A laser-scanning confocal microscopy study of carrageenan in red algae from seaweed farms near the Caribbean entrance of the Panama Canal

Kappaphycus alvarezii (Doty) Doty ex P.C. Silva, a red macroalga, is a commercial source of carrageenan, a widely used polysaccharide compound important in the food and pharmaceutical industries, in nanotechnology, and in pharmacological applications. Carrageenan is found mainly in the cell wall and in the intercellular matrix. This is the first study to propose the characterization of carrageenans in vitro, using the auto-fluorescence properties of the alga treated with different polyamines: putrescine, spermidine, and spermine. This study suggests a four-phase cultivation sequence for seaweed farmers to enhance and assess the potential carrageenan yield of their crops. In phase 1, seedlings were treated with each of the polyamines. Explants were subsequently transferred through two additional culture phases before being planted on the sea farms in phase 4 and then harvested after 60 days for analysis. Images from transverse sections of 11 representative cultured K. alvarezii samples were obtained at 561 nm excitation wavelength for both the cell center and the cell wall of each sample. Spectral data were also analyzed using the spectral phasor algorithm of SimFCS developed at the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics (www.lfd.uci.edu). We report on the identification of several spectral fluorescence emission fingerprints from different auto-fluorescence compounds spatially mapped using this technique. These fingerprints have the potential to improve strain selection of explants for enhanced carrageenan yield in seaweed farming operations as well as to enable wholesale pricing to correspond with crop quality

Symmetry, winding number and topological charge of vortex solitons in discrete-symmetry media

We determine the functional behavior near the discrete rotational symmetry axis of discrete vortices of the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. We show that these solutions present a central phase singularity whose charge is restricted by symmetry arguments. Consequently, we demonstrate that the existence of high-charged discrete vortices is related to the presence of other off-axis phase singularities, whose positions and charges are also restricted by symmetry arguments. To illustrate our theoretical results, we offer two numerical examples of high-charged discrete vortices in photonic crystal fibers showing hexagonal discrete rotational invariance.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Service-based survey of dystonia in Munich

We performed a service-based epidemiological study of dystonia in Munich, Germany. Due to favourable referral and treatment patterns in the Munich area, we could provide confident data from dystonia patients seeking botulinum toxin treatment. A total of 230 patients were ascertained, of whom 188 had primary dystonia. Point prevalence ratios were estimated to be 10.1 (95% confidence interval 8.4-11.9) per 100,000 for focal and 0.3 (0.0-0.6) for generalised primary dystonia. The most common focal primary dystonias were cervical dystonia with 5.4 (4.2-6.7) and essential blepharospasm with 3.1 (2.1-4.1) per 100,000 followed by laryngeal dystonia (spasmodic dysphonia) with 1.0 (0.4-1.5) per 100,000. Copyright (C) 2002 S. Karger AG, Base

Bases del diseño de un dispositivo para la evaluación no destructiva de la textura en frutos y hortalizas.

Se estudia la utilidad de un dispositivo para la determinación objetiva de la textura, en su aspecto mecánico, de frutos en movimiento en una posible línea de clasificación. Se establecen las especificaciones del funcionamiento del posible dispositivo para su diseño, así como los aspectos del mismo que han de ser aún estudiados para los diversos frutos de interés

Sally And Irene And Mary : Waltz Song

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/4037/thumbnail.jp

Heat-Wave Events in Spain: Air Mass Analysis and Impacts on 7

The present paper describes and characterizes the air mass circulation during the heat-wave events registered during the period 2005-2014 over Spain, paying special attention on the role of the Saharan circulations. With this purpose, backward trajectories at 500, 1500 and 3000 m in Seville (south), Madrid (centre) and Bilbao (north) during the thirteen heat-wave events identified during this period are analysed. Finally, the impact of the heat-wave events and of each advection pattern on 7Be activity concentrations is also analysed. The air mass results indicate that the heat-wave events are characterized roughly by western, southern and nearby advections, with a higher frequency of the first two types. The analysis shows a general and large impact at lower levels of westerly flows and an increase of African air masses with height. The Saharan air masses present a different spatial impact over Spain, with a decreasing occurrence and a decrease in the simultaneous occurrence percentage from south to north. The 7Be activity concentrations during these events show an increase of concentrations in central and southern areas and a small decrease in northern Spain. This increase is not associated with Saharan air masses, but instead to the arrival of distant westerly air masses.JRC.G.II.7-Nuclear securit

Measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry in low-mass bottom-quark pairs produced in proton-antiproton collisions

We report a measurement of the forward-backward asymmetry, A[subscript FB], in b[bar over b] pairs produced in proton-antiproton collisions and identified by muons from semileptonic b-hadron decays. The event sample is collected at a center-of-mass energy of √s = 1.96 TeV with the CDF II detector and corresponds to 6.9 fb[superscript −1] of integrated luminosity. We obtain an integrated asymmetry of A[subscript FB](b[bar over b])=(1.2± 0.7)% at the particle level for b-quark pairs with invariant mass, m[subscript b[bar over b]], down to 40 GeV/c[superscript 2] and measure the dependence of A[subscript FB](b[bar over b]) on m[subscript b[bar over b]]. The results are compatible with expectations from the standard model