The Chinese challenge to the EU25

Internationaler Wettbewerb, Wirtschaftswachstum, Industrialisierung, Wirtschaftslage, Außenhandel, China, Europäische Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion, Global competition, Economic growth, Industrialization, Recent economic development, Foreign trade, European Economic and Monetary Union

Does Animal Personality Affect Movement in Habitat Corridors? Experiments with Common Voles (Microtus arvalis) using Different Corridor Widths.

Kowalski GJ, Grimm V, Herde A, Günther A, Eccard JA. Does Animal Personality Affect Movement in Habitat Corridors? Experiments with Common Voles (Microtus arvalis) using Different Corridor Widths. Animals : an open access journal from MDPI. 2019;9(6): 291.Animal personality may affect an animal's mobility in a given landscape, influencing its propensity to take risks in an unknown environment. We investigated the mobility of translocated common voles in two corridor systems 60 m in length and differing in width (1 m and 3 m). Voles were behaviorally phenotyped in repeated open field and barrier tests. Observed behavioral traits were highly repeatable and described by a continuous personality score. Subsequently, animals were tracked via an automated very high frequency (VHF) telemetry radio tracking system to monitor their movement patterns in the corridor system. Although personality did not explain movement patterns, corridor width determined the amount of time spent in the habitat corridor. Voles in the narrow corridor system entered the corridor faster and spent less time in the corridor than animals in the wide corridor. Thus, landscape features seem to affect movement patterns more strongly than personality. Meanwhile, site characteristics, such as corridor width, could prove to be highly important when designing corridors for conservation, with narrow corridors facilitating faster movement through landscapes than wider corridors

Разработка агрегатора данных о погоде и прогнозов погоды

Nowadays we frequently can't say which clothes weshould wear tomorrow. The problem is that there is no weather forecast service which can provide us exact weather forecast even for tomorrow, needless to say about further future. Main purpose of this work is to design system that will predict which weather forecast service should be used today to know weather for tomorrow. Authors suggest to evaluate forecasting value of temperature relying on statistics. They describe steps which they need to pass to achieve the purpose. As a result authors want to develop software which can provide weather forecast with higher probability than all existing services

Application of magnetic resonance imaging in transgenic and chemical mouse models of hepatocellular carcinoma

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide. The molecular mechanisms underlying hepatocarcinogenesis are still poorly understood. Genetically modified mice are powerful tools to further investigate the mechanisms of HCC development. However, this approach is limited due to the lack of non-invasive detection methods in small rodents. The aim of this study was to establish a protocol for the non-invasive analysis of hepatocarcinogenesis in transgenic mice using a clinical 1.5 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging scanner.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>As a model system we used hepatocyte-specific c-myc transgenic mice developing hepatocellular carcinoma at the age of 12-15 months. The scans of the murine livers included axial T2-weighted turbo-spin echo (TSE) images, axial T1-weighted and contrast enhanced T1-weighted gradient echo (fast field echo, FFE) and sagittal true Fast Imaging with Steady state Precession (true-FISP) images. Application of contrast agent was performed via tail vein-catheter and confirmed by evaluation of the altered longitudinal relaxation T1 time before and after application. Through technical adaptation and optimization we could detect murine liver lesions with a minimum diameter of approximately 2 mm and provided histopathological evidence that these MR findings correspond to hepatocellular carcinoma. Tumor growth was repeatedly measured using sequential MRI with intervals of 5 weeks and subsequent volumetric analysis facilitating direct comparison of tumor progression between individual animals. We finally demonstrated that our protocol is also applicable in the widely- used chemical model of N-nitrosodiethylamine-induced hepatocarcinogenesis.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our protocol allows the non-invasive, early detection of HCC and the subsequent continuous monitoring of liver tumorgenesis in transgenic mice thereby facilitating future investigations of transgenic tumor mouse models of the liver.</p

Geology-structural position and specialization of granitoid the Amalat plateau

Представлены результаты изучения геолого-структурной позиции и специализации гранитоидов Амалатского плато. Определен минеральный и элементный состава гранитоидов фундамента. Установлено, что гранитоиды фундамента представлены лейкократовыми биотитовыми гранитами субщелочного ряда, определены основные породообразующие минералы, акцессорная минерализация (апатит, циркон, сфен, магнетит, монацит, ксенотим) и минералы носители урана. Установлена высокая радиоактивность гранитоидов фундамента торий-урановой и урановой природы. The results of the studying of Geology-structural position and specialization of granitoid the Amalat table land. The mineral and element structure of granitoids' base was stated. It has been stated that granitoids in basement consist of leucocratic biotite granite of subalkaline row. The major rock-forming, accessory (apatite, zircon, sphen, magnetite, monazite, xenotime),and uranium-bearing minerals have been determined. High radioactivity of basement granitoids of thorium-uranium and uranium origin was stated

Parasitism of the root-lesion nematode Pratylenchus thornei on chickpea

Pratylenchus thornei-chickpea interactions were investigated under controlled and fluctuating environmental conditions in the growth chamber, greenhouse and shadehouse. Under controlled conditions. P. thornei infected chickpea hnes 12071/10054 and P2245 and cultivars Andoum 1, JG62 and UC 27. Line P 2245 and cv. JG 62 were the most susceptible genotypes on the basis of root damage and nematode reproduction, but nematode infection did not significantly reduce root and shoot weights. Cultivars Andoum 1 and UC27 and line 12071/10054 showed the least root damage and nematode reproduction. Inoculation of cv. Andoum 1 with 2500, 5000 or lOOOO nematodes per plant in pots did not affect shoot weight, regardless ofthe conditions of water stress ofthe plants. However, root weight was significantly reduced by nematode infection in plants grown under water stress and fluctuating temperature conditions in the greenhouse, but was not affected by any other treatment. The nematode reproduction index was not affected by soil water content under shadehouse conditions, but was greater on plants watered to soil water-holding capacity than in water-stressed plants under greenhouse conditions. For both environments, the nematode reproduction index decreased when inoculum density was greater than 5000 nematodes per plant.This research was supported by grant AGF92- 0910-CO2-01 from Comision Interministerial de Ciencia y Technologia (CICYT), We thank H, M, Halila, INRA, Tunisia for providing us with seeds of cultivar Andoum 1, and F, Orgaz, Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible, CSIC, Spain for measuring water potential.Peer reviewe

Mitigation of odometry drift with a single ranging link in GNSS-limited environments

Vision-based systems can estimate the vehicle's positions and attitude with a low cost and simple implementation, but the performance is very sensitive to environmental conditions. Moreover, estimation errors are accumulated without a bound since visual odometry is a dead-reckoning process. To improve the robustness to environmental conditions, vision-based systems can be augmented with inertial sensors, and the loop closing technique can be applied to reduce the drift. However, only with on-board sensors, vehicle's poses can only be estimated in a local navigation frame, which is randomly defined for each mission. To obtain globally-referred poses, absolute position estimates obtained with GNSS can be fused with on-board measurements (obtained with either vision-only or visual-inertial odometry). However, in many cases (e.g. urban canyons, indoor environments), GNSS-based positioning is unreliable or entirely unavailable due to signal interruptions and blocking, while we can still obtain ranging links from various sources, such as signals of opportunity or low cost radio-based ranging modules. We propose a graph-based data fusion method of the on-board odometry data and ranging measurements to mitigate pose drifts in environments where GNSS-based positioning is unavailable. The proposed algorithm is evaluated both with synthetic and real data