An investigation of reactive behavior of yellowfin tuna schools to the purse seining process

The movement parameters of yellow fin tuna schools were analyzed by means of scanning sonar in tuna purse seine capture situations in the Oman Sea in June 2010. There was significant difference in swimming speed and radial swimming direction between the escaped and captured schools. In escaped cases, the fish schools swam faster with mostly horizontal avoidance behavior to the sound stimuli from the surrounding vessel and escaped capture under the sinking net at last. The swimming speed of the schools in two occasions was correlated to the vessel’s speed. Some alternatives of new constructions of the nets with regard to the sinking speed are discussed that may reduce the potential problem of escape capture during purse seining process

The Effect of Printed Educational Material from the Coroner in Victoria, Australia, on Changing Aged Care Health Professional Practice: A Subscriber Survey

There are substantial knowledge and research gaps about the effects of printed educational material on professional practice. This study has examined whether the Residential Aged Care Coronial (RACC) Communiqué, an electronic newsletter of narrative case reports about lessons learned from deaths in residential aged care settings reported to the coroner in Victoria, Australia, prompted subscribers to initiate change in professional practice to improve care. An anonymous electronic survey was distributed to all registered subscribers of the RACC Communiqué to collect information about self-reported changes in professional practice, respondent characteristics, reading behavior, and an assessment of effect and content of the publication. Researchers from the Victoria Institute of Forensic Medicine, Victoria, Australia, conducted the study in 2008. Of 778 subscribers invited to participate in the study, 426 (54.8%) provided valid responses. The majority of respondents were aged 45 and older, female, and working at a residential aged care facility in a management role. Half of the survey respondents reported making a change to their professional practice as a result of reading the RACC Communiqué, with one-fifth of these respondents agreeing that they would not have made the self-reported change if they had not read this publication. These findings are greater than the previously reported small effects of education through printed education material and make an important contribution to understanding the use of printed education material for initiating professional practice change.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79369/1/j.1532-5415.2010.02742.x.pd

Comparison of long-pulsed alexandrite laser and topical tretinoin-ammonium lactate in axillary acanthosis nigricans: A case series of patients in a before-after trial

Background: Acanthosis nigricans (AN) is a brown to black, velvety hyperpigmentation of the skin that usually involves cutaneous folds. Treatment of AN is important regarding cosmetic reasons and various therapeutic modalities have been used for these purposes. The goal of this study was to compare the effectiveness of long-pulsed alexandrite laser and topical tretinoin-ammonium lactate for treatment of axillary-AN. Methods: Fifteen patients with bilateral axillary-AN were studied in Razi Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Diagnosis was confirmed by two independent dermatologists. Each side skin lesion was randomly allocated to either topical mixed cream of tretinoin 0.05- ammonium lactate 12 or long-pulsed alexandrite laser. Duration of treatment was 14 weeks. At endpoint, the mean percent reduction from baseline in pigmentation area was compared between the two groups. Results: The study population consisted of 15 patients three males and 12, females. The mean age of patients was 28.5±4.9 years. The mean percent reduction was 18.3±10.6, in tretinoin/ammonium lactate group and 25.7±11.8 in laser group (P=0.004). Conclusion: These findings indicate that the application of alexandrite laser is a relative effective method for treatment of axillary-AN. However, this issue requires further studies with prolonged follow-up period

Current and former smokers among adolescents aged 12-17 years in Iran: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Smoking, especially among adolescents, is considered a serious public health concern worldwide being associated with increased mortality. The present study was designed as the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the prevalence of current and former smoking behavior among adolescents in Iran. Methods: Seven international scholarly databases, namely Scopus, Embase, Pubmed/Medline, ISI/Web of Science (WOS), the Cochrane Library, Psyc Info and Cinahl, were extensively searched from January 2000 to September 18, 2019. Google Scholar was also mined. Iranian databases were searched as well (namely, MagIran, Scientific Information Database (SID), and Barakatkns). The DerSimonian-Laird's approach, via the Freeman-Tukey double arcsine method, was used to synthesize the prevalence estimates. Results: The prevalence of current smokers among Iranian adolescents was estimated to be 9 (95 CI: 7 to 10). Stratifying based on gender, the prevalence was 12 among boys (95 CI: 10 to 14) and 6 among girls (95 CI: 5 to 8). The prevalence of former smokers among Iranian adolescents using the random-effect model was computed to be 24 (95 CI: 21 to 27). Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that the prevalence of current and former smoking behavior among Iranian adolescents is a relevant public health concern. The country's young population should be given more attention by health policy- A nd decision-makers and implementation of ad hoc prevention and control policies should be on their agenda. © 2020 The Author(s)

Comparison of mean temperature taken between commercial and prototype thermal sensor in estimating mean temperature of oil palm fresh fruit bunches

Thermal imaging is widely utilized in agricultural applications such as examining plant physiology, yield prediction, irrigation scheduling, bruises and pathogen determination in fruits and vegetables. There is a need for a cost effective thermal device for this wide range of applications. In this study, a low-cost prototype thermal device was used to measure the temperature of FFBs at three maturity levels, that are under-ripe, ripe and over-ripe. The experiment was repeated using a commercial thermal camera. Then, the mean temperature obtained from both the prototype and commercial thermal sensors was compared. Our results showed the prototype thermal device is capable of estimating the mean temperature of oil palm FFBs with the values analogous to the mean temperature from commercial thermal camera with R2 = 0.71

10-kA pulsed power supply for superconducting coils

A new 4-MW inductor-converter bridge (ICB) for supplying power to pulsed superconducting magnets is under construction at Argonne National Laoratory. This is a second-generation ICB built at Argonne Lab. The analytical, design, and control techniques developed for the first prototype have been used in the design of the new system. The paper presents the important considerations in the design of the new ICB. A brief description of the operation of the circuit is also given

EpiFactors : a comprehensive database of human epigenetic factors and complexes

Altres ajuts: Russian Fund For Basic Research(RFFI)grant 14-04-0018 i grant 15-34-20423, Ake Olsson's foundation, Swedish Cancer foundation, Swedish Childhood cancer foundation, Dynasty Foundation Fellowship, RIKEN Omics Science Center, RIKEN Preventive Medicine and Diagnosis Innovation Program i RIKEN Center for Life Science Technologies.Abstract: Epigenetics refers to stable and long-term alterations of cellular traits that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence per se. Rather, covalent modifications of DNA and histones affect gene expression and genome stability via proteins that recognize and act upon such modifications. Many enzymes that catalyse epigenetic modifications or are critical for enzymatic complexes have been discovered, and this is encouraging investigators to study the role of these proteins in diverse normal and pathological processes. Rapidly growing knowledge in the area has resulted in the need for a resource that compiles, organizes and presents curated information to the researchers in an easily accessible and user-friendly form. Here we present EpiFactors, a manually curated database providing information about epigenetic regulators, their complexes, targets and products. EpiFactors contains information on 815 proteins, including 95 histones and protamines. For 789 of these genes, we include expressions values across several samples, in particular a collection of 458 human primary cell samples (for approximately 200 cell types, in many cases from three individual donors), covering most mammalian cell steady states, 255 different cancer cell lines (representing approximately 150 cancer subtypes) and 134 human postmortem tissues. Expression values were obtained by the FANTOM5 consortium using Cap Analysis of Gene Expression technique. EpiFactors also contains information on 69 protein complexes that are involved in epigenetic regulation. The resource is practical for a wide range of users, including biologists, pharmacologists and clinicians

Characteristics of Degenerately Doped Silicon for Spectral Control in Thermophotovoltaic Systems

Heavily doped Si was investigated for use as spectral control filter in thermal photovoltaic (TPV) system. These filters should reflect radiation at 4 {micro}m and above and transmit radiation at 2 {micro}m and below. Two approaches have been used for introducing impurities into Si to achieve high doping concentration. One was the diffusion technique, using spin-on dopants. The plasma wavelength ({lambda}{sub p}) of these filters could be adjusted by controlling the diffusion conditions. The minimum plasma wavelength achieved was 4.8 {micro}m. In addition, a significant amount of absorption was observed for the wavelength 2 {micro}m and below. The second approach was doping by ion implantation followed by thermal annealing with a capped layer of doped glass. Implantation with high dosage of B and As followed by high temperature annealing (> 1,000 C) resulted in a plasma wavelength that could be controlled between 3.5 and 6 {micro}m. The high temperature annealing (> 1,000 C) that was necessary to activate the dopant atoms and to heal the implantation damage, also caused significant absorption at 2 {micro}m. For phosphorus implanted Si, a moderate temperature (800--900 C) was sufficient to activate most of the phosphorus and to heal the implantation damage. The position of the plasma turn-on wavelength for an implantation dose of 2 {times} 10{sup 16} cm{sup {minus}2} of P was at 2.9 {micro}m. The absorption at 2 {micro}m was less than 20% and the reflection at 5 {micro}m was about 70%