A review of integrated surveys for resource inventory and monitoring of pastoral production systems in sub-Saharan Africa

Reviews various approaches and techniques used in a number of sub-Saharan African countries to collect and analyze data on large-scale ecological changes with particular reference to remote sensing and monitoring techniques in resource inventory; suggests ways to build more effective data bases

Integration of remote sensing techniques for resource evaluation in pastoral systems research

Reviews most recent applications of methodologies for resource surveys appropriate to pastoral & agro-pastoral regions in Africa, with particular reference to remote sensing methodologies, viz. satellite imagery, aerial photography, side-looking radar (SLR), spectral radiance and low-altitutde aerial survey. Discusses the integration of remote sensing techniques with ground truth within the context of rapid appraisal methods and early warning procedures within a livestock systems research approach

What can we learn about solar coronal mass ejections, coronal dimmings, and Extreme-Ultraviolet jets through spectroscopic observations?

We analyze several data sets obtained by Hinode/EIS and find various types of flows during CMEs and EUV jet eruptions. CME-induced dimming regions are found to be characterized by significant blueshift and enhanced line width by using a single Gaussian fit. While a red-blue (RB) asymmetry analysis and a RB-guided double Gaussian fit of the coronal line profiles indicate that these are likely caused by the superposition of a strong background emission component and a relatively weak (~10%) high-speed (~100 km s-1) upflow component. This finding suggests that the outflow velocity in the dimming region is probably of the order of 100 km s-1, not ~20 km s-1 as reported previously. Density and temperature diagnostics suggest that dimming is primarily an effect of density decrease rather than temperature change. The mass losses in dimming regions as estimated from different methods are roughly consistent with each other and they are 20%-60% of the masses of the associated CMEs. With the guide of RB asymmetry analysis, we also find several temperature-dependent outflows (speed increases with temperature) immediately outside the (deepest) dimming region. In an erupted CME loop and an EUV jet, profiles of emission lines formed at coronal and transition region temperatures are found to exhibit two well-separated components, an almost stationary component accounting for the background emission and a highly blueshifted (~200 km s-1) component representing emission from the erupting material. The two components can easily be decomposed through a double Gaussian fit and we can diagnose the electron density, temperature and mass of the ejecta. Combining the speed of the blueshifted component and the projected speed of the erupting material derived from simultaneous imaging observations, we can calculate the real speed of the ejecta.Comment: 20 figures. Ready for publication in ApJ. The quality of Figures 4,5 15 & 20 is greatly reduced as a result of the requirement of the size limit of arXiv.org. High-quality version of these figures can be found in http://download.hao.ucar.edu/pub/htian

Three classes of ligands each bind to distinct sites on the orphan G protein-coupled receptor GPR84

Medium chain fatty acids can activate the pro-inflammatory receptor GPR84 but so also can molecules related to 3,3′-diindolylmethane. 3,3′-Diindolylmethane and decanoic acid acted as strong positive allosteric modulators of the function of each other and analysis showed the affinity of 3,3′-diindolylmethane to be at least 100 fold higher. Methyl decanoate was not an agonist at GPR84. This implies a key role in binding for the carboxylic acid of the fatty acid. Via homology modelling we predicted and confirmed an integral role of arginine172, located in the 2nd extracellular loop, in the action of decanoic acid but not of 3,3′-diindolylmethane. Exemplars from a patented series of GPR84 antagonists were able to block agonist actions of both decanoic acid and 3,3′-diindolylmethane at GPR84. However, although a radiolabelled form of a related antagonist, [3H]G9543, was able to bind with high affinity to GPR84, this was not competed for by increasing concentrations of either decanoic acid or 3,3′-diindolylmethane and was not affected adversely by mutation of arginine172. These studies identify three separable ligand binding sites within GPR84 and suggest that if medium chain fatty acids are true endogenous regulators then co-binding with a positive allosteric modulator would greatly enhance their function in physiological settings

Dynamic Clustering of Histogram Data Based on Adaptive Squared Wasserstein Distances

This paper deals with clustering methods based on adaptive distances for histogram data using a dynamic clustering algorithm. Histogram data describes individuals in terms of empirical distributions. These kind of data can be considered as complex descriptions of phenomena observed on complex objects: images, groups of individuals, spatial or temporal variant data, results of queries, environmental data, and so on. The Wasserstein distance is used to compare two histograms. The Wasserstein distance between histograms is constituted by two components: the first based on the means, and the second, to internal dispersions (standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, and so on) of the histograms. To cluster sets of histogram data, we propose to use Dynamic Clustering Algorithm, (based on adaptive squared Wasserstein distances) that is a k-means-like algorithm for clustering a set of individuals into $K$ classes that are apriori fixed. The main aim of this research is to provide a tool for clustering histograms, emphasizing the different contributions of the histogram variables, and their components, to the definition of the clusters. We demonstrate that this can be achieved using adaptive distances. Two kind of adaptive distances are considered: the first takes into account the variability of each component of each descriptor for the whole set of individuals; the second takes into account the variability of each component of each descriptor in each cluster. We furnish interpretative tools of the obtained partition based on an extension of the classical measures (indexes) to the use of adaptive distances in the clustering criterion function. Applications on synthetic and real-world data corroborate the proposed procedure

Extreme Ultra-Violet Spectroscopy of the Lower Solar Atmosphere During Solar Flares

The extreme ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum contains a wealth of diagnostic tools for probing the lower solar atmosphere in response to an injection of energy, particularly during the impulsive phase of solar flares. These include temperature and density sensitive line ratios, Doppler shifted emission lines and nonthermal broadening, abundance measurements, differential emission measure profiles, and continuum temperatures and energetics, among others. In this paper I shall review some of the advances made in recent years using these techniques, focusing primarily on studies that have utilized data from Hinode/EIS and SDO/EVE, while also providing some historical background and a summary of future spectroscopic instrumentation.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to Solar Physics as part of the Topical Issue on Solar and Stellar Flare

Cestrum yellow leaf curling virus (CmYLCV) promoter: a new strong constitutive promoter for heterologous gene expression in a wide variety of crops

Appropriately regulated gene expression requires a suitable promoter. A number of promoters have been isolated and shown to be functional in plants, but only a few of them activate transcription of transgenes at high levels constitutively. We report here the cloning and characterization of a novel, constitutively expressed promoter isolated from Cestrum yellow leaf curling virus (CmYLCV), a double-stranded DNA plant pararetrovirus belonging to the Caulimoviridae family. The CmYLCV promoter is highly active in callus, meristems and vegetative and reproductive tissues in Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana tabacum, Lycopersicon esculentum,Zea mays and Oryza sativa. Furthermore, the level of expression is comparable to, or higher than, that from the CaMV 35S, the 'ssuper-promoter' or the maize ubiquitin 1 promoters, three frequently used promoters in agricultural biotechnology. The heritable, strong and constitutive activity in both monocotyledonous and dicotyledonous plants, combined with the extremely narrow CmYLCV host range, makes the CmYLCV promoter an attractive tool for regulating transgene expression in a wide variety of plant specie

Fatty acid 16:4(n-3) stimulates a GPR120-induced signaling cascade in splenic macrophages to promote chemotherapy resistance

Although chemotherapy is designed to eradicate tumor cells, it also has significant effects on normal tissues. The platinum-induced fatty acid 16:4(n-3) (hexadeca-4,7,10,13-tetraenoic acid) induces systemic resistance to a broad range of DNA-damaging chemotherapeutics. We show that 16:4(n-3) exerts its effect by activating splenic F4/80+/CD11blow macrophages, which results in production of chemoprotective lysophosphatidylcholines (LPCs). Pharmacologic studies, together with analysis of expression patterns, identified GPR120 on F4/80+/CD11blow macrophages as the relevant receptor for 16:4(n-3). Studies that used splenocytes from GPR120-deficient mice have confirmed this conclusion. Activation of the 16:4(n-3)-GPR120 axis led to enhanced cPLA2 activity in these splenic macrophages and secretion of the resistance-inducing lipid mediator, lysophosphatidylcholine(24:1). These studies identify a novel and unexpected function for GPR120 and suggest that antagonists of this receptor might be effective agents to limit development of chemotherapy resistance.—Houthuijzen, J. M., Oosterom, I., Hudson, B. D., Hirasawa, A., Daenen, L. G. M., McLean, C. M., Hansen, S. V. F., van Jaarsveld, M. T. M., Peeper, D. S., Jafari Sadatmand, S., Roodhart, J. M. L., van de Lest, C. H. A., Ulven, T., Ishihara, K., Milligan, G., Voest, E. E. Fatty acid 16:4(n-3) stimulates a GPR120-induced signaling cascade in splenic macrophages to promote chemotherapy resistance

Laboratory Spectra of 10 K Ices: A Comparison with Some Astronomical Spectra

Wetensch. publicati

Myosin-I nomenclature.

We suggest that the vertebrate myosin-I field adopt a common nomenclature system based on the names adopted by the Human Genome Organization (HUGO). At present, the myosin-I nomenclature is very confusing; not only are several systems in use, but several different genes have been given the same name. Despite their faults, we believe that the names adopted by the HUGO nomenclature group for genome annotation are the best compromise, and we recommend universal adoption