Distribution of \u3ci\u3eEutarsopolipus\u3c/i\u3e (Acari: Podapolipidae) and \u3ci\u3eCrotalomorpha Camini\u3c/i\u3e (Acari: Crotalomorphidae), Ectoparasites of Stenolophus (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in Michigan, U.S.A.

Three acarine parasites of Stenolophus spp are described from Michigan. Eutarsopolipus elzingai Husband (Acari: Podapolipidae), previously known from eastern Kansas, Eutarsopolipus brevichelus Husband and Husband, with one Michigan record, and Crotalomorpha camini Lindquist and Krantz (Acari: Crotalomorphidae), previously known from Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and Oklahoma, are widely distributed in Michigan as subelytral parasites of Stenolophus comma (Fabricius) (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and Stenolophus lecontei (Chaudoir), the seed corn beetle. Eutarsopolipus elzingai and E. brevichelus may occur occasionally on the same host beetle

\u3ci\u3eEutarsopolipus Hemistylus\u3c/i\u3e Sp. Nov. (Acari: Podapolipidae), Subelytral Parasite of \u3ci\u3eChlaenius Prasinus\u3c/i\u3e Dejean (Coleoptera: Carabidae) From Central and Eastern USA

Eutarsopolipus hemistylus sp. nov. (Acari: Podapolipidae), subelytral, parasite of Chlaenius prasinus Dejean, 1826 (Coleoptera: Carabidae), is described from Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia, USA. E. hemistylus is compared with E. americanus Husband and Husband 2013 described from the same host, C. prasinus, collected in Michigan and Missouri. Species in the myzus group of Eutarsopolipus that parasitize beetle species of the genera Chlaenius, Poecilus, Scarites and Diplocheila are noted. Including a species from Japan currently under study, E. hemistylus is one of 8 species in the myzus group with adult females with stylets exceeding 43 micrometers but less than 90 micrometers

Distribution of Crotalomorphidae and Podapolipidae (Acari: Heterostigmata), Ectoparasites of Stenolophus (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in North America

Eutarsopolipus elzingai Husband (Tarsonemoidea: Podapolipidae), parasitic on Stenolophus comma (Fabricius) and Stenolophus lecontei (Chaudoir) (Co- leoptera: Carabidae) is reported from southern Canada and the United States from Oregon to Maine and from Michigan to North Carolina. Eutarsopolipus brevichelus Husband and Husband is distributed east of the Rocky Mountains in southern Canada and in the United States from Colorado to Virginia and from Michigan to Louisiana. Crotalomorpha camini Lindquist and Krantz is reported from Kansas and Nebraska east to Massachusetts and from Michigan to Arkansas. Hosts for E. brevichelus and C. camini are S. lecontei and S. comma. Stenolophus fuliginosus (Dejean) is a new host for E. brevichelus in New Brunswick, Canada. S. maculatus (Leconte) in Oregon and S. lineola (Fabricius) in southern California, U.S.A. are newly reported hosts of E. elzingai

Tracking ancient beach-lines inland: 2600-year-old dentate-stamped ceramics at Hopo, Vailala River region, Papua New Guinea

The Lapita expansion took Austronesian seafaring peoples with distinctive pottery eastward from the Bismarck Archipelago to western Polynesia during the late second millennium BC, marking the first stage in the settlement of Oceania. Here it is shown that a parallel process also carried Lapita pottery and people many hundreds of kilometres westward along the southern shore of Papua New Guinea. The key site is Hopo, now 4.5km inland owing to the progradation of coastal sand dunes, but originally on the sea edge. Pottery and radiocarbon dates indicate Lapita settlement in this location c.600 BC, and suggest that the long-distance maritime networks linking the entire southern coast of Papua New Guinea in historical times may trace their origin to this period

Electro-optical rendezvous and docking sensors

Electro-optical sensors provide unique and critical functionality for space missions requiring rendezvous, docking, and berthing. McDonnell Douglas is developing a complete rendezvous and docking system for both manned and unmanned missions. This paper examines our sensor development and the systems and missions which benefit from rendezvous and docking sensors. Simulation results quantifying system performance improvements in key areas are given, with associated sensor performance requirements. A brief review of NASA-funded development activities and the current performance of electro-optical sensors for space applications is given. We will also describe current activities at McDonnell Douglas for a fully functional demonstration to address specific NASA mission needs

Verifying the fully “Laplacianised” posterior Naïve Bayesian approach and more

Mussa and Glen would like to thank Unilever for financial support, whereas Mussa and Mitchell thank the BBSRC for funding this research through grant BB/I00596X/1. Mitchell thanks the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA) for financial support.Background In a recent paper, Mussa, Mitchell and Glen (MMG) have mathematically demonstrated that the “Laplacian Corrected Modified Naïve Bayes” (LCMNB) algorithm can be viewed as a variant of the so-called Standard Naïve Bayes (SNB) scheme, whereby the role played by absence of compound features in classifying/assigning the compound to its appropriate class is ignored. MMG have also proffered guidelines regarding the conditions under which this omission may hold. Utilising three data sets, the present paper examines the validity of these guidelines in practice. The paper also extends MMG’s work and introduces a new version of the SNB classifier: “Tapered Naïve Bayes” (TNB). TNB does not discard the role of absence of a feature out of hand, nor does it fully consider its role. Hence, TNB encapsulates both SNB and LCMNB. Results LCMNB, SNB and TNB performed differently on classifying 4,658, 5,031 and 1,149 ligands (all chosen from the ChEMBL Database) distributed over 31 enzymes, 23 membrane receptors, and one ion-channel, four transporters and one transcription factor as their target proteins. When the number of features utilised was equal to or smaller than the “optimal” number of features for a given data set, SNB classifiers systematically gave better classification results than those yielded by LCMNB classifiers. The opposite was true when the number of features employed was markedly larger than the “optimal” number of features for this data set. Nonetheless, these LCMNB performances were worse than the classification performance achieved by SNB when the “optimal” number of features for the data set was utilised. TNB classifiers systematically outperformed both SNB and LCMNB classifiers. Conclusions The classification results obtained in this study concur with the mathematical based guidelines given in MMG’s paper—that is, ignoring the role of absence of a feature out of hand does not necessarily improve classification performance of the SNB approach; if anything, it could make the performance of the SNB method worse. The results obtained also lend support to the rationale, on which the TNB algorithm rests: handled judiciously, taking into account absence of features can enhance (not impair) the discriminatory classification power of the SNB approach.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Water cluster calibration reduces mass error in electrospray ionization mass spectrometry of proteins

Herein we report a novel calibration routine for use in positive ion mode electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Monoisotopic masses were calculated for a series of water clusters and used as calibration reference files (available at ). The water cluster series contains singly charged peaks every 18 Da, which allows calibration curves to be precisely defined over a broad mass-to-charge ratio range. Water clusters, induced by a combination of high flow rate and high cone voltage, were used to accurately calibrate a quadrupole mass spectrometer from 100 to 1900 m/z. Calibration curves thus generated have many more data points and greatly reduced standard deviations compared to those obtained from myoglobin, sodium iodide, cesium iodide, or poly(ethylene glycol) based calibration standards. This calibration routine reduces the error in protein mass measurements by a factor of 3, from ±0.01% to ±0.0035% at the 95% confidence limit. The implications of this increased mass accuracy and wider calibrated mass-to-charge ratio scale for the study of protein sequence, structure, and folding by ESI-MS are discussed

Distribution of Crotalomorphidae and Podapolipidae (Acari: Heterostigmata), Ectoparasites of Stenolophus (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in North America

Eutarsopolipus elzingai Husband (Tarsonemoidea: Podapolipidae), parasitic on Stenolophus comma (Fabricius) and Stenolophus lecontei (Chaudoir) (Co- leoptera: Carabidae) is reported from southern Canada and the United States from Oregon to Maine and from Michigan to North Carolina. Eutarsopolipus brevichelus Husband and Husband is distributed east of the Rocky Mountains in southern Canada and in the United States from Colorado to Virginia and from Michigan to Louisiana. Crotalomorpha camini Lindquist and Krantz is reported from Kansas and Nebraska east to Massachusetts and from Michigan to Arkansas. Hosts for E. brevichelus and C. camini are S. lecontei and S. comma. Stenolophus fuliginosus (Dejean) is a new host for E. brevichelus in New Brunswick, Canada. S. maculatus (Leconte) in Oregon and S. lineola (Fabricius) in southern California, U.S.A. are newly reported hosts of E. elzingai

Protein aggregates nucleate ice: the example of apoferritin

Biological material has gained increasing attention recently as a source of ice-nucleating particles that may account for cloud glaciation at moderate supercooling. While the ice-nucleation (IN) ability of some bacteria can be related to membrane-bound proteins with epitaxial fit to ice, little is known about the IN-active entities present in biological material in general. To elucidate the potential of proteins and viruses to contribute to the IN activity of biological material, we performed bulk freezing experiments with the newly developed drop freezing assay DRoplet Ice Nuclei Counter Zurich (DRINCZ), which allows the simultaneous cooling of 96 sample aliquots in a chilled ethanol bath. We performed a screening of common proteins, namely the iron storage protein ferritin and its iron-free counterpart apoferritin, the milk protein casein, the egg protein ovalbumin, two hydrophobins, and a yeast ice-binding protein, all of which revealed IN activity with active site densities > 0.1 mg−1 at −10 ∘C. The tobacco mosaic virus, a plant virus based on helically assembled proteins, also proved to be IN active with active site densities increasing from 100 mg−1 at −14 ∘C to 10 000 mg−1 at −20 ∘C. Among the screened proteins, the IN activity of horse spleen ferritin and apoferritin, which form cages of 24 co-assembled protein subunits, proved to be outstanding with active site densities > 10 mg−1 at −5 ∘C. Investigation of the pH dependence and heat resistance of the apoferritin sample confirmed the proteinaceous nature of its IN-active entities but excluded the correctly folded cage monomer as the IN-active species. A dilution series of apoferritin in water revealed two distinct freezing ranges, an upper one from −4 to −11 ∘C and a lower one from −11 to −21 ∘C. Dynamic light scattering measurements related the upper freezing range to ice-nucleating sites residing on aggregates and the lower freezing range to sites located on misfolded cage monomers or oligomers. The sites proved to persist during several freeze–thaw cycles performed with the same sample aliquots. Based on these results, IN activity seems to be a common feature of diverse proteins, irrespective of their function, but arising only rarely, most probably through defective folding or aggregation to structures that are IN active.This research has been supported by the Swiss National Foundation (grant nos. IZSEZ0_179149/1 and 200021_156581), the Basque government (Elkartek programmes ng 15 and ng 17), and the Spanish MINECO (grant no. MAT2013- 46006-R, programme MDM-2016-0618)

Patterning and Imaging of Oxides on Glassy Carbon Electrode Surfaces by Scanning Electrochemical Microscopy

The scanning electrochemical microscope is used to form and characterize patterns of oxides on glassy carbon surfaces. Chemically specific imaging of oxides present on these surfaces was demonstrated by taking advantage of differential heterogeneous electrontransfer rates for the Fe(II/III) reaction occurring at unoxidized and oxidized glassy carbon electrodes. Localized generation of surface oxides was demonstrated using both the microreagent and direct modification modes of SECM. The micro-reagent mode was used to perform a chemical oxidation of the surface by generating the strong oxidant Ag(II) at the UME tip while positioned close to the carbon surface, however, this technique was found to have poor reproducibility. Direct mode oxidation was found to be a much more versatile route toward the generation of complex patterns of oxides on carbon surfaces. The reproducibility of the direct mode technique was found to depend heavily on solution resistance. “Charge dose” studies, followed by reaction-rate imaging, qualitatively show that the electron-transfer rate for the Fe(II/III) system scales with the amount of charge “injected” in each oxidation experiment, indicating a correlation between surface oxide density and electron-transfer rate