and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria

Maximal information component analysis: a novel non-linear network analysis method.

BackgroundNetwork construction and analysis algorithms provide scientists with the ability to sift through high-throughput biological outputs, such as transcription microarrays, for small groups of genes (modules) that are relevant for further research. Most of these algorithms ignore the important role of non-linear interactions in the data, and the ability for genes to operate in multiple functional groups at once, despite clear evidence for both of these phenomena in observed biological systems.ResultsWe have created a novel co-expression network analysis algorithm that incorporates both of these principles by combining the information-theoretic association measure of the maximal information coefficient (MIC) with an Interaction Component Model. We evaluate the performance of this approach on two datasets collected from a large panel of mice, one from macrophages and the other from liver by comparing the two measures based on a measure of module entropy, Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment, and scale-free topology (SFT) fit. Our algorithm outperforms a widely used co-expression analysis method, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), in the macrophage data, while returning comparable results in the liver dataset when using these criteria. We demonstrate that the macrophage data has more non-linear interactions than the liver dataset, which may explain the increased performance of our method, termed Maximal Information Component Analysis (MICA) in that case.ConclusionsIn making our network algorithm more accurately reflect known biological principles, we are able to generate modules with improved relevance, particularly in networks with confounding factors such as gene by environment interactions

Multi-enzyme digestion FASP and the 'Total Protein Approach'-based absolute quantification of the Escherichia coli proteome.

UNLABELLED: We describe a proteomic approach combining the multi-enzyme digestion FASP-sample processing strategy and the 'Total Protein Approach' applied to absolute quantification of proteins in Escherichia coli. Consecutive digestion of whole cell lysates with LysC and trypsin allowed the generation of two populations of peptides at a yield of 76%. Subsequent two 4-hour LC-MS/MS analyses allowed the identification of 19,000 unique peptides per sample. Notably, only 1.2 and 2.4% of the identified peptides were found to be incompletely cleaved by the LysC and trypsin, respectively. The analysis resulted in the identification of 2200 proteins per sample. We show high reproducibility of the approach, allowing the accurate estimation of cellular protein concentrations. Quantitative analysis of the DNA content per sample enabled the calculation of the protein content per bacterial cell and, as a result, estimation of protein copy numbers. The accuracy of these estimations was confirmed by analyzing protein complexes with known subunit stoichiometry and cellular abundances. In stationary culture, a single bacterium contains about 6500 copies of ribosomes, 300 molecules of RNA polymerase and 10 DNA polymerase assembles. The here presented experimental and computational workflow offers an easy way to analyze proteomes quantitatively.; BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE: We demonstrate a proteomic workflow for in-depth analysis of small proteomes with minimal fractionation extent and mass spectrometry measuring time. For the first time we provide the quantitative picture of the Escherichia coli proteome at protein copy number. Copyright 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V

Relativistic jet models for the BL Lacertae object Mrk 421 during three epochs of observation

Coordinated observation of the nearby BL Lacertae object Mrk 421 obtained during May 1980, January 1984, and March 1984 are described. These observations give a time-frozen picture of the continuous spectrum of Mrk 421 at X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and radio wavelengths. The observed spectra have been fitted to an inhomogeneous relativistic jet model. In general, the models reproduce the data well. Many of the observed differences during the three epochs can be attributed to variations in the opening angle of the jet and in the angle that the jet makes to the line of sight. The jet models obtained here are compared with the homogeneous, spherically symmetric, synchrotron self-Compton models for this source. The models are also compared with the relativistic jet models obtained for other active galactic nuclei

Interview of Francis J. Ryan, Ed. D.

At the time of the interview, Francis J. Ryan was Director of American Studies and Professor of History at La Salle University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. He was born in 1947 and grew up in Harrogate neighborhood between the Frankford and Kensington areas of Philadelphia. He attended St. Joan of Arc elementary school, North[east] Catholic High School, and graduated from La Salle College in 1969 with a B. A. in English. He taught English, History, and American Studies at Northeast Catholic High School from 1969 until 1987. He earned his doctorate in Education at Temple University in 1985 and began teaching full-time at La Salle University in 1987

A New Social Order: Mechanisms for Social Network Site Boundary Regulation

Social Network Site (SNS) use has become ubiquitous, with hundreds of millions of users sharing and interacting online. Yet,constant, unbounded sharing and interacting with others can cause social crowding and emotional harm (Altman 1975). Weexplore interpersonal boundary regulation on Social Network Sites to understand these tradeoffs and examine how toimprove the social experiences of users. In this paper, we present a taxonomy of five categories of interpersonal boundarymechanisms relevant to SNSs and the specific interface controls that sites provide for managing these boundaries. Wequalitatively research how SNS users employ these mechanisms and the boundary issues that arise while interacting onlinewith others. These results present a first step towards a model of SNS interpersonal boundary regulation

CCD and photon-counting photometric observations of asteroids carried out at Padova and Catania observatories

We present the results of observational campaigns of asteroids performed at Asiago Station of Padova Astronomical Observatory and at M.G. Fracastoro Station of Catania Astrophysical Observatory, as part of the large research programme on Solar System minor bodies undertaken since 1979 at the Physics and Astronomy Department of Catania University. Photometric observations of six Main-Belt asteroids (27 Euterpe, 173 Ino, 182 Elsa, 539 Pamina, 849 Ara, and 984 Gretia), one Hungaria (1727 Mette), and two Near-Earth Objects (3199 Nefertiti and 2004 UE) are reported. The first determination of the synodic rotational period of 2004 UE was obtained. For 182 Elsa and 1727 Mette the derived synodic period of 80.23+/-0.08 h and 2.981+/-0.001 h, respectively, represents a significant improvement on the previously published values. For 182 Elsa the first determination of the H-G magnitude relation is also presented.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Planetary and Space Scienc